Ex-Oath Keeper: Group leader claimed Secret Service contactVideo
WASHINGTON — Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes told a member of the extremist group before the 2020 election that he had a contact in the Secret Service, a witness testified Thursday in Rhodes’ Capitol riot trial. John Zimmerman, who was part of the North Carolina chapter, told jurors that Rhodes...
Biden: Nuclear ‘Armageddon’ risk highest since ’62 crisis
NEW YORK — President Joe Biden said Thursday that the risk of nuclear “Armageddon” is at the highest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, as Russian officials speak of the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons after suffering massive setbacks in the eight-month invasion of Ukraine. Speaking at a...
Ian evacuees return to mud, rubble as death toll hits triple digitsVideo
SANIBEL ISLAND, Fla. — Rotting fish and garbage lie scattered in Sanibel Island’s streets. On the mainland, debris from washed-away homes is heaped in a canal like matchsticks. Huge shrimp boats sit perched amid the remains of a mobile home park. “Think of a snow globe. Pick it up and...
Fetterman raised ‘record-breaking’ $22M in latest quarter; Oz loaned himself $7M
Democrat John Fetterman has reported raising a whopping $22 million in the most recent reporting period, easily outpacing Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz, who plowed $7 million of his own fortune into the U.S. Senate race. Campaign finance reports for the third quarter are due to be filed with the Federal...
Shooting suspect in hotel near Detroit surrenders to policeVideo
DEARBORN, Mich. — An armed man accused of shooting and wounding one person and who then barricaded himself inside a room at a suburban Detroit hotel surrendered Thursday night and was taken into custody, Michigan State Police said. “The barricaded gunman has been taken into custody without incident,” state police...
Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse sole finalist for University of Florida president
WASHINGTON — Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse is the sole finalist to become the president of the University of Florida, the school said Thursday, and the Republican senator has indicated that he will take the job. That means he could resign in coming weeks. The school said in a statement that...
Proud Boys leader pleads guilty to seditious conspiracy for Capitol attack
WASHINGTON — A North Carolina man pleaded guilty Thursday to plotting with other members of the far-right Proud Boys to violently stop the transfer of presidential power after the 2020 election, making him the first member of the extremist group to plead guilty to a seditious conspiracy charge. Jeremy Joseph...
Police: 2 dead, 6 injured in stabbings along Las Vegas StripVideo
LAS VEGAS — An attacker with a large kitchen knife killed two people and wounded six others in stabbings along the Las Vegas Strip before he was arrested Thursday, police said. Three people were hospitalized in critical condition and another three were in stable condition, according to Las Vegas police,...
Report: Federal agents looking at possible tax charges against Hunter BidenVideo
After a multiyear probe, federal agents believe they have assembled a sufficient case for tax crime charges to be filed against Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, The Washington Post reported Thursday. The U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware will make the call on whether to charge the younger...
Biden pardons thousands for ‘simple possession’ of marijuana
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is pardoning thousands of Americans convicted of “simple possession” of marijuana under federal law, as his administration takes a dramatic step toward decriminalizing the drug and addressing charging practices that disproportionately impact people of color. Biden’s move also covers thousands convicted of the crime in...
Florida drop tower will be taken down after teen’s death
ORLANDO, Fla. — A towering amusement ride in central Florida’s tourism district where a Missouri teen fell to his death will be taken down because of the accident, the owner said Thursday. The decision to remove the more than 400-foot ride which opened last December in Orlando’s International Drive district...
Rochester to pay $12M to family of Daniel Prude, Black man killed by police
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — City officials agreed to pay $12 million to the children of Daniel Prude, a Black man who died after police held him down until he stopped breathing on a snowy street in Rochester, New York. A federal judge approved the settlement in a court document filed Thursday....
New survey suggests little progress against U.S. teen vaping
NEW YORK — The latest government study on teen vaping suggests there’s been little progress in keeping e-cigarettes out of the hands of kids. The data seems to show more high school students vaping, with 14% saying they had done so recently, according to survey results released Thursday. In last...
To fill teacher jobs, community colleges offer new degrees
In her second-grade classroom outside Seattle, Fatima Nuñez Ardon often tells her students stories about everyday people realizing their dreams. One day, for example, she talked about Salvadoran American NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio and his journey to the International Space Station. Another day, she told them her own life story...
37 dead, mostly preschoolers, in Thai day care rampage
BANGKOK — A former policeman burst into a day care center in northeastern Thailand on Thursday, killing dozens of children and teachers and then firing on more people as he fled in the deadliest rampage in the nation’s history. The assailant, who authorities said was fired from the force earlier...
Russian missiles slam into Ukrainian city near nuclear plant
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia launched missiles that hit apartment buildings in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, a local official said Thursday, killing three people and wounding at least 12 in a region that houses Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant and which Moscow illegally annexed. The two strikes, the first...
Analysis: Iran protests persist, becoming threat for Tehran
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Protests in Iran over the death of a 22-year-old woman detained by the country’s morality police have stretched into a third week, even after authorities disrupted the internet, deployed riot troops and attacked perceived enemies abroad. That playbook of repression has worked before, but the...
Fetterman records show light schedule as Pa. lieutenant governor
HARRISBURG — In his campaign for a crucial U.S. Senate seat, Democrat John Fetterman takes credit for reinventing Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor’s office, transforming it from a political pit stop into a “bully pulpit” from which he’s advanced progressive causes. Records from Fetterman’s four years in office, however, offer a different...
Report: Mother of Herschel Walker’s child says he paid for her abortion
ATLANTA — A woman who said Herschel Walker paid for her 2009 abortion is the mother of one of his children, according to a new report Wednesday, undercutting the Georgia Republican Senate candidate’s claims that he didn’t know who she was. The Daily Beast, which first reported Monday on the...
Kidnapped California family, including baby, found deadVideo
SAN FRANCISCO — A baby girl, her parents and uncle who were kidnapped at gunpoint from their central California business two days ago were found dead Wednesday, the sheriff of Merced County said. “Our worst fears have been confirmed,” Sheriff Vern Warnke told reporters Wednesday night. A farmworker found the...
‘Scrubs’ producer Eric Weinberg charged with sex assaults
LOS ANGELES — Eric Weinberg, an executive producer and writer for the hit TV show “Scrubs” and many others, has been charged with sexually assaulting five women that he lured to photo shoots and there could be many more victims, Los Angeles County prosecutors announced Wednesday. Weinberg, 62, was arrested...
Joe Biden, Ron DeSantis join together in Ian recovery effortVideo
FORT MYERS, Florida — President Joe Biden surveyed the devastation of hurricane-ravaged Florida on Wednesday, promising to marshal the power of the federal government to help rebuild as he comforted local residents alongside Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential 2024 foe. Biden praised DeSantis’ handling of the storm recovery as...
Largest North American catfish to be brought back to Pennsylvania rivers
With blue catfish — the largest catfish species in North America — beginning to show up in the Ohio River in southwestern Pennsylvania after an absence of about a century, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission this week launches restoration efforts for the fish in rivers in the state. The...
Appeals court rules against program that protects ‘Dreamers’
A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled against a decade-old program that protects hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children, paving the way for more court action on the long-disputed policy. A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th...
Russian launches to space from U.S., 1st time in 20 years
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — For the first time in 20 years, a Russian cosmonaut rocketed from the U.S. on Wednesday, launching to the International Space Station alongside NASA and Japanese astronauts despite tensions over the war in Ukraine. “We’re so glad to do it together,” said Anna Kikina, Russia’s lone...
