The husband of Joyce Mitchell, the New York prison worker accused of helping two convicted killers escape, says he knew nothing of his wife’s alleged role in the plot until he was able to speak with her after her arrest.
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — The U.S. will spread about 250 tanks, armored vehicles and other military equipment across six former Soviet bloc nations to help reassure NATO allies facing threats from Russia and terrorist groups, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Tuesday.
For years, South Carolina lawmakers refused to revisit the Confederate flag on Statehouse grounds, saying the law that took it off the dome was a bipartisan compromise, and renewing the debate would unnecessarily expose divisive wounds.
The husband of Joyce Mitchell, the New York prison worker accused of helping two convicted killers escape, says he knew nothing of his wife’s alleged role in the plot until he was able to speak with her after her arrest.
By Harriet McLeod COLUMBIA, S.C. (Reuters) – South Carolina lawmakers plan to introduce a resolution on Tuesday to begin a debate on removing the Confederate flag from the State House grounds following the killings last week of nine African-American churchgoers allegedly by a white gunman. Political leaders and civil rights organizations, including Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, also plan to rally Tuesday in support of the measure on the
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — The U.S. will spread about 250 tanks, armored vehicles and other military equipment across six former Soviet bloc nations to help reassure NATO allies facing threats from Russia and terrorist groups, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Tuesday.
By Harriet McLeod COLUMBIA, S.C. (Reuters) – South Carolina lawmakers plan to introduce a resolution on Tuesday to begin a debate on removing the Confederate flag from the State House grounds following the killings last week of nine African-American churchgoers allegedly by a white gunman. Political leaders and civil rights organizations, including Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, also plan to rally Tuesday in support of the measure on the
Virginia will phase out vehicle license plates featuring the Confederate battle flag, the state’s governor said on Tuesday, following the fatal shootings of nine black worshipers at a historic South Carolina church, allegedly by a white gunman. The state, which was part of the pro-slavery Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War, will no longer allow specialty license plates for the Sons of Confederate Veterans group that feature the flag, said
Virginia will phase out vehicle license plates featuring the Confederate battle flag, the state’s governor said on Tuesday, following the fatal shootings of nine black worshipers at a historic South Carolina church, allegedly by a white gunman. The state, which was part of the pro-slavery Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War, will no longer allow specialty license plates for the Sons of Confederate Veterans group that feature the flag, said
A federal appeals court on Tuesday revived a lawsuit backed by gun rights activists challenging a U.S. government policy that prevents American citizens who live abroad from buying guns when they visit the United States. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, by a 2-1 vote, threw out a federal district judge’s ruling that had rejected the challenge. At issue are provisions
A federal appeals court on Tuesday revived a lawsuit backed by gun rights activists challenging a U.S. government policy that prevents American citizens who live abroad from buying guns when they visit the United States. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, by a 2-1 vote, threw out a federal district judge’s ruling that had rejected the challenge. At issue are provisions
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A top Mississippi lawmaker said Monday that the Confederate battle emblem is offensive and needs to be removed from the state flag.
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A top Mississippi lawmaker said Monday that the Confederate battle emblem is offensive and needs to be removed from the state flag.
The 2-week-old search for two escaped murderers focused on a rural area about 20 miles away from the New York prison they fled after their DNA was discovered inside a burglarized cabin, CNN reported on Monday. CNN, citing an unidentified law enforcement source, said evidence of the escapees was found on items in a cabin in Owls Head, New York. Richard Matt, 48, and David Sweat, 35, were discovered missing
Both Israel and Palestinian militants may have committed war crimes during last year’s Gaza war, a widely anticipated United Nations report said Monday, decrying the “unprecedented” devastation and human suffering. The Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza conflict announced it had gathered “substantial information” and “credible allegations” that both sides had committed war crimes during the conflict, which killed more than 2,140 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and 73
The president uses the N-word to make case that the U.S. hasn’t overcome its racist past.
UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. (AP) — Jordan Spieth is halfway home to the Grand Slam, a prize only three of the biggest names in modern golf have ever chased.
U.S. President Barack Obama, in a podcast posted online on Monday, used the N word to emphasize his point that the United States has made progress in eliminating racism but there was still more work to do. Obama discussed race and gun control as part of the hour-long podcast interview, in the aftermath of the shooting deaths a week ago of nine black people at a church in South Carolina,
As the U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to rule on same-sex marriage, Yahoo News presents a new 30-minute documentary, “Uniquely Nasty: The U.S. Government’s War on Gays,” reported and narrated by chief investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff. The film explores a dark and little-known chapter in America’s recent political past, when gays and lesbians were barred from working for the federal government and the FBI, through its“sex deviates” program, secretly collected
The 2-week-old search for two escaped murderers focused on a rural area about 20 miles away from the New York prison they fled after their DNA was discovered inside a burglarized cabin, CNN reported on Monday. CNN, citing an unidentified law enforcement source, said evidence of the escapees was found on items in a cabin in Owls Head, New York. Richard Matt, 48, and David Sweat, 35, were discovered missing
The Palestinian unity government resigned on Wednesday in a deepening rift with Gaza as the blockaded territory’s de facto rulers Hamas held separate, indirect talks with Israel. An aide to president Mahmud Abbas said prime minister Rami Hamdallah “handed his resignation to Abbas”, but confusion reigned over when the government was likely to dissolve. It was also unclear what the next cabinet might look like, reflecting the chaotic period for
CAIRO (AP) — The Associated Press has named award-winning photographer Muhammed Muheisen, frequently honored for his striking photos of people in their everyday environment, as its chief photographer for the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
ALDEBURGH, England (AP) — English rider Lizzie Armitstead has been taken to a hospital after crashing while celebrating winning the first stage of the Women’s Tour of Britain.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The effort to train Iraqi forces to fight Islamic State militants has been slowed by a lack of recruits and the U.S. will not meet its goal to train 24,000 by this fall, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Wednesday.
By Mahmoud Mourad and Omar Fahmy CAIRO (Reuters) – An Egyptian court sentenced deposed President Mohamed Mursi to death on Tuesday over a mass jail break during the country’s 2011 uprising and issued sweeping punishments against the leadership of Egypt’s oldest Islamic group. The general guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Badie, and four other Brotherhood leaders were also handed the death penalty. The Brotherhood described the rulings as “null
By Noah Browning and Mohammed Ghobari DUBAI/SANAA (Reuters) – The deputy leader of al Qaeda, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, has been killed in a U.S. bombing in Yemen, the group said on Tuesday, removing the director of a string of attacks against the West and a man once seen as a successor to leader Ayman al-Zawahri. A close associate of Osama bin Laden in the years leading up to the Sept. 11,
The White House denied an Israeli newspaper report on Tuesday that U.S. President Barack Obama had invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet in Washington next month. Citing unnamed U.S. State Department sources, Yedioth Ahronoth daily said the two leaders could meet in the White House on July 15 or 16, after the June 30 deadline for an Iranian nuclear deal over which they have frequently clashed. Since Netanyahu’s
By Maria Tsvetkova KUBINKA, Russia (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday Russia would add more than 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles to its nuclear arsenal this year, a remark that is likely to increase alarm in the West. Putin made his announcement a day after Russian officials denounced a U.S. plan to station tanks and heavy weapons in NATO states on Russia’s border as the most aggressive act
By Tom Perry BEIRUT (Reuters) – With a string of victories over Islamic State, Syria’s Kurds are proving themselves an ever more dependable ally in the U.S.-led fight against the jihadists and building influence that will make them a force in Middle Eastern politics. Aided by U.S.-led air strikes, the Kurdish-led YPG militia may have dealt Islamic State its worst defeat to date in Syria by seizing the town of
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened the Geneva discussions on Monday calling for a humanitarian ceasefire with the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. U.N. envoy Ould Cheikh Ahmed began shuttling between rival delegations in “proximity talks”. As the talks began, a Yemeni news agency reported a raid on a school in central Yemen killed four women and a child.
The United States killed deputy leader of al Qaeda, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, in a strike in Yemen, U.S. officials told Reuters on Tuesday. Two of the officials said the White House would make an announcement on Wuhayshi shortly. Wuhayshi, a close associate of Osama bin Laden in the years before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, was once seen as a successor to al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri.
Turkey on Tuesday briefly detained four journalists covering the seizure by Kurdish forces of the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad, reportedly because they asked the local governor a tricky question on Islamic State (IS) militants. Hasan Akbas of the daily Evrensel, Cumhuriyet reporter Pinar Ogunc, Ozlem Topcu of German weekly Die Zeit and Deniz Yucel of German daily Die Welt were all detained, the reporters announced on Twitter.
By Francesco Guarascio LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) – France, Italy and Germany agreed on Tuesday to join forces to identify migrants arriving by sea and to swiftly relocate them across the European Union or send them back to their home countries if their claims for asylum in Europe are rejected. Ministers from the three countries put on a show of unity after the arrival in Europe of thousands of migrants, who make
N’Djamena (AFP) – Scores of police and soldiers patrolled Chad’s capital N’Djamena on Tuesday, a day after twin suicide bombings blamed on Boko Haram jihadists killed 24 people and wounded more than 100 in the first such attacks in the city. The security forces had sealed off the area around the presidential palace, as well as the police headquarters — which was one of the bombers’ targets. Chad, which has
By Ahmed Elumami and Peter Cooney TRIPOLI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A veteran Islamist militant blamed for a deadly attack on an Algerian gas field and who ran smuggling routes across North Africa has been killed in a U.S. air strike inside Libya, Libya’s government said on Sunday. The recognized government said the strike had killed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian militant who became a major figure in insurgencies across North Africa and
By Gabriela Baczynska and Wiktor Szary MOSCOW/WARSAW (Reuters) – A plan by Washington to station tanks and heavy weapons in NATO states on Russia’s border would be the most aggressive U.S. act since the Cold War, and Moscow would retaliate by beefing up its own forces, a Russian defense official said on Monday. The United States is offering to store military equipment on allies’ territory in eastern Europe, a proposal
By Donny Kwok and Clare Baldwin HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong police arrested nine people and seized suspected explosives, authorities said on Monday, as the city goes on high alert ahead of a crucial vote on a China-backed electoral reform package that sparked widespread protests last year. As tensions run high before debate in the Legislative Council begins on Wednesday, the Independent Commission Against Corruption said it was investigating
By Philip Pullella VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Jozef Wesolowski, a former archbishop and papal ambassador to the Dominican Republic, will stand trial on criminal charges of paying for sex with minors and possessing child pornography, the Vatican said on Monday. Vatican sources said the decision by the president of the Vatican’s tribunal to indict Wesolowski could not have been taken without a green light from Pope Francis. Wesolowski’s trial will
By Tom Perry and and Umit Bektas BEIRUT/AKCAKALE, Turkey (Reuters) – The Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Monday it had seized a major road that brought reinforcements from Islamic State’s defacto capital of Raqqa, enabling YPG fighters to lay siege to the militant’s stronghold of Tel Abyad. YPG spokesman Redur Xelil said the militia had surrounded the town along the Turkish border, pushing ahead with an offensive with the
By Dinky Mkhize PRETORIA (Reuters) – Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir flew out of South Africa on Monday in defiance of a Pretoria court that later said he should have been arrested to face genocide charges at the International Criminal Court. Despite a legal order for him to stay in the country ahead of the ruling on his detention, the government let Bashir leave unhindered, with South Africa’s ruling party accusing
