Author: Sunfire

RT

Three Palestinian teenagers, including a 13-year-old Palestinian boy, have been killed in West Bank clashes with Israeli soldiers in the past 24 hours. More than 450 Palestinians have also been injured in the violence.

Abdel-Rahman Abeidallah, 13, died of a gunshot wound to the heart on Monday, a source at Bethlehem Hospital told Reuters. The boy lived in the local al-Aidah refugee camp and had taken part in clashes with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.   Continue reading “3 Palestinian youths killed by Israeli forces in 24 hours”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration deported fewer immigrants over the past 12 months than at any time since 2006, according to government figures obtained by The Associated Press.

Deportations of criminal immigrants have fallen to the lowest levels since President Barack Obama took office in 2009, despite his pledge to focus on finding and deporting criminals living in the country illegally. The share of criminal immigrants deported in relation to overall immigrants deported rose slightly, from 56 percent to 59 percent.   Continue reading “US government deports fewest immigrants in nearly a decade”

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SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) — An American Airlines pilot became gravely ill while flying from Phoenix to Boston and later died, but his first officer calmly took over and safely landed the plane in Syracuse, airline officials said.

One hundred forty seven passengers were onboard when Capt. Michael Johnston, 57, was stricken. Doug Parker, chairman and chief executive officer of American Airlines Group, said in a statement that Johnston “passed away while at work.”   Continue reading “Pilot dies during American Airlines flight”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 240 inmates have slipped away from federal custody in the past three years while traveling to halfway houses, including several who committed bank robberies and a carjacking while on the lam, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Some of the inmates who absconded from 2012 through 2014 were reported by prison officials to have histories of violence and misconduct while in prison, the records show. The federal Bureau of Prisons each year permits thousands of inmates it considers low risk to serve the final months of their sentences at halfway houses where counseling, job placement and other services are offered. These inmates travel unescorted, often by bus, as part of the process of transitioning back into the community.   Continue reading “Federal inmates escape while traveling to halfway houses”

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The only gun store in San Francisco is shuttering for good, saying it can no longer operate in the city’s political climate of increased gun control regulations and vocal opposition to its business.

“It’s with tremendous sadness and regret that I have to announce we are closing our shop,” High Bridge Arms manager Steve Alcairo announced in a Facebook post on Sept. 11. “It has been a long and difficult ride, but a great pleasure to be your last San Francisco gun shop.”   Continue reading “San Francisco’s last gun store closing doors for good”

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BOSTON (AP) — One day in the fall of 2013, Colleen Ritzer asked one of her 9th-grade algebra students to stay after school. Hours later, the body of the popular, 24-year-old teacher was found in nearby woods, partly covered by leaves. She had been raped and her throat had been slit with a box cutter. Near her body was a note reading, “I hate you all.”

Philip Chism, then 14, was charged in her killing, shocking students and teachers who knew Ritzer as a bubbly, enthusiastic teacher and Chism as a quiet boy and standout soccer player who had recently moved to Massachusetts from Tennessee.   Continue reading “Trial to begin for teen charged in teacher’s rape, killing”

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MOSCOW (AP) — Reacting to criticism that it is targeting opponents of the Syrian government, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted on Thursday that Russia’s airstrikes in Syria are targeting not only Islamic State militants but also other groups.

Russia on Wednesday carried out its first airstrikes in Syria in what President Vladimir Putin called a pre-emptive strike against the militants. Twenty airstrikes destroyed a command center of Islamic State militants as well as ammunition depots, the defense ministry said.   Continue reading “Russia says it targets not just IS in Syria”

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McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip was just minutes away from his scheduled lethal injection, stripped of all his belongings in a holding cell just a few feet from the state’s death chamber, when he learned his execution had once again been delayed.

“I’m just standing there in just my boxers,” Glossip, who claims he’s innocent, told reporters in a telephone interview from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. “They wouldn’t tell me anything. Finally someone came up and said I got a stay.”   Continue reading “Oklahoma gets wrong execution drug, delays lethal injection”

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear’s lawyers are using the words “absurd,” ”forlorn” and “obtuse” to describe the legal arguments a county clerk has used to avoid issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Rowan County clerk Kim Davis, who spent five days in jail for defying a series of federal court orders, filed a lawsuit against the governor, alleging he violated her religious freedom by asking clerks to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, which effectively legalized gay marriage across the nation. Beshear reiterated a request Tuesday that a judge toss the suit.   Continue reading “Kentucky Governor: Clerk’s arguments ‘absurd’ and ‘obtuse’”

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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A fugitive wanted in the kidnapping and torture of two women in suburban Portland nearly a quarter century ago was arrested at a hotel in Mexico, where he had been working and living under an assumed name.

Paul Erven Jackson, 45, was arrested Monday by Mexican immigration authorities in downtown Guadalajara, Deputy U.S. Marshal Eric Wahlstrom said. He was flown to the United States overnight and booked into a Los Angeles jail on Tuesday.   Continue reading “Fugitive accused of kidnapping arrested after 24 years”

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DENVER (AP) — A man convicted of stabbing five people to death during a Denver bar robbery that netted $170 will be formally sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday.

A judge will issue a mandatory sentence of life without parole for Dexter Lewis, 25, who was convicted in August of five counts of murder for the October 2012 stabbings at Fero’s Bar and Grill. Prosecutors said Lewis led a four-man robbery crew at Fero’s, where he killed the bar’s owner and four customers. Two men testified that Lewis stabbed his victims while they were held at gunpoint.   Continue reading “Man who killed 5 in Denver bar to get life sentence”

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A ship carrying illicit arms believed to be from Iran was intercepted last week off the southern Arabian Peninsula by a member of a U.S.-backed naval coalition and was not registered with any country, the U.S. Navy said Wednesday.

The American description of the ship’s seizure conflicted in some instances with an earlier account provided by a separate Saudi-led coalition battling Yemen’s Shiite rebels, which claimed it had foiled the smuggling attempt. The Saudi coalition alleged that Iran was using the vessel to ship arms to the rebels.   Continue reading “Weapons believed to be from Iran seized in Arabian Sea”

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BEIRUT (AP) — Syria has already been shattered by more than four years of civil war, and with no solution in sight, some players on the ground and observers outside have concluded its fate will be to break up along sectarian or regional lines — in a best-case scenario, tenuously held together by a less centralized state.

A true partition would risk yet more mayhem, including ethnic or sectarian cleansing and battle over every bend in the border. But so spectacular is Syria’s disaster that many wonder whether its disparate groups can share a unifying national sentiment again.   Continue reading “After ruinous war, Syria regions may go separate ways”

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JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Beware of the wildlife.

Elephants and crocodiles have killed seven people in separate incidents over a seven-week period in an around a wildlife park in Malawi, the park’s managers said. African Parks, a Johannesburg-based group, on Monday attributed the deaths in Liwonde National Park primarily to the fact that the reserve is unfenced and also because poachers are illegally entering the park. The park’s 80-mile (130-kilometer) perimeter will be fenced, which will take 18 months, according to the non-profit group.   Continue reading “Elephants, crocodiles kill 7 people at Malawi park”

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RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian demonstrators clashed with Israeli troops across the West Bank on Tuesday, while three tourists were lightly wounded by Palestinian stone throwers as tensions remained high following days of violence at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site.

The hilltop compound, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, was largely quiet Tuesday. About 600 tourists and 100 Israelis visited the site without serious incident. Israel has barred Muslim men under the age of 50 from entering the compound in recent days in a move it says is aimed at easing tensions.   Continue reading “Palestinians, Israeli forces clash amid holy site tensions”

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Royal Dutch Shell is giving up on its expensive and controversial push to produce oil in Alaska’s Arctic waters, a decision that darkens the long-term oil prospects of the U.S. and brings relief to environmental groups that had tried desperately to block the project.

Shell is abandoning the region “for the foreseeable future” because it failed to find enough oil to make further drilling worthwhile. The company has spent more than $7 billion to explore for oil in Alaska’s Arctic, slogging through a years-long regulatory gauntlet and attracting spite from environmental groups who feared a spill in the Arctic’s harsh climate would be extremely difficult to clean up and devastating to polar bears, walruses, seals and other wildlife.   Continue reading “What it means: Shell abandons Arctic oil drilling”

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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban seized more than half of the strategic northern city of Kunduz on Monday, including a hospital, a courthouse and other government buildings, in an assault by hundreds of insurgents who are now locked in fierce battles with government forces, police said.

Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, the spokesman for the provincial police chief, told The Associated Press that the insurgents overran more than half the city after launching coordinated early morning attacks. The city’s fall would mark a major loss for the government as it struggles to combat the insurgents without the aid of U.S. and NATO combat troops.   Continue reading “Afghan police: Taliban seize half of strategic northern city”