Author: Sunfire

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MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Muslim extremists abducted a Catholic priest and more than a dozen churchgoers while laying siege to a southern Philippine city overnight, burning buildings, ambushing soldiers and hoisting flags of the Islamic State group, officials said Wednesday. President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law in the southern third of the nation and warned he would enforce it harshly.

The violence erupted Tuesday night after the army raided the hideout of Isnilon Hapilon, an Abu Sayyaf commander who is on Washington’s list of most-wanted terrorists with a reward of up to $5 million for his capture. The militants called for reinforcements from an allied group, the Maute, and some 50 gunmen managed to enter the city of Marawi.   Continue reading “Priest among 14 hostages taken in siege of Philippines city”

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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Tommy Arthur has had his execution postponed seven times since 2001, so many delays that victims’ rights advocates derisively call him the “Houdini” of death row. He says he is innocent and is fighting for an eighth reprieve, but he is losing optimism: “They are going to kill me this time.”

Arthur, now 75, is scheduled to be put to death at 6 p.m. CDT Thursday for the 1982 murder-for-hire slaying of Troy Wicker. Wicker’s wife, Judy, initially told police she came home and was raped by a black man who shot and killed her husband. After her conviction, she changed her story and testified that she had discussed killing her husband with Arthur, who wore a wig and painted his face in an attempt to look like a black man.   Continue reading “Alabama inmate fights to halt execution, ‘won’t give up’”

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SAN DIEGO (AP) — Nearly 740,000 foreigners who were supposed to leave the United States during a recent 12-month period overstayed their visas, the Homeland Security Department said Monday, detailing a crucial but often overlooked contributor to the number of people in the country illegally.

President Donald Trump has proposed spending billions of dollars to erect a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico and hire more border agents, but those measures would not address people who arrive legally and stay after their visas expire. An estimated 40 percent of the roughly 11 million people in the country illegally stayed past their visas.   Continue reading “Nearly 740,000 foreigners overstayed US visas last year”

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PHOENIX (AP) — Survivors of the mass shooting that left former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords severely wounded are pleading with the public to help pay for a long-planned memorial after state funding fell through during this year’s session of the Arizona Legislature.

The Jan. 8, 2011, shooting at a Giffords meet-and-greet event outside a grocery store in Tucson, Arizona, left six dead and 13 injured, including the former congresswoman. Shooter Jared Loughner was sentenced to life in prison.   Continue reading “Survivors: Help build congresswoman mass shooting memorial”

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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The Supreme Court’s ruling that two North Carolina congressional districts relied too heavily on race should give voting-rights advocates a potent tool to fight other electoral maps drawn to give Republicans an advantage in the state.

The justices agreed Monday with a federal court that had struck down two congressional districts as illegally race-based. Because those districts were already redrawn for the 2016 election, the ruling doesn’t require immediate changes from North Carolina. But it looms large in other battles unfolding over voting districts there and elsewhere.   Continue reading “High court ruling may give voter rights groups a strong tool”

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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A transgender “bathroom bill” reminiscent of one in North Carolina that caused a national uproar now appears to be on a fast-track to becoming law in Texas — though it may only apply to public schools.

A broader proposal mandating that virtually all transgender people in the country’s second-largest state use public restrooms according to the gender on their birth certificates sailed through the Texas Senate months ago. A similar measure had stalled in the House, but supporters late Sunday night used an amendment to tack bathroom limits onto a separate and otherwise unrelated bill covering school emergency operation plans for things like natural disasters.   Continue reading “Texas set to pass transgender bathroom law for schools”

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MILWAUKEE (AP) — Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who says he’s been appointed an assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security, has denied he plagiarized content in his master’s thesis on homeland security, while the Naval Postgraduate School confirmed Sunday that it’s reviewing the allegations.

The denial followed a CNN report Saturday saying Clarke, who built a following among conservatives with his provocative social media presence and strong support of President Donald Trump, failed to properly attribute his sources at least 47 times in his 2013 thesis, titled “Making U.S. security and privacy rights compatible.”   Continue reading “DHS hopeful Clarke denies plagiarism in master’s thesis”

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SAN DIEGO (AP) — Over two decades, Robert Gilbeau rose through the ranks to Navy admiral and earned a chest-full of honors for his service, including a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. During that period he also partied across Southeast Asia with a gregarious Malaysian businessman who paid for lavish dinners, drinks at karaoke bars and prostitutes.

That businessman, known as “Fat Leonard,” is the centerpiece of a massive bribery scandal involving Navy officers, and Gilbeau last year pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about their relationship. He was the first active-duty admiral convicted of a federal crime and on Wednesday he learned his penalty: 18 months in jail.   Continue reading “Former admiral gets 18 months in jail for lying”

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LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Las Vegas police officer used a stun gun seven times and an unapproved mixed martial arts chokehold to subdue an unarmed man who died after a foot chase through a casino, authorities said.

Officer Kenneth Lopera thought the man had tried to carjack a pickup truck with two people inside before the officer fired the stun gun in a series of staccato bursts and used the chokehold — a tactic that is not approved by the department — early Sunday at The Venetian resort, Clark County Undersheriff Kevin McMahill said.   Continue reading “Vegas police: Unapproved chokehold used in fatal foot chase”

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OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Several states have struggled for years to comply with the REAL ID Act, a 2005 federal law that requires state driver’s licenses and ID cards to have security enhancements and to be issued to people who can prove they are legally in the United States.

With a January deadline looming, lawmakers across the country have been scrambling for legislative fixes so residents can board flights and travel without confusion. Washington state was the latest to try to bring its system in line with those requirements, as Gov. Jay Inslee signed a measure Tuesday creating a two-tiered licensing system.   Continue reading “States scramble to comply with federal ID law”

RT

New standards have been proposed to assure fair treatment for Canadian air travelers, including a measure that would bar airlines from bumping passengers from overbooked flights.

The legislation was introduced a month after a series of scandals related to overbooking emerged that saw passengers forcibly and even violently removed from their flights. In the most notorious recent case, a man was injured while being violently dragged off a plane for refusing to get off.   Continue reading “Canada to outlaw removal of passengers from overbooked flights”

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JACKSON, Ga. (AP) — Georgia on Wednesday carried out its first execution this year, putting to death a man convicted of killing his 73-year-old neighbor 25 years ago. J.W. Ledford’s time of death was 1:17 a.m., after an injection of compounded barbiturate pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson, Warden Eric Sellers told witnesses. Ledford, 45, was convicted of murder in the January 1992 stabbing death of Dr. Harry Johnston in Murray County, northwest Georgia.

Ledford smiled broadly as witnesses entered the execution viewing area. When given a chance to make a final statement, he appeared to quote from the movie “Cool Hand Luke.” “What we have here is a failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach,” he said, later adding, “I am not the failure. You are the failure to communicate.”   Continue reading “Georgia carries out first execution of the year”

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CHICAGO (AP) — Two people died and dozens were injured when tornadoes flattened a mobile home park in Wisconsin and a housing subdivision in Oklahoma during powerful spring storms that battered an area from the South Plains of Texas to the Great Lakes.

The storms hit late in the afternoon Tuesday and into the evening, leveling the Prairie Lake Estate Mobile Park near Chetek, Wisconsin, about 110 miles (177 kilometers) northeast of Minneapolis. When first responders arrived at the scene, they could hear the people crying for help in the rubble, Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald told KMSP-TV.  Continue reading “Tornadoes in Wisconsin, Oklahoma leave 2 dead”

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Workers in New Orleans took down a Confederate monument to Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard early Wednesday, the third of four such monuments to come down in the city. New outlets showed footage of the statue being lifted off its base shortly after 3 a.m.

The removal comes after the city has already taken down a statue of the Confederacy’s only president and a memorial to a white rebellion against a biracial Reconstruction-era government in the city. “Today we take another step in defining our City not by our past but by our bright future,” New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said in a news release. “While we must honor our history, we will not allow the Confederacy to be put on a pedestal in the heart of New Orleans.”   Continue reading “New Orleans takes down 3rd Confederate-era monument”

RT

An Ohio police officer is recovering from an accidental overdose after making a drug stop where he accidentally brushed a small amount of powder off his shirt without realizing it was the highly potent opioid synthetic drug, fentanyl.

East Liverpool patrolman Chris Green responded to a traffic stop Friday after two suspected drug dealers were seen performing a drug transaction in a car, according to a police report obtained by WKBN.    Continue reading “Ohio cop overdoses on high-risk painkiller fentanyl after contact during stop”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court’s refusal to breathe new life into North Carolina’s sweeping voter identification law might be just a temporary victory for civil rights groups. Republican-led states are continuing to enact new voter ID measures and other voting restrictions, and the Supreme Court’s newly reconstituted conservative majority, with the addition of Justice Neil Gorsuch, could make the court less likely to invalidate the laws based on claims under the federal Voting Rights Act or the Constitution.   Continue reading “Supreme Court order unlikely to deter voting restrictions”

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — New South Korean President Moon Jae-in will visit the White House next month for a summit with President Donald Trump amid worries over North Korea’s progress in building a nuclear and missile arsenal, Seoul’s presidential office said Tuesday.

The agreement for the leaders to meet in late June followed a meeting in Seoul between Chung Eui-yong, Moon’s foreign policy adviser, and Matt Pottinger, the Asia director on Trump’s National Security Council, Moon’s spokesman Yoon Young-chan said.   Continue reading “New South Korean leader to go to White House summit in June”