National News

Today in History Today is Saturday, June 24, the 175th day of 2017. There are 190 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On June 24, 1947, what's regarded as the first modern UFO sighting took place as private pilot Kenneth Arnold, an Idaho businessman, reported seeing nine silvery objects flying in a "weaving formation" near Mount Rainier in Washington...

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans launched their plan for shriveling Barack Obama's health-care law Thursday, edging a step closer to their dream of repeal with a bill that would slice and reshape Medicaid for the poor, relax rules on insurers and end tax increases on higher earners that have helped finance expanded coverage for millions...

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump declared Thursday he never made and doesn't have recordings of his private conversations with ousted former FBI director James Comey, ending a monthlong guessing game he started with a cryptic tweet that ensnared his administration in yet more controversy...

MOSUL, Iraq -- With their control of Mosul slipping away, Islamic State militants decided to send a message of defiance: They blew up the 12th century al-Nuri Mosque, along with its famous leaning minaret. The mosque, destroyed Wednesday night, would have been a symbolic prize in the fight for Iraq's second-largest city. It was from a pulpit in that mosque the extremists' leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared a caliphate in the lands they had seized in Iraq and Syria in July 2014...

NEW ORLEANS -- High tides in the wake of a weakening Tropical Depression Cindy prompted a voluntary evacuation Thursday in a coastal Louisiana town, and the storm's effects were being felt throughout the Southeast, with intermittent bands of heavy rain, blasts of high wind and periodic warnings of possible tornadoes in multiple states...

SALEM, Ore. -- Concern is growing in a conservative, remote corner of Oregon as people start arriving in a national forest for a Rainbow Family of Living Light annual gathering, a counter-culture get-together expected to draw thousands. Officials with the Malheur National Forest said this week about 600 Rainbow Family members already are camped at a gathering site near Flagtail Meadow, and between 10,000 and 30,000 are likely to arrive by July 4, when the multi-day event peaks with a prayer for world peace.. ...

LONDON -- Tests so far have found at least seven high-rise apartment buildings in England have combustible external panels like the ones believed to have contributed to a fire that killed 79 people in London, Prime Minister Theresa May's office said Thursday...

DETROIT -- The Canadian man charged with stabbing a police officer at the Flint airport in a possible act of terrorism was a part-time caretaker at the Montreal apartment building where he lived and once had studied to sell insurance, a landlord and an insurance company spokesman said Thursday...

WASHINGTON -- An online conspiracy theory dubbed "pizzagate" ended Thursday with real-world consequences when a North Carolina man was sentenced to prison for arming himself with an assault rifle, traveling to the nation's capital and firing his weapon inside a neighborhood pizza restaurant...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Police in Little Rock said a mall worker wrestled away a stripper pole from a would-be thief who bit the employee during the struggle. According to police, a woman entered a Spencer's store in Little Rock's Park Plaza Mall at midday Wednesday and tried to return an item. A police report stated the woman became frustrated when she was refused money and tried to leave with a stripper pole instead. Police said the employee took back the pole, and the woman ran away...

Today in History Today is Friday, June 23, the 174th day of 2017. There are 191 days left in the year. Today's Highlights in History: On June 23, 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin and their advisers opened a three-day summit at Glassboro State College in New Jersey. The U.S. Senate voted 92-5 to censure Democrat Thomas J. Dodd of Connecticut for diverting campaign money to his personal use...

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- It's a lobster lover's dream. A Portsmouth restaurant hopes it set the record for the longest lobster roll at 159 feet, 6 inches. A lobster roll usually is a hot dog-type bun stuffed with lobster meat. The creation by the British Beer Co. on Sunday took up several tables before it was cut up and served. Chef James Gibney said 200 pounds of lobster meat went into the sandwich. The old record kept by the World Record Academy was 120 feet...

NEW ORLEANS -- A boy on an Alabama beach was struck and killed Wednesday by a log washed ashore by storm surge from Tropical Storm Cindy, which spun bands of severe weather ashore from the Florida panhandle to east Texas as it churned closer to the Gulf Coast...

FLINT, Mich. -- A Canadian man shouted in Arabic before stabbing a police officer in the neck at the Flint airport Wednesday and referred to people being killed overseas during the attack that's being investigated as an act of terrorism, federal officials said...

WASHINGTON -- U.S. officials sought Wednesday to underscore for lawmakers the threat Russia posed to the 2016 vote for the White House, outlining efforts to hack into election systems in 21 states and to fill the internet with misinformation during a divisive campaign season...

WASHINGTON -- Top Senate Republicans prepared Wednesday to release their plan for dismantling President Barack Obama's health-care law, a proposal that would cut and revamp Medicaid, end penalties on people not buying coverage and eliminate tax increases that financed the law's expansion of coverage, lobbyists and congressional aides said...

DETROIT -- Under Travis Kalanick's leadership, Uber's "Animal House"-style business plan was to grow as quickly as possible, steamrolling regulators while flouting the rules of workplace conduct. Behavior at the male-dominated company didn't seem to matter. Riders embraced the app-based ride-hailing system as an inexpensive, easy-to-use alternative to taxis, and still do today...

BEIJING -- Beer-soaked "booze cruises" down North Korea's Taedong River. Scuba-diving trips off the country's eastern coast. Saint Patrick's Day pub crawls in Pyongyang featuring drinking games with cheery locals. Since 2008, the Young Pioneer Tours agency built up a business attracting young travelers with a competitively priced catalog of exotic-sounding, hard-partying adventures in one of the world's most isolated countries...

MILWAUKEE -- A Milwaukee jury on Wednesday acquitted a former police officer in the on-duty shooting of a black man last year that ignited riots on the city's north side. Jurors found Dominique Heaggan-Brown, who also is black, was not guilty of first-degree reckless homicide when he shot 23-year-old Sylville Smith after a brief foot chase following a traffic stop Aug. 13...

Today in History Today is Thursday, June 22, the 173rd day of 2017. There are 192 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On June 22, 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, more popularly known as the "GI Bill of Rights."...

VACAVILLE, Calif. -- A couple of Solano County sheriff's deputies are a wayward llama's heroes after they saved it from traffic. Deputies David Hollingsworth and Jordan Austin "found themselves having to think outside the box to coax this llama out of the roadway after it escaped from its pasture." The llama got loose Monday, and the deputies corralled it without incident. ...

MINNEAPOLIS -- The Minnesota police officer who pulled over Philando Castile politely told the driver his brake lights were out and calmly instructed him not to pull out his handgun before suddenly drawing his own weapon and firing seven rounds into the car, a video released Tuesday showed...

BRUSSELS -- Belgian authorities said they foiled a "terror attack" Tuesday when soldiers shot and killed a suspect after a small explosion at a busy Brussels train station that continued a week of attacks in the capitals of Europe. Federal prosecutor Eric Van der Sypt said soldiers "neutralized" a male suspect at the Central Station immediately after the explosion there Tuesday night...

LONDON -- Neighbors and acquaintances described the man who allegedly attacked a group of Muslim worshippers as an unemployed lout who was drinking heavily and making anti-Muslim remarks in the days before the attack -- details to be closely examined as the investigation widened Tuesday...

BEIRUT -- The U.S. military said it shot down an Iranian-made, armed drone in southern Syria on Tuesday, marking the third time this month the U.S. has downed aircraft affiliated with Syrian President Bashar Assad's government. The U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group said a U.S. F-15 fighter jet shot down the drone "after it displayed hostile intent" while approaching a military camp near the Syria-Jordan border...

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea's missile and nuclear tests, its carefully scripted propaganda bluster, even its military threats: Far from the scattershot workings of a madman, most of this fits the playbook of a small, proud country well used to stoking tensions to get concessions it would otherwise not receive from surrounding big powers...

WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration is considering banning travel by U.S. citizens to North Korea, officials said Tuesday, as outrage grew over the death of American student Otto Warmbier and President Donald Trump declared it a "total disgrace."...

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans steered toward a potential showdown vote on their long-awaited health care bill next week, despite indications they've yet to solidify the 50 GOP votes they'll need to avert a defeat. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he expected to have a draft of the bill ready Thursday. ...

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump's White House is putting the "brief" in press briefings. Sean Spicer, the embattled press secretary, spoke for 30 minutes Tuesday and didn't answer a number of basic questions, including whether the president believes Russia interfered in the 2016 election and whether Trump had seen the hotly debated Senate health care bill...

PHOENIX -- The first day of summer brought some of the worst heat the Southwest U.S. has seen in years, forcing flights to be canceled, straining the power grid and making life miserable for workers toiling in temperatures that reached 120 degrees in some desert cities...

DUNWOODY, Ga. -- Republican Karen Handel won a nationally watched congressional election in Georgia, avoiding an upset that would have rocked Washington ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. Her narrow victory Tuesday over Democrat Jon Ossoff in Georgia's 6th Congressional District allows Republicans a sigh of relief after what's being recognized as the most expensive House race in U.S history, with a price tag that may exceed $50 million...

WASHINGTON -- The Republican campaign to roll back former President Barack Obama's health-care law is colliding with the opioid epidemic. Medicaid cutbacks would hit hard in states affected by the addiction crisis and struggling to turn the corner, according to state data and concerned lawmakers in both parties...

LOS ANGELES -- No cast member misbehaved or was in danger on the set of ABC's "Bachelor in Paradise," producer Warner Bros. said Tuesday after a review of show videotape. Production on "The Bachelor" spinoff that had been suspended during the probe will resume, Warner said in a statement. ABC immediately said the reality series will air this summer as planned...

Today in History Today is Wednesday, June 21, the 172nd day of 2017. There are 193 days left in the year. Summer begins at 12:24 a.m. Eastern time. Today's Highlights in History: On June 21, 1942, German forces led by Generaloberst (Colonel General) Erwin Rommel captured the Libyan city of Tobruk during World War II. ...

BOISE, Idaho -- A pet squirrel that gained fame by thwarting a home burglary has returned to the wild. Adam Pearl said Joey climbed onto his shoulder for a goodbye earlier this month, then scampered up a backyard apple tree at his home and hasn't been seen since. Pearl said friends found Joey on the ground last summer after he fell out of his nest. Joey made headlines in February when police nabbed a burglary suspect who reported fleeing a home after being attacked by a squirrel...

BEIRUT -- Russia on Monday threatened aircraft from the U.S.-led coalition in Syrian-controlled airspace and suspended a hotline intended to avoid collisions in retaliation for the U.S. military shooting down a Syrian warplane. The U.S. said it had downed the Syrian jet a day earlier after it dropped bombs near the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces conducting operations against the Islamic State group, adding that was something it would not tolerate...

TOKYO -- Japan's coast guard is investigating why it took nearly an hour for a deadly collision between a U.S. Navy destroyer and a container ship to be reported. A coast-guard official said Monday they are trying to find out what the crew of the Philippine-flagged ACX Crystal was doing before reporting the collision off Japan's coast to authorities 50 minutes later...

NODEIRINHO, Portugal -- Survivors emerged Monday with stories of leaping into water tanks and other escapes from the forest fires scorching central Portugal, and authorities came under criticism for not doing more to prevent Portugal's deadliest natural disaster in decades...

PARIS -- A man on the radar of French authorities was killed Monday after ramming a car carrying explosives into a police vehicle in the capital's Champs-Elysees shopping district, prompting a fiery blast, officials said. France's anti-terrorism prosecutor opened an investigation...

LONDON -- The rash of deadly terror attacks that has rattled Britain in recent months took an ominous new turn Monday as Muslim worshippers became targets during the holy month of Ramadan, mowed down by an attacker who plowed a van into a crowd leaving prayers at two mosques in north London...

WASHINGTON -- Most Americans said federal courts are acting properly in blocking President Donald Trump's travel ban, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Two versions of the travel ban targeting Muslim-majority countries have been put on hold by federal courts. Trump said the ban is necessary to keep would-be terrorists from traveling to the United States. Opponents, including some state officials, argue it is intended to keep Muslims out...

FAIRFAX, Va. -- Police in Virginia on Monday blamed road rage for the killing of a teenage Muslim girl who allegedly was attacked by a driver while walking with friends to her mosque between Ramadan prayers this weekend. The girl's father, Mohmoud Hassanen Aboras of Reston, said he doesn't understand how this could have happened, because he said his daughter, 17-year-old Nabra Hassanen, was a friend to everyone...

WASHINGTON -- Two top House Democrats are questioning whether Michael Flynn failed to report a 2015 trip to the Middle East to federal security clearance investigators. It is a potential omission that could add to the legal jeopardy President Donald Trump's former national-security adviser faces over the truthfulness of his statements to authorities and on government documents...

CINCINNATI -- Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was released by North Korea in a coma last week after almost a year and a half in captivity, died Monday, his family said. The 22-year-old "has completed his journey home," relatives said in a statement. They did not cite a cause of death...

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Ranchers on Monday sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture, seeking a return of labels that clearly identify meat produced in other countries and imported to the United States. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Spokane, seeks to overturn a March 2016 decision by the Department of Agriculture to revoke regulations requiring imported meat products to be labeled with their country of origin...

CRANFORD, N.J. -- Another family is suing two former day-care workers who instigated scuffles among the children they oversaw as part of what prosecutors called a "fight club." The suit filed by the parents of a 4-year-old boy claims he suffered severe emotional distress and now receives therapy as a result of the forced fights at the Lightbridge Academy in Cranford...

CLEVELAND -- A wayward tortoise's surprising trek around Ohio ended happily for its owner after a two-week search. Otis the California desert tortoise managed to push open a sliding glass door May 30 and escape from Kathie Heisinger's home in Sebring in Mahoning County...

NEW YORK -- Wanted: 10,000 New Yorkers interested in advancing science by sharing a trove of personal information, from cellphone locations and credit-card swipes to blood samples and life-changing events. For 20 years. Researchers are gearing up to start recruiting participants from across the city next year for a study so sweeping, it's called "The Human Project." It aims to channel different data streams into a river of insight on health, aging, education and many other aspects of human life...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google is promising to be more vigilant about preventing terrorist propaganda and other extremist videos from appearing on its YouTube site amid criticism about the internet's role in mass violence. Its crackdown will involve computer programs and an expanded group of people dedicated to identifying videos promoting terrorism so they can be blocked from appearing on YouTube or quickly removed...

Today in History Today is Tuesday, June 20, the 171st day of 2017. There are 194 days left in the year. Summer begins at 9:24 p.m. Pacific time/10:24 p.m. Mountain time/11:24 p.m. Central time (12:24 a.m. Eastern time June 21). Today's Highlight in History:...