As jury selection starts in Hunter Biden’s gun case, president says he has ‘boundless love’ for him
WILMINGTON, Del. — A federal gun case against President Joe Biden’s son Hunter opened Monday with jury selection, following the collapse of a plea deal that would have avoided the spectacle of a trial so close the 2024 election. First lady Jill Biden was seated in the front row of...
Mexico elects Claudia Sheinbaum as its 1st female president
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s projected presidential winner Claudia Sheinbaum will become the first woman president in the country’s 200-year history. “I will become the first woman president of Mexico,” Sheinbaum said with a smile, speaking at a downtown hotel shortly after electoral authorities announced a statistical sample showed she held...
Water begins to flow again in downtown Atlanta after outage that began Friday
ATLANTA — Water pressure was returning to downtown Atlanta and nearby neighborhoods on Sunday after a two-day water outage shut down businesses and left faucets dry at many homes. A large swath of the city remained under an order to boil water before drinking it, but Mayor Andre Dickens said...
Swimmer injured by shark attack on Southern California coast
SAN DIEGO — A swimmer was seriously injured in a shark attack on the Southern California coast Sunday, prompting temporary beach closures, authorities said. The attack happened Sunday morning at Del Mar City Beach in Del Mar, about 20 miles north of San Diego, local officials said. The 46-year-old man,...
California firefighters continue battling wind-driven wildfire east of San FranciscoVideo
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California firefighters expected to gain ground Sunday on a wind-driven wildfire that scorched thousands of acres 60 miles east of San Francisco, burned down a home and forced residents to flee the area near the central California city of Tracy. The fire erupted Saturday afternoon in the...
Trump joins TikTok and calls it ‘an honor.’ As president he once tried to ban the video-sharing app
Donald Trump has joined the popular video-sharing app TikTok, a platform he once tried to ban while in the White House, and posted from a UFC fight two days after he became the first former president and presumptive major party nominee in U.S. history to be found guilty on felony...
Puerto Rico Rep. Jesús Manuel Ortiz wins gubernatorial primary. Pro-statehood party still undecided
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Rico Rep. Jesús Manuel Ortiz defeated Sen. Juan Zaragoza in a gubernatorial primary held Sunday by their Popular Democratic Party, which seeks a return to power in the upcoming general elections. Zaragoza conceded defeat after obtaining 38% of the votes to his rival’s 62%,...
Mayor, police chief ask for public’s help in finding shooters who killed 1, wounded 24 at partyVideo
AKRON, Ohio — The mayor and police chief of Akron called on witnesses to come forward with any information about who carried out a mass shooting in the Ohio city that killed one person and injured 24 others, some critically. “This was a tragic incident which impacts our entire community,”...
Michael Douglas pays solidarity visit to southern Israel
JERUSALEM — Actor Michael Douglas on Sunday paid a solidarity visit to an Israeli kibbutz that was hit hard in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked Israel’s war against the Islamic militant group. Douglas met with members of Kibbutz Be’eri and visited burnt-out homes destroyed in the Oct. 7...
Mexico awaits results in an election likely to choose the country’s first female president
MEXICO CITY — Polls closed in a national vote Sunday that will likely give Mexico its first female president, but the heat, violence and polarization continued right through election day. People turned out to vote in the township of Cuitzeo, in the western state of Michoacán, despite the fact that...
Rupert Murdoch ties the knot for the 5th time in ceremony at his California vineyard
NEW YORK — Media magnate Rupert Murdoch, 93, has married for the fifth time, his corporation, News Corp, confirmed Sunday. Murdoch and Elena Zhukova, a 67-year-old Russian-born retired molecular biologist, wed Saturday in a ceremony at his vineyard estate in Bel Air, California. Photographs of the newly married couple were...
Organizers say record-setting drag queen story time reading kicks off Philadelphia Pride Month
PHILADELPHIA — Organizers of a drag queen storytime reading at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia say several hundred people helped establish a world record for attendance at such an event to kick off Pride Month celebrations in the birthplace of America. The event Saturday, hosted by the Philadelphia Gay...
A mass parachute jump over Normandy kicks off commemorations for the 80th anniversary of D-Day
CARENTAN-LES-MARAIS, France — Parachutists jumping from World War II-era planes hurled themselves Sunday into now peaceful Normandy skies where war once raged, heralding a week of ceremonies for the fast-disappearing generation of Allied troops who fought from D-Day beaches 80 years ago to Adolf Hitler’s fall, helping free Europe of...
Republicans make Biden’s EV push an election-year issue as Democrats take a more nuanced approach
TOLEDO, Ohio — Donald Trump says the Biden administration’s policy to promote electric vehicles is a “radical plan” that would kill the economy in automaking states. Republican allies in the petroleum industry have spent millions on ads that say President Joe Biden’s tax credit for EV buyers will cost Americans...
Energy shutdowns hit Ukraine after Russian attacks target infrastructure
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine imposed emergency power shutdowns in most of the country on Sunday, a day after Russia unleashed large-scale attacks on energy infrastructure and claimed it made gains in the eastern Donetsk province. The shutdowns were in place in all but three regions of Ukraine following Saturday’s drone...
Fort Ligonier reenactors portray historical figures from across globe
About 50 reenactors portraying 18th century military units from across the globe roamed the grounds of Fort Ligonier during Memorial Day weekend as musket and cannon fire pierced the air. Revolutionary War era reenactors intermingled with French and Prussian militia units, an Austrian officer and a Hungarian soldier, said Matt...
From collapsed plea deal to trial: How Hunter Biden has come to face jurors on federal gun charges
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s son was in federal court, prepared to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses. The culmination of a sprawling investigation, the deal between Hunter Biden and prosecutors was going to spare him a politically explosive trial in the middle of his father’s reelection campaign and likely...
Republicans join Trump’s attacks on justice system and campaign of vengeance after guilty verdict
WASHINGTON — Embracing Donald Trump’s strategy of blaming the U.S. justice system after his historic guilty verdict, Republicans in Congress are fervently enlisting themselves in his campaign of vengeance and political retribution as the GOP runs to reclaim the White House. Almost no Republican official has stood up to suggest...
Florida sheriff’s office fires deputy who fatally shot airman at home
A Florida Panhandle sheriff on Friday fired a deputy who fatally shot an airman at his home while holding a handgun pointed to the ground, saying the deputy’s life was never in danger and he should not have fired his weapon. Okaloosa County Sheriff Eric Aden fired Deputy Eddie Duran,...
U.S. defense secretary says war with China neither imminent nor unavoidable, stressing need for talks
SINGAPORE — United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told a gathering of top security officials Saturday that war with China was neither imminent nor unavoidable, despite rapidly escalating tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, stressing the importance of renewed dialogue between him and his Chinese counterpart in avoiding “miscalculations and...
Hostage families call for cease-fire deal pushed by Biden; Israel says conditions must be met
TEL AVIV, Israel — Families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas called for all parties to immediately accept a proposal detailed by U.S. President Joe Biden to end the nearly 8-month-long war and bring their relatives home, but Israel’s government said conditions for a cease-fire still must be met. Biden...
River ferry sinks in Afghanistan, killing at least 20
ISLAMABAD — At least 20 people were killed when a boat sank while crossing a river in eastern Afghanistan Saturday morning, a Taliban official said. Quraishi Badlon, provincial director of the information and culture department in Nangarhar province, said that the boat sank while crossing a river in Mohmand Dara...
Judge denies petition to recall death sentence of man who killed 12-year-old Polly Klaas
SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California judge on Friday denied a petition to recall the death sentence against Richard Allen Davis, who in 1993 killed 12-year-old Polly Klaas after kidnapping her from her bedroom at knifepoint in a crime that shocked the nation. Jurors in 1996 found Davis guilty of...
Ohio explosion caused by cut gas line thought to be turned off, investigators say
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — A crew working in the basement area of an Ohio building intentionally cut a gas line not knowing it was pressurized before a deadly explosion this week, the National Transportation Safety Board said Friday. NTSB board member Tom Chapman said preliminary investigation shows workers were in the...
Running for U.S. president from prison? Eugene V. Debs did it, a century ago
NEW YORK — Following his unprecedented felony conviction, former president and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has to wait to find out what his sentence will be. But even if it involves time behind bars, that doesn’t mean his campaign to return to the White House comes to an end....
