Oklahoma City

Girl's death haunted police until arrest made 45 years later

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — Investigators searched for decades for the killer of an 11-year-old girl who disappeared while walking home from summer school in a case that gripped a California seaside community.

Trump attacks on press 'dangerous' and 'reckless': NYT publisher

US President Donald Trump's attacks on the press are "reckless" and "dangerous" and threaten to encourage violence against journalists at home and abroad, the publisher of The New York Times warned on Wednesday. "America's founders believed that a free press was essential to democracy because it is the foundation of an informed, engaged citizenry," A.G. Sulzberger said in a statement. Previous US presidents "had complaints about their coverage and at times took advantage of the freedom every American has to criticize journalists," Sulzberger said.

Covington Catholic student's legal team files $250M suit against The Washington Post

An attorney for Nick Sandmann says a $250 million lawsuit against The Washington Post was filed Tuesday for coverage of the CovCath incident.

With Top Investor in Jail, Putin Hits at Business Climate

(Bloomberg) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said honest business people shouldn’t have to live under “constant fear of criminal prosecution,” days after the arrest of one of the country’s top foreign investors.

Obama joined by Curry to tell minority boys 'you matter'

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Former President Barack Obama and Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry told a roomful of minority boys on Tuesday that they matter and urged them to make the world a better place.

Canada looks to reunite Syrian family after fire claims seven kids

Canada is looking to quickly bring over siblings of a Syrian refugee distraught over the loss of her seven children in a Halifax house fire, the prime minister said Thursday. "The immigration minister is seized with this particular case," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said when asked if Ottawa would fast-track the immigration or asylum process to bring the woman's brothers to Canada in order to provide her with family support. The family was among tens of thousands of Syrian refugees welcomed by Canada over the past four years.

Chicago police on Jussie Smollett arrest: Actor 'took advantage of the pain and anger of racism'

Jussie Smollett was taken into custody by police in Chicago early Thursday, three weeks after the 36-year-old “Empire” actor claimed he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack.

IRS Analyst Charged with Leaking Michael Cohen’s Bank Records to Avenatti

An Internal Revenue Service analyst was charged Thursday with leaking confidential reports that revealed President Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen sought to profit from his White House access.The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California charged analyst John Fry for leaking a suspicious activity report (SAR) to Michael Avenatti, the attorney who represented pornographer Stormy Daniels in her defamation case against President Trump.Avenatti published the SAR on Twitter last May, revealing to the public that Cohen set up a shell company known as Essential Consultants in order to collect payments from a number of corporations hoping to influence Trump administration policy. Cohen used the same shell company to make a $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels.During the Trump campaign and transition period, Cohen received hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporations, including Korea Aerospace Industries, AT&T, and Columbus Nova, a New York affiliate of the Russian corporation Renova Group which is owned by a Russian oligarch who donated to Trump's campaign and has been sanctioned by the U.S.According to the indictment filed Thursday, Avenatti also shared Fry's information with the New Yorker's Ronan Farrow.

Israel should apologize to Poland in Holocaust row: U.S. ambassador to Warsaw

The row, initially sparked by media reports suggesting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Poles of complicity in the Holocaust, deepened on Monday after the comment by his minister Israel Katz, who also labeled Poles anti-Semites. Katz's words led Poland to pull out of a planned summit of central European states in Israel. U.S. ambassador Georgette Mosbacher, asked if Katz should apologize, said the comment "warrants an apology".

Meet the 'New' F-21 Fighter: An F-16 On Steroids (With F-22 and F-35 DNA)?

Is this the fighter India needs?

Parents dead in murder-suicide at Sugar Land home as 16-year-old daughter slept inside

Their family says they were involved in volunteering and believed in giving back before they died.

More than 150 IS militants handed over to Iraq from Syria

OUTSIDE BAGHOUZ, Syria (AP) — U.S.-backed Syrian forces fighting the Islamic State group handed over more than 150 Iraqi members of the group to Iraq, an Iraqi security official said Thursday, marking the biggest repatriation from Syria of captured militants so far.

Designer Karl Lagerfeld to be cremated without ceremony

Karl Lagerfeld will be cremated without ceremony and his ashes are likely to be scattered with those of his mother and lover, his label said Wednesday. "His wishes will be respected," a spokeswoman for his Karl Lagerfeld brand told AFP a day after the legendary designer died at the age of 85. Lagerfeld had previously said that his ashes would be mixed with those of his longtime lover, the French dandy Jacques de Bascher, who died of AIDS in 1989.

As Vatican meets on sex abuse, Pope must defrock Guam's Apuron, groups say

Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron was found guilty of 'certain accusations' of crimes related to the sexual abuse of minors. He has appealed the ruling.

Trump panel to examine whether global warming affects national security will include climate change denier

President Donald Trump is preparing to establish a panel to examine whether climate change affects national security, despite existing reports from his own government showing that global warming is a growing threat. According to a White House memo dated 14 February, Mr Trump’s staff members have drafted an executive order to create a 12-member committee, which will include a White House adviser, William Happer, whose views are at odds with the established scientific consensus that carbon dioxide pollution is dangerous for the planet.

Social-Justice Hucksters and the Dumb, Blind Media

Is it any wonder that American news consumers are at the end of their ropes of patience with the “mainstream media”?Three weeks ago, when I first documented troubling questions, contradictions, and doubts about Trump-hating, attention-craving actor Jussie Smollett’s absurd hate-crime claims, few in the “professional” journalism herd paid heed. Now, with a grand-jury investigation on the horizon, everyone’s a Johnny-come-lately debunker.And everyone’s making excuses: How could we have known? Why would anyone lie about racism? What could have possibly prepared us for such a scandalous swindle?I’m especially looking at you, Robin Roberts. You and ABC’s Good Morning America willingly played public-relations agents for Smollett last week while his story was already falling apart, and he refused to be fully transparent with investigators. Now, you defend yourselves by hiding behind a veil of ignorance about hate-crimes hoaxes.Listen and learn, addled enablers of fraud. Fake Noose is a sick phenomenon that has run rampant across the country unchecked. I’ve chronicled the self-victimization pathology in my books, columns, and blog posts for years: * Columbia University, 2007. Remember black psychology professor Madonna Constantine? She made the rounds on none other than ABC’s Good Morning America, claiming she found a “degrading” noose (made of hand-tied twine) hanging from her office door. Constantine led fist-waving protests, decried “systematic racism,” and prompted a nationwide uproar, as I reported at the time in the New York Post. Things didn’t add up when Columbia initially blocked investigators from obtaining 56 hours of surveillance video. No culprits could be found on the militantly progressive campus obsessed with diversity and multiculturalism. It turned out that Constantine was desperately trying to distract from a brewing internal probe of her serial plagiarism, for which she was eventually fired. The hate-crime probe hit a dead end, and Constantine faced no criminal charges over the Fake Noose incident. * Baltimore Fire Department, 2007. Another manufactured outrage erupted when black firefighter-paramedic apprentice Donald Maynard claimed he found a knotted rope and threatening note with a noose drawing on it at his stationhouse. A federal civil-rights investigation ensued, and the NAACP cried racism -- until Maynard confessed to the noose nonsense amid a department-wide cheating scandal. A top official revealed that Maynard admitted “conducting a scheme meant to create the perception that members within our department were acting in a discriminatory and unprofessional manner.” Maynard faced no criminal charges over the Fake Noose incident. * University of Delaware, 2015. Black Lives Matter agitators and campus activists triggered a full alert when a student spotted a “racist display” of three “noose-like objects” hanging from trees. The UD president called it “deplorable”; protesters wept that they were not being taken seriously. After investigating, police discovered the “nooses” were metal “remnants of paper lanterns” hung as decorations during an alumni weekend celebration. * Salisbury State University, 2016. Students, faculty, and administrators were horrified when a stick figure hanging from a noose on a whiteboard was discovered at the school’s library. The N-word and hashtag WhitePower also appeared in the menacing graffiti. Campus authorities immediately launched an investigation, which exposed two black students as the perpetrators. Prosecutors declined to file criminal charges against the Fake Noosers. * Kansas State University, 2017. A paroxysm of protest struck K-State after someone reported a noose hanging from a tree on campus. Black students lambasted authorities for not acting quickly enough. They stoked anger online with the hashtag DontLeaveUsHanging and demanded increased security. But the “noose” was made of cut pieces of nylon parachute cord, which police believed had been discarded by someone who “may have simply been practicing tying different kinds of knots.” * Michigan State University, 2017. When a student reported a noose hanging outside her dorm room, MSU administrators went into full freakout mode over the racial incident. Cops and the Office of Institutional Equity were immediately notified. “A noose is a symbol of intimidation and threat that has a horrendous history in America,” the university president bemoaned. But it turned out the “noose” was a “packaged leather shoelace” that someone had dropped accidentally. * Smithsonian museums, 2017. NPR called the discovery of “nooses” lying on the grounds of two Smithsonian Institution museums the “latest in a string of hate incidents” after Trump’s election. The African-American museum director called them a “reminder of America’s dark history.” But the museums refused to release surveillance video, and my public-records request filed last November yielded zero corroboration of any hate crime. The Washington Post, New York Times and ABC’s Good Morning America, which all splashed the story front and center, have yet to follow up. * Mississippi State Capitol, 2018. ABC, CBS, CNN, and Yahoo were among the media outlets that blared headlines about seven nooses and “hate signs” found hanging in trees near the capitol building before a special runoff election for U.S. Senate. The stories created an unmistakable impression that the nooses were left by GOP racists intending to intimidate black voters. In truth, the nooses were a publicity stunt perpetrated by Democrats.IN THE NEWS: 'Jussie Smollett's 'Empire' Role Is Being Scaled Back'In the wake of Smollett’s folly, media sensationalists bluster that there’s no way they could have known they were being strung along. Thanks for the valuable admission, elite news professionals, that you are not only dumb and blind but incompetent to boot. It doesn’t take a fancy journalism degree to learn from the long, sordid history of Fake Noose:When you’ve seen one social-justice huckster, you’ve seen ’em all.© 2019 Creators.com

Deadly crackdown stokes fear among protesters in Venezuela

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Jhonny Godoy had taken to Twitter to proclaim his opposition to President Nicolas Maduro, posting a video that showed him running through the streets waving the national flag as protests erupted across Venezuela's capital.

Southwest Airlines cancels nearly 400 flights as maintenance woes, winter storms linger

The airline continues to have a higher-than-usual number of aircraft out of service due to maintenance and is dealing with snow in Las Vegas.

Iowa mom gets life in prison for death of baby found in maggot-infested diaper

An Iowa woman whose infant son's lifeless body was found in a baby swing has been imprisoned for life without possibility of parole.

Saudi Prince Pledges to Help India Fight Terror

“Terrorism is a common concern and Saudi Arabia will cooperate with India in fighting it, including in matters like intelligence sharing,” Prince Mohammed said in a press statement alongside Modi in New Delhi. The comments were part of the Saudi royal’s delicate diplomacy, as he visits both nuclear-armed South Asian neighbors amid heightened geopolitical tensions.

Polish paedophile priests exposed in new report

A foundation supporting victims of paedophile priests in Poland on Thursday released a report documenting nearly 400 cases of sex abuse by clergymen in the staunchly Catholic country. Images broadcast on Polish television showed Pope Francis kissing the hand of Marek Lisinski, head of the "Be Not Afraid" foundation, as he handed over the report to the pontiff. The document details the cases of 85 priests convicted of paedophilia, another 88 whose alleged abuse has been exposed by the media and 95 others accused by alleged victims.

Trump apparently not familiar with his administration's push for global decriminalization of homosexuality

The president expresses confusion when asked about one of his administration's own policies.

Israel's Netanyahu to meet Putin in Moscow next week -statement

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Feb. 27, Netanyahu's office said on Thursday, with the focus likely to be on Middle East issues led by Syria. At the time, the Kremlin said Netanyahu and Putin were to discuss the situation in the Middle East, including Syria.

Carbon dioxide in our atmosphere may soar to levels not seen in 56 million years

Emissions of carbon dioxide – the greenhouse gas most responsible for global warming – could soar to levels not seen in 56 million years, scientists warned.

Pinera's Colombia Border Trip Carries Risks for Chilean Leader

Pinera, a center-right politician and steadfast opponent of the government of Nicolas Maduro, is gambling with his political capital, according to political scientist Patricio Navia. “Pinera is investing in a Trump-controlled project,” Navia said in a phone interview.

Funeral held for youngest victim of factory shooting

SHERIDAN, Ill. (AP) — A small funeral home was packed with hundreds of mourners for a 21-year-old college student who was killed on the first day of his internship when a worker opened fire inside an Illinois manufacturing facility.

Sarah Isgur Flores: Former Trump aide hired as CNN political editor despite having no journalism experience

CNN has appointed a former Trump administration official with no journalism experience as a political editor, provoking consternation among the broadcaster’s staff and Democrat politicians. Sarah Isgur Flores, who served as chief spokeswoman and senior adviser for the US Department of Justice under attorney general Jeff Sessions, is to join the network to coordinate coverage of the 2020 presidential election. Ms Isgur Flores has previously been communications director for Republican National Committee and worked on the campaign teams of former presidential hopefuls Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz.

The Latest: Court records say 2 knew man wanted fiancee dead

DENVER (AP) — The Latest on the criminal cases tied to a Colorado woman's death (all times local):

Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders Have a Plan to Kill the Stock Market

Senators Chuck Schumer of New York and Bernie Sanders of Vermont want to penalize “self-indulgent” corporations that buy back their own stock. In a recent article in the New York Times, they argued that when companies repurchase shares, not only do the vast majority of Americans not benefit, but income inequality is exacerbated since only wealthy shareholders and corporate management profit.Despite decades of extraordinary success that the United States has enjoyed and that we enjoy today, Schumer and Sanders believe that something sinister is taking place in the corporate world. They call buybacks a form of “corporate self-indulgence.” Why? Because> corporate boardrooms have become obsessed with maximizing only shareholder earnings to the detriment of workers and the long-term strength of their companies. . . . Companies, rather than investing in ways to make their businesses more resilient or their workers more productive, have been dedicating ever larger shares of their profits to dividends and corporate repurchases.Now even some Republicans are getting on board. Florida senator Marco Rubio has suggested changes in the tax law to discourage buybacks because he says they “inflate” the prices of stock “at the expense of future productivity & job creation.”These senators don’t seem to fully understand that the purpose of a business is to allocate resources in a way that maximizes per share results over the long run. To think that this can be achieved at the expense of workers, at the expense of investing in research, at the expense of developing new and better products, at the expense of investing in equipment to both lower the cost and increase the quality of production, etc. is sophomoric. This underscores their lack of knowledge about investing and financial markets.Companies have several options with regard to the use of excess cash. They can (1) retain the funds in the company, (2) invest in the capital needed to grow the company, (3) make acquisitions, (4) pay out the excess cash in the form of dividends, or (5) repurchase shares from existing shareholders.These senators see little value in share buybacks, but they should listen to Warren Buffett, who is unequivocally a long-term investor. His financial success is a result of making exceptional long-term investments in resilient companies. Unlike Schumer and Sanders, Buffett is an enthusiastic proponent of utilizing excess cash to repurchase shares when conditions are favorable (or opportune).Here is what he said in his 1984 annual report: “The companies in which we have our largest investments are all engaged in significant share repurchases at the times when a wide discrepancy exists between price and value.” He has made this point repeatedly throughout the years. These companies repurchase shares and continue to grow, continue to invest in research, in capital that will improve the quality and lower the cost of products. He has even bought back $1 billion of shares of his own company, Berkshire Hathaway, not because he is “self-indulgent” but because he thinks the firm is undervalued.Schumer and Sanders—and in some cases they are joined by Rubio—provide two main reasons we are in a stock buyback “crisis”:> First, stock buybacks don’t benefit the vast majority of Americans.> > Second, when corporations direct resources to buy back shares on this scale, they restrain their capacity to reinvest profits more meaningfully in the company in terms of R&D, equipment, higher wages, paid medical leave, retirement benefits and worker retraining.The first point is utter nonsense. More than 100 million average Americans own stock. Americans invest in mutual funds and index funds and buy and sell stock every day. Tens of millions more have 401K plans, and most union pension funds have hundreds of billions of dollars invested in stocks.The second point is equally absurd. A corporate board of directors is elected by shareholders, the owners of the company. When a board makes the decision to repurchase shares, it is a sign of confidence in the firm’s long-term profitability. It raises share values, which obviously benefits shareholders and puts firms in better financial shape — which also benefits the employees. Essentially, Schumer and Sanders believe, and Rubio seems to believe, that they have the right to tell the owners of a corporation the best way to allocate their profits.Studies show that firms that buy back their own shares have strong long-term growth.Consider Apple. It has become the most valuable company in the world. This exceptional success was achieved because of the enormous investments they made to develop revolutionary products. Companies cannot develop revolutionary products by underpaying talented workers or without investing billions of dollars in research, factories, and equipment. Not incidentally, Apple has repurchased billions of dollars of its own stock.The hyper-competitiveness and efficiency of U.S. companies is a major reason that unemployment is at a near 50-year low. Today, no company can survive if its workers are treated poorly. Walmart, which Schumer and Sanders attacked in their article, and many other companies recently raised their wage rates substantially, starting with entry-level positions.What is most disturbing about Schumer and Sanders’s proposal is their hubris in believing that they know how every company should handle its excess cash better than the CEOs, the boards of directors, and shareholders do. That is a rather all-encompassing statement. One would be hard-pressed to find a more vivid example of what Friedrich Hayek called “the fatal conceit,” the distorted notion that one knows more than is knowable. Would Buffett invest in a company if Schumer and Sanders were in charge of allocating its resources?We doubt it. Who in their right mind would?If approved, what Schumer and Sanders propose would not only hurt U.S. companies. It would harm the entire U.S. economy and financial system. It would raise the cost of capital for companies. What they advocate would tell domestic and foreign investors that our government is interfering with how companies allocate their resources.What is the difference between going after a large company with lots of shareholders and a small company with one owner? How long before Senators Schumer and Sanders tell the tire-shop owner that he has not paid his employees enough and that therefore he has withdrawn too much of the profit as an owner distribution?Every shareholder and business owner in America should rise up in loud protest against what these senators are proposing.Thomas A. Smith is the president of the Smith Foundation and ran a successful investment company for 40 years. Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economic consultant with FreedomWorks.

Pakistan bans groups linked to Mumbai attack suspects

Pakistan on Thursday banned two groups believed to be fronts for the group blamed for the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, amid heightened pressure on Islamabad to act against militants. Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation were designated "proscribed organisations", the interior ministry said in a statement, adding that Prime Minister Imran Khan had ordered officials to accelerate action against banned groups. JuD and FIF are considered by the UN to be fronts for Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group accused by Washington and New Delhi of carrying out the Mumbai attack, which killed 166 people and brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.

Snow, sleet threaten U.S. East Coast, hinder hundreds of flights

A winter storm bore down on the U.S. East Coast on Wednesday, threatening to snarl New York City's evening commute after hindering air travel along the East Coast and prompting the shutdown of federal offices in Washington. Snow turning to sleet slickened roadways in the New York metropolitan area by the early afternoon and was blamed for a rash of fender benders and traffic jams. The widespread weather system piled as much as 6 inches (15 cm) of snow across the Washington area before turning to sleet, said meteorologist Bryan Jackson of the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

Saudi Crown Prince Set to Arrive in China as Asian Tour Rolls On

The visit will include a meeting with President Xi Jinping and a high-level joint dialogue aimed at boosting relations after the nations agreed to promote a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2016. China overtook the U.S. as the kingdom’s biggest trading partner in 2013. The world’s most populous nation accounted for about 15 percent of all Saudi imports and exports last year compared with 8 percent a decade earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Trump appears unaware of his administration's own pro-LGBT+ campaign just two days after launch

Donald Trump has appeared to claim ignorance at his administration’s own plan to pressure dozens of countries around the world into ending the criminalisation of homosexuality. During an exchange with assembled media at the White House on Wednesday, the US president was asked about the initiative launched on Tuesday, which is being spearheaded by US ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who is gay. “Mr President, on your push to decriminalise homosexuality, are you doing that?

Gory details emerge about missing woman's suspected demise

DENVER (AP) — After months of mostly silence from authorities investigating the disappearance of a Colorado mother on Thanksgiving Day, grim details about her suspected demise emerged this week, including accusations that the woman's fiance beat her to death with a baseball bat while their baby was in the next room.

Many Americans Are Shocked By Their Tax Returns in 2019. Here’s What You Should Know

People may receive less money in their tax refunds this year. The average federal tax return rate is down 8.7%.

Missionary from Utah Dies While Serving in the Dominican Republic

A missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from Utah who was serving in the Dominican Republic died Wednesday after falling from a roof.

Abbas says will reject reduced tax reimbursement from Israel

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Wednesday he would not accept partial payment of tax transfers owed by Israel, which decided to withhold reimbursements in retaliation for payments to prisoners jailed for attacks. "We shall not accept the (tax) money if it is not paid in full," Abbas told a central committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. Israel's security cabinet on Sunday approved the freezing of $138 million (122 million euros) over the Palestinian Authority's payments to prisoners jailed for attacks on Israelis.

Abuse victims demand to see pope, call for bishops to be fired

The 12 victims met with five Vatican officials a day before the start of an unprecedented conference on clerical abuse that aims to guide senior bishops on how best to tackle a problem that has decimated the Church's credibility. All the survivors of abuse who took part in the meeting, which lasted more than two hours, said they were disappointed the pope did not attend, even though he was not scheduled to be there. "We need to have a discussion with the man who makes the rules and has the power in this institution, and that's Pope Francis," said Peter Isely, an American from Milwaukee who was abused when he was a boy by a priest.