NEW YORK (AP) — A new lawsuit lays out an explosive tale of Trump allies, the White House and Fox News Channel conspiring to push a false story about Democratic leaks and an unsolved killing in order to distract attention from the Russia investigation that has been swirling around the president…
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Nicolas Maduro's government says it is close to convening a special assembly endowed with powers to rewrite the constitution, override other branches of government and punish opposition leaders….
BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — President Michel Temer appeared to have the upper-hand Wednesday going into a key vote by the lower chamber of Brazil's Congress on whether to suspend him and put him on trial over an alleged bribery scheme to line his pockets….
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican senators are bucking President Donald Trump's calls to revive the health care debate. And Trump just ousted his only top White House aide with deep links to the Republican Party….
BALTIMORE (AP) — A U.S. Supreme Court decision triggering new sentences for inmates serving mandatory life without parole for crimes committed as juveniles has had a far greater effect: The ruling is prompting lawyers to apply its fundamental logic – that it's cruel and unusual to lock teens up for life – to a larger population, those whose sentences include a parole provision but who stand little chance of getting out….
Older people are dying on the job at a higher rate than workers overall, even as the rate of workplace fatalities decreases, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal statistics….
SEI MENCIRIM, Indonesia (AP) — The slim boys in Muslim caps and robes at the Al Hidayah Islamic boarding school are grinning bolts of energy who love football, need a little coaxing to do their math and Quran lessons assiduously and aspire to become policemen or respected preachers….
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has told members of his New Jersey golf club that he spends so much time away from Washington because the White House is a "real dump."…
WASHINGTON (AP) — Raised voices could be heard through the thick door to the Oval Office as John Kelly – then secretary of Homeland Security – offered some tough talk to President Donald Trump….
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's threat to stop billions of dollars in government payments to insurers and force the collapse of "Obamacare" could put the government in a tricky legal situation….
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Two of Venezuela's leading opposition figures were taken from their homes in the middle of the night by state security agents on Tuesday, in President Nicolas Maduro's first moves against his enemies since a widely denounced vote giving his government nearly unlimited powers….
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — It's just a few blocks from the house Earl Rice Jr. left behind as a teenager to the places he remembers. But after more than four decades in prison, he has ground to cover….
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea has been condemned and sanctioned for its nuclear ambitions, yet has still received food, fuel and other aid from its neighbors and adversaries for decades. How does the small, isolated country keep getting what it wants and needs?…
PHOENIX (AP) — The political defiance that made Joe Arpaio popular and seemingly untouchable as metro Phoenix's sheriff of 24 years ultimately led to his downfall as he was convicted of a crime for ignoring a U.S. court order to stop traffic patrols that targeted immigrants….
CAIRO (AP) — Reda el-Sebaay was taking the subway while on a short business trip to Cairo from a Nile Delta city when he stumbled upon clerics offering religious advice or fatwas – answers to any question a Muslim follower might have….
PORT REPUBLIC, N.J. (AP) — They're called "ghost forests" – dead trees along vast swaths of coastline invaded by rising seas, something scientists call one of the most visible markers of climate change….
WASHINGTON (AP) — Old inns along the Revolutionary War trails boast of George Washington sleeping there. But coin experts say they have found the first silver piece minted by the United States – one likely held by the most en vogue of Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton….
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded the United States cut its embassy and consulate staff in Russia by 755 people, underlining his displeasure with U.S. sanctions and heightening tensions between Washington and Moscow….
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan electoral authorities said more than 8 million people voted to create a constitutional assembly endowing President Nicolas Maduro's ruling socialist party with virtually unlimited powers – a turnout more than double that estimated by outsiders and by opponents who derided the announcement….
In the past decade or so, the U.S. Supreme Court and state legislatures have taken steps to scale back the most extreme punishments for juvenile criminals. Here's how the laws have changed and some reasons why teens who were sentenced to life without parole are now getting a second chance:…
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — It was a routine check. Two vans, both without license plates, were stopped earlier this month by police in Afghanistan's eastern Ghazni province, where Taliban hold sway in large swaths of the countryside….
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A car bombing targeted the Iraqi Embassy in central Kabul on Monday, followed by gunfire, Afghan police officials said. There were no immediate reports of casualties….
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Security remained heightened in airports around Australia with more intense screening of luggage after law enforcement officials thwarted what a police chief described on Monday as a "credible attempt to attack an aircraft."…
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Army medic from Michigan who risked his life multiple times to rescue Vietnam War comrades is becoming the first person to receive the Medal of Honor from President Donald Trump….
NEW YORK (AP) — Weary Republicans in Washington may be ready to move on from health care, but conservatives across the United States are warning the GOP-led Congress not to abandon its pledge to repeal the Obama-era health law – or risk a political nightmare in next year's elections….
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened once more to end required payments to insurance companies unless lawmakers repeal and replace the Obama-era health care law….
WASHINGTON (AP) — Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly is a battle-hardened commander who would bring a background of military discipline and order to President Donald Trump's roiling White House as the new chief of staff….
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — She dances beneath 10-foot portraits of two smiling dictators, a modern young woman in a central Pyongyang plaza who twirls to music calling on North Koreans to die for their leader….
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The United States flew two supersonic bombers over the Korean Peninsula on Sunday in a show of force against North Korea following the country's latest intercontinental ballistic missile test….
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — For all its bluster and over-the-top propaganda, North Korea often does just what it says it will do when it comes to its weapons development….
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan's parliament will meet Tuesday to elect a new prime minister after the disqualification of three-term prime minister Nawaz Sharif….
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Police disrupted the first alleged plot in Australia to bring down an airplane and arrested four men in raids on Sydney homes, officials said Sunday….
A "steady stream" of tourists left a North Carolina island Saturday under evacuation orders prompted by a widespread power outage, wiping out a significant chunk of the lucrative summer months for local businesses….
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Nicolas Maduro is pledging to go after his political foes with the virtually unlimited powers of a constitutional assembly that his backers will select Sunday as his opponents wage a last-ditch battle to halt what they call the replacement of Venezuelan democracy with a single-party authoritarian system….
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Saturday the second flight test of an intercontinental ballistic missile demonstrated his country can hit the U.S. mainland, hours after the launch left analysts concluding that a wide swath of the United States, including Los Angeles and Chicago, is now in range of North Korean weapons….
WASHINGTON (AP) — Six months into his presidency, Donald Trump is saddled with a stalled agenda, a West Wing that resembles a viper's nest, a pile of investigations and a Republican Party that is starting to break away….
WASHINGTON (AP) — The resounding Senate crash of the seven-year Republican drive to scrap the Obama health care law incited GOP finger-pointing Friday but left the party with wounded leaders and no evident pathway forward on an issue that won't go away….
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea's rapidly accelerating nuclear weapons program is beginning to pose a grave challenge for liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in, whose dovish proposals for engagement have been met by silence and two intercontinental ballistic missile tests in less than a month….
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will sign a package of stiff financial sanctions against Russia that passed Congress with overwhelming support, the White House said Friday. Moscow has already responded, ordering a reduction in the number of U.S. diplomats in Russia and closing the U.S. Embassy's recreation retreat….
ISLAMABAD (AP) — The ruling party of deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will choose his successor Saturday, a day after Pakistan's Supreme Court removed the premier from office after finding that he and his family concealed their assets, officials said….
BRENTWOOD, N.Y. (AP) — Talking tough on illegal immigration and violent crime, President Donald Trump appeared Friday to advocate rougher treatment of people in police custody, speaking dismissively of the police practice of shielding the heads of handcuffed suspects as they are being placed in patrol cars….
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard said Saturday a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier fired a warning shot in an "unprofessional" confrontation with Iranian vessels, the official IRNA news agency reported….
FREMONT, Calif. (AP) — Tesla Inc. has finally made its long-promised affordable electric car. But it could take years to get it to all the people who want to buy it….
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dealing a serious blow to President Donald Trump's agenda, the Senate early Friday rejected a measure to repeal parts of former President Barack Obama's health care law after a night of high suspense in the U.S. Capitol….
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's new communications director exploded the smoldering tensions at the White House into a full-fledged conflagration Thursday, angrily daring Trump's chief of staff to deny he's a "leaker" and exposing West Wing backstabbing in language more suitable to a mobster movie than a seat of presidential stability….
ISLAMABAD (AP) — A five-judge panel of Pakistan's Supreme Court on Friday disqualified thrice-elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from holding office over allegations of corruption against him and his family….
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's Foreign Ministry has ordered a reduction in the number of U.S. diplomats in Russia and said it was closing down a U.S. recreation retreat in response to fresh sanctions against Russia….
MOSCOW (AP) — Pyotr Levashov appeared to be just another comfortable member of Russia's rising middle-class – an IT entrepreneur with a taste for upmarket restaurants, Thai massages and foreign travel….
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — As pressure on North Korea grows over its nuclear weapons program, America's most valued Arab allies host thousands of its laborers whose wages help Pyongyang evade sanctions and build the missiles now threatening the U.S. and its Asian partners, officials and analysts say….
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has provoked international criticism and enraged his political opponents by pushing for a special assembly to rewrite the troubled South American nation's constitution….
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A high school student who dreamed for years of joining the military and had just enlisted in the Marines was killed when a spinning and swinging thrill ride broke apart and sent several of its passengers tumbling onto the midway at the Ohio State Fair….
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's decision to ban transgender service in the armed forces drove a wedge through military veterans in Congress, with one camp standing squarely behind the commander in chief and the other decrying his order as an ugly attack on dedicated troops….
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate debate over health care has made it painfully clear: behind their self-confident "repeal and replace" slogan, Republicans were never united around an alternative to "Obamacare."…
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A state fair, where one person was killed and seven others were injured when an "aggressive thrill" ride broke apart, will be open Thursday, officials said, but the rides won't be running until they all are determined to be safe….
JERUSALEM (AP) — Muslim leaders told the faithful to return to pray inside a major Jerusalem holy site on Thursday after Israel removed security devices it installed outside entrances to the shrine following a deadly Palestinian attack at the compound….
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Qatar has hired a Washington influence firm founded by President Donald Trump's former campaign manager and another specialized in digging up dirt on U.S. politicians, signaling it wants to challenge Saudi Arabia's massive lobbying efforts in America's capital amid a diplomatic dispute among Arab nations….
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Two women accused of poisoning the estranged half brother of North Korea's ruler in a bizarre airport assassination are expected to plead innocent when they appear in a Malaysian court on Friday, their lawyers said….
BARTLETT, Tenn. (AP) — Millions of eyes will be fixed on the sky when a total solar eclipse crosses the U.S. in August, and it's likely many of them will be safely behind the special glasses churned out by a Tennessee company….
WASHINGTON (AP) — Where the Senate Republican effort to demolish the Obama health care law ends up is anyone's guess, but early indications are the GOP will have a hard time replacing that statute with any sweeping changes….
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman will not be testifying Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, as originally scheduled, after the committee rescinded its subpoena….
JERUSALEM (AP) — A senior Muslim official in Jerusalem said Wednesday that worshippers would not return to a contested shrine until Israel removes the new railings and cameras it installed after a deadly attack there….
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A former Marine believed so strongly in the war against the Islamic State group that he secretly traveled to Syria, where he was killed this month while fighting for a Kurdish militia group….
BORMES-LES-MIMOSAS, France (AP) — Authorities ordered the evacuation of 10,000 people as fires hopscotched around the Riviera for a third day Wednesday, tearing through the forest of La Londe-les-Maures….
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Silent but defiant, Cardinal George Pell made his first court appearance in Australia on Wednesday on charges of sexual abuse, vowing through his lawyer to fight the allegations that have rocked Rome and threatened the pope's image as a crusader against abusive clergy….
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. Muslims say they have experienced widespread suspicion about their faith in the first months of Donald Trump's presidency, but also have received more support from individual Americans, and remain hopeful they can eventually be fully accepted in American society, a new survey finds….
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York state is set to study the use of a device known as the "textalyzer" that would allow police to determine whether a motorist involved in a serious crash was texting while driving….
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican leaders are steering the Senate toward a crucial vote on their bill eviscerating much of President Barack Obama's health care law, buoyed by the near theatrical return to the Capitol of the ailing Sen. John McCain….
WASHINGTON (AP) — At the twilight of a storied career and battling a brain tumor, Sen. John McCain stands poised to deliver for his party and his president on the issue that's defined the GOP for the past seven years….
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner will return to Capitol Hill Tuesday for a second day of private meetings with congressional investigators, this time for a closed-door conversation with lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee….
SAN DIEGO (AP) — When Thomas Homan, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was awakened Sunday morning with news that migrants were found dead inside a sweltering tractor-trailer outside a San Antonio Walmart, his mind flashed back to 2003, when he stood at the back of a truck about 120 miles (200 kilometers) southeast of San Antonio that carried 19 dead migrants….
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel on Tuesday dismantled metal detectors it installed a week earlier at a contested Jerusalem shrine, hoping to defuse a crisis with the Muslim world, including security ally Jordan, the Muslim custodian of the holy site….
BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels and activists are warning that an al-Qaida-linked jihadi group is on the verge of snuffing out what remains of the country's uprising in northwestern Syria, after the extremists seized control of the opposition-held regional capital, Idlib, last weekend….
SAO JOAQUIM DE BICAS, BRAZIL (AP) — At the Word of Faith Fellowship churches in the Brazilian cities of Sao Joaquim de Bicas and Franco da Rocha, the signs of broken families are everywhere: parents separated from their children, siblings who no longer speak, grandparents who wonder if they will ever know their grandchildren….
NEW YORK (AP) — Children whose sexual characteristics don't neatly align with the norm have for decades faced surgery to rearrange their anatomy to resemble that of more typical boys and girls – long before they were old enough to have a say in the decision….
Sharon Steen dons her tennis shoes and, with two fellow seniors, walks streets that in her youth were a vibrant center of Portland, Oregon's African-American community. Wasn't this the corner where an NAACP march began in 1963? Look, the record store is now a fancy high-rise….
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional investigators probing Russia's meddling in the U.S. election will have their first opportunity this week to hear from someone in President Donald Trump's innermost circle: son-in-law Jared Kushner….
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Nine people are dead and the death toll could rise after emergency crews pulled dozens of people from a sweltering tractor-trailer found parked outside a Walmart in the midsummer Texas heat, victims of what officials said was an immigrant-smuggling attempt gone wrong….
JERUSALEM (AP) — A deadly shooting at Israel's Embassy in Jordan further complicated Israeli government efforts on Monday to find a way out of an escalating crisis over Jerusalem's most contested holy site, including mass Muslim prayer protests and Israeli-Palestinian violence….
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A suicide bomber rammed his car packed with explosives into a bus carrying government employees in the Afghan capital early on Monday, killing 24 people and wounding 42 others, Kabul's police chief spokesman said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the assault….
SPINDALE, N.C. (AP) — When Andre Oliveira answered the call to leave his Word of Faith Fellowship congregation in Brazil to move to the mother church in North Carolina at the age of 18, his passport and money were confiscated by church leaders – for safekeeping, he said he was told….
HAMHUNG, North Korea (AP) — In the 10 years he has been digging up ordnance from the Korean War, Maj. Jong Il Hyon has lost five colleagues to explosions. He carries a lighter one gave him before he died. He also bears a scar on his left cheek from a bomb disposal mission gone wrong….
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A year ago Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte promised to cleanse his Southeast Asian nation of illegal drugs in three to six months. He said he would tame corruption and began a profanity-spiked tongue lashing of America – which he called "lousy" last week. Those "shock and awe" declarations of a year ago have collided with reality. Drugs and corruption have persisted and he grudgingly thanked the United States recently for helping t…
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. (AP) — Sitting in a classroom above a gun range, a woman hesitantly says she isn't sure she could ever shoot and kill someone, even to protect herself. Couldn't she just aim for their leg and try to maim them?…
A South African girl born with the AIDS virus has kept her infection suppressed for more than eight years after stopping anti-HIV medicines – more evidence that early treatment can occasionally cause a long remission that, if it lasts, would be a form of cure….
NAJAF, Iraq (AP) — In the wake of victory against the Islamic State group in Mosul, Iraq's political, religious and military leaders are debating the future of the country's powerful Shiite militias – the tens of thousands of men who answered a religious call to arms three years ago and played a critical role in beating back the extremists….
Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are solely those
of Eric Brooks. They do not necessarily
reflect those of his employers, friends, contacts, family, or even his pets (though my cat,
Puddy,
seems to agree with me on many key issues.). In accordance to my terms of use, you hereby
acknowledge my right to psychoanalyze you, practice accupuncture, and mock you incessantly
with every visit. As the user, you also acknowledge that the author has been legally declared
a "Problem Adult" by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and is therefore not
responsible for any of his actions. ALSO, the political views and products advertised on this site may/may not reflect the views of Puddy or myself, so please don't take them as an endorsement. We just need to eat.