In 1961, shortly after John F. Kennedy had been sworn in as president, two journalists, Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey, set to writing a political thriller. It was inspired by the unsettling behavior of two generals, Edwin Walker and Curtis LeMay, both of whom had a history of using their positions to spout dangerous right-wing rhetoric that threatened to provoke nuclear war. In Knebel ...

MINNEAPOLIS -- Tram Nguyen has used restroom floors, the grass at city parks and the back of her van to change her 7-year-old daughter's diapers. Her daughter, Sadie, who was born with a chromosomal abnormality that limits her mobility, has outgrown the infant changing tables in most public restrooms. "It's disgusting and undignified to have to lay your daughter on a bathroom floor," said ...

There are places where violence can be particularly destructive. Inside a fuselage jammed with people flying at 600 mph at 30,000 feet is certainly one of them. The Federal Aviation Administration has made a dent in the nation’s unruly passenger problem. Its new zero tolerance policy resulted in a big decline in the number of reported incidents last year. But too many people are still ...

Whether or not to help the Ukrainians drive Russian invaders out of their country is rapidly becoming a 2024 campaign issue. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says aiding Kyiv is not a vital U.S. interest, and dismisses the brutal Russian invasion as a "territorial dispute" with Ukraine. Meantime, former President Donald Trump says if he were reelected, he would negotiate a deal that let Russia take ...

LONDON — Britain is set to host a meeting of world justice ministers to discuss potential war crimes being committed in Ukraine, after an arrest warrant was issued for Russian President Vladimir Putin. British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab will speak alongside his Dutch counterpart at the meeting in central London on Monday, in which over 40 nations will convene in support of the ...

MIAMI — As fans arrived Sunday afternoon at loanDepot Park, they donned red, white and blue gear — the colors of the two nations facing off in a contentious matchup. But for many, it’s more than a game. The U.S. is now coming up against Cuba in a World Baseball Classic affair hosted in Miami, home to the largest Cuban American community in the country. This year’s meeting between the two teams ...

BERLIN — Montenegro went to the polls on Sunday to elect a new president, with pro-Western incumbent Milo Djukanovic running against six rivals, including four members from the pro-Serbian camp. Polling stations in the Balkan country were set to close at 8 p.m. The first official results were expected on Monday night, although unofficial forecasts could come in earlier. By the early afternoon, ...

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden expressed concern to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about a planned judicial overhaul and appealed for compromise after the overhaul sent Israelis into the streets to protest. In a call with Netanyahu on Sunday, Biden underscored his belief “that democratic societies are strengthened by genuine checks and balances, and that fundamental changes should ...

A masked protester was arrested during clashing demonstrations outside a Manhattan drag story hour hosted by state Attorney General Letitia James Sunday, cops said. The gold-masked man was taken into custody about 11:30 a.m. after an assault at the protest outside the LGBTQ Community Center on W. 13th St. in Greenwich Village. Video posted on Twitter shows a small group of protesters, ...

Even though insurrectionist-in-chief Donald Trump was restored to Twitter in November by Elon Musk (Trump still hasn’t resumed his postings and his last tweet was Jan. 8, 2021) and on Friday he was returned to Facebook and YouTube with innocuous greetings, he used own Truth Social Saturday morning to say that “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES ...

Central banks around the world lined up to hail Credit Suisse’s rescue, and emphasized the strength of the lenders under their remit. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said they welcomed the Credit Suisse deal announced Sunday and stressed that the capital and liquidity of U.S. banks is strong. “We welcome the announcements by the Swiss authorities ...

A coalition of midsize U.S. banks asked federal regulators to extend FDIC insurance to all deposits for the next two years, arguing the guarantee is needed to avoid a wider run on the banks. “Doing so will immediately halt the exodus of deposits from smaller banks, stabilize the banking sector and greatly reduce chances of more bank failures,” the Mid-Size Bank Coalition of America said in a ...

WASHINGTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren is calling for more U.S. deposits to be covered by federal insurance and demanding government probes into whether lax regulation fueled this month’s collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. The comments this weekend from the Massachusetts Democrat, a frequent critic of the finance industry, raise the political pressure in an already tense ...

MIAMI — The city of Miami Beach declared a state of emergency and announced a midnight curfew Sunday after two deadly shootings rocked Ocean Drive this weekend amid huge spring break crowds. City Manager Alina Hudak issued the order after a fatal shooting around 3:30 a.m. Sunday on Ocean Drive near 11th Street. City officials initially declined to impose a curfew after one person was killed ...

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has been invited by Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz to visit the kingdom’s capital, state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported. It’s just the latest example of rapid-fire rapprochement between the regional competitors. Earlier on Sunday, Iran’s foreign minister said he’ll meet with his Saudi counterpart soon. Raisi “welcomed” the invitation to come ...

LOS ANGELES — On the eve of her 100th day in office, Mayor Karen Bass enjoys strong approval ratings among Angelenos — a reservoir of goodwill that will be crucial for the new mayor during uphill battles ahead. Half of Angelenos approve of the job Bass is doing so far, while just 14% say they disapprove, according to a Suffolk University/Los Angeles Times poll conducted March 9-12. A little ...

NEW YORK — More than four years after it was launched, the Manhattan district attorney’s long-lived criminal probe into Donald Trump is potentially about to produce the first criminal indictment ever filed against a former U.S. president. District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office has been presenting evidence to a grand jury since January. The panel is believed to be hearing about the infamous ...

As lawmakers and mental health advocates wrestle with how to stop the avalanche of suicides by firearm in this country, some are looking to a novel idea at work in a handful of states: Register yourself as a suicide risk so you can’t buy a gun on a whim. Mass shootings get more attention, but the smaller-scale tragedy of gun suicide represents a majority of firearm deaths in most states. In ...

At a downtown office block in Mumbai, India, packing tape peels off a black door whose handle appears to have been ripped out. A pile of post is strewn on the floor outside. A guy from a neighboring office says the staff moved out a few weeks ago, destination unknown. Almost 1,200 miles away in Dubai, a small office in a run down industrial estate, offers no clues that it, too, is a small cog ...

MIAMI — When she visited Florida Polytechnic University with a group of girls from her middle school class last month, Sarah imagined herself in college learning how to use the beakers and Bunsen burners she saw while touring the chemistry lab. As a sixth grader, Sarah was at the age when studies show girls first start to fall behind in fields of science and technology — a trend that continues ...

LOS ANGELES — Four years ago, when Alejandro Giammattei was elected president of Guatemala, immigrants living in the United States were able to vote for the first time. In that experimental election, 734 votes were counted among the four polling stations that were installed in Los Angeles, Houston, New York City and Silver Spring, Maryland — a tiny fraction of the more than 5 million votes ...

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress and their staffers rebounded from pandemic travel anxiety in 2022, accepting more than $6.6 million worth of airline tickets, hotel rooms and meals paid for by special interest groups. The total of 1,785 trips that were paid for by outside organizations last year was up from 829 trips in 2021, and 321 in 2020, when travel was limited by coronavirus ...

Rep. George Santos has a plan to survive — and it’s straight out of the MAGA playbook. Mocked by late night comics and mostly shunned by his own party’s leaders, the controversial Long Island Republican has found a political home in the far-right wing of the GOP. Santos, who admits to lying about much of his background, now says he’s a victim of the liberal media, Deep State prosecutors and ...

President Vladimir Putin made unannounced visits to Crimea and the Ukrainian city of Mariupol at the weekend for what were termed “reunification” events, nine years after Russia’s 2014 annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine. Putin had earlier been expected to take part in the day’s ceremonies via video link, according to his spokesman, but was shown on state TV strolling in Sevastopol, ...

ROME — The Vatican gave up its diplomatic presence in Nicaragua when the last representative of the Papal States left the embassy there, the Vatican News portal reported on Saturday. Monsignor Marcel Diouf, the final representative at the Vatican's diplomatic mission, or nunciature, in Managua has been stationed in Costa Rica instead. Nicaragua's authoritarian president Daniel Ortega recently ...

WASHINGTON — Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Warren Buffett has been in touch with senior officials in President Joe Biden’s administration in recent days as the regional banking crisis unfolds. The outreach between Buffett and the administration was described by people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. It wasn’t immediately clear what role, if ...

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Summerville’s Don Corinna had a choice to consider Saturday at the Charleston Area Convention Center. The 62-year-old software salesman, who moved from Boston to South Carolina in October, said he likes former Gov. Nikki Haley as a 2024 Republican presidential contender, but he also likes U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. “I don’t care what your ...

The U.S. State Department issued a warning Friday for Americans to “exercise caution” when buying medications from drug stores in Mexico, posting the health alert a week after a letter from two lawmakers and an investigation by the Los Angeles Times. “The U.S. Department of State is aware of recent media reports regarding counterfeit pharmaceuticals available at pharmacies in Mexico, including ...

Serbia and Kosovo agreed on steps to implement a European Union plan aimed at defusing disputes that have threatened stability in the Balkans, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said as he mediated the latest round of talks between the wartime foes. Kosovo will immediately begin by allowing “self-management” for local minority Serbs, Borrell said late Saturday at a news ...

CHICAGO — In a particularly heated forum, Chicago mayoral candidates Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson repeatedly clashed over economic policy, school closings and street violence. Vallas, a former Chicago Public Schools CEO, repeatedly raised his voice and told Johnson, a Cook County commissioner and Chicago Teachers Union organizer, not to lecture him in a Saturday debate hosted at Kenwood ...

Donald Trump’s claim of an imminent arrest jolted the 2024 Republican primary field, with party leaders rallying to his side while forcing his potential challengers to choose between publicly supporting the former president or backing the moves of a Democratic prosecutor. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other Republicans quickly coalesced around Trump, suggesting that his arrest would be ...

LOS ANGELES — After nearly three years of controversy and intense debate, Manhattan Beach on Saturday held a ceremony of its own to acknowledge its racist history at Bruce’s Beach — and to mark what city leaders are calling a new chapter of healing. More than 100 residents, city staff and government officials gathered to reflect on the fact that the city once ran an entire community of Black ...

WASHINGTON — Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said he plans to introduce a measure that would prevent big bank executives from serving on the boards of the regional Federal Reserve banks that oversee them. “One of the most absurd aspects of the Silicon Valley bank failure is that its CEO was a director of the same body in charge of regulating it: the San Francisco Fed,” the Vermont senator said on ...

NEW YORK — A Peekskill man has been arrested for allegedly running the dark web hacking forum known as BreachForums. Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, who went by the screen name “pompompurin,” is charged in a Virginia federal court with one count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, court documents say. Fitzpatrick, who is either 20 or 21 years old, was arrested this week at his home in ...

The family of Julian Assange defended the WikiLeaks founder as an unfairly imprisoned journalist while opening up about their ongoing efforts to raise awareness about the case and the subsequent effects it could have on the free press. Assange is wanted in the United States on charges related to WikiLeaks’ publication of thousands of classified documents back in 2010 and 2011. They primarily ...

LOS ANGELES — Federal prosecutors finished presenting evidence in their corruption case Friday against suspended Los Angeles City Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas, clearing the way for the powerful lawmaker's defense to share its side of the case next week. The case centers on votes and official actions that Ridley-Thomas took as a member of L.A. County's five-member Board of Supervisors that ...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released an order Wednesday which instructs Missouri, along with 22 other states, to reduce its air pollution levels. The order, called the Good Neighbor Rule, focuses on reducing emissions of nitrous oxides from power plants and industrial facilities. These gasses directly contribute to ground-level ozone, also known as smog. “This ...

A coalition of midsize U.S. banks asked federal regulators to extend FDIC insurance to all deposits for the next two years, arguing the guarantee is needed to avoid a wider run on the banks. “Doing so will immediately halt the exodus of deposits from smaller banks, stabilize the banking sector and greatly reduce chances of more bank failures,” the Mid-Size Bank Coalition of America said in a ...

Former President Donald Trump said he expected to be arrested next week on New York charges and, echoing his rhetoric before the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, called for protesters to “take our nation back.” Trump said in a Saturday morning all-caps post on his Truth Social platform that, based on unspecified leaks, he expected to be arrested on Tuesday in a case being pursued by Manhattan District ...

LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan Republican Party is facing $460,000 in debt and is in a "pickle" about the looming presidential primary race, according to comments recently made by new state GOP Chairwoman Kristina Karamo. Karamo, who won the top position in the Michigan GOP last month, told Republicans in Muskegon County on March 11 about the debt and said it is possible the party could ...

A high-ranking Memphis, Tennessee, police officer on the scene after the violent arrest of Tyre Nichols retired ahead of a hearing that would have determined whether or not he would have been fired for his response, according to court documents. Nichols was pulled over on Jan. 7 in Memphis’ Hickory Hill neighborhood on allegations of reckless driving. He was repeatedly punched, tased and ...

MOSCOW — Russia and Ukraine have agreed to renew the crucial Black Sea grain deal which was due to expire within hours, officials from all sides said on Saturday following last-minute talks, but there was no confirmation as to how long it would be extended. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was the first to confirm that the deal would continue beyond Sunday. "Following our talks with both ...

STOCKHOLM — Sweden will continue efforts to persuade Turkey to lift its block on the entry of the largest Nordic country into defense alliance NATO after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan opened the door to Finland’s accession. Erdogan’s decision on Friday to instruct the parliament to ratify the Finnish application dashed the Nordic countries’ hopes of a parallel entry process. Hungary’s ...

TAMPA, Fla. — Cookie Kennedy was out for a walk with a friend one day this winter when she felt a familiar dread creep up on her. As the pair strolled the north shore of Indian Rocks Beach, the small Pinellas County city where Kennedy is mayor, they were forced to weave their way through a thickening crowd of beachgoers. The land where they stood had shrunk. Pinellas County’s beaches are ...

SAN DIEGO — With enforcement of San Diego's new ban on polystyrene foam food trays, pool toys and more scheduled to take effect April 1, city officials are scrambling to coach affected businesses, clarify the complex regulations and consider emergency waiver requests. Such requests include one from a coalition of local grocery stores asking for a two-year reprieve for raw meat foam packaging. ...

California is attempting to reckon with its history of racial oppression and violence and produce justice, in the form of reparations, from the bitter fruit. If the state succeeds in its reckoning it will be an enormous public service. If it should actually succeed in dispensing justice it might be something more like a miracle. The Task Force to Study and Develop Reparations Proposals for ...

A clash involving disgruntled Coinbase Global Inc. customers will give the U.S. Supreme Court its first taste of the world of cryptocurrency, foreshadowing future cases that could help define the industry. The justices on Tuesday hear arguments stemming from Coinbase’s efforts to push two lawsuits into arbitration. The joint case comes as higher-stakes fights work their way toward the court, ...

AMSTERDAM — The International Criminal Court on Friday issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and one of his government ministers — a largely symbolic step, but one that could resonate powerfully with those hoping to see top Kremlin leaders held to account for a brutal war. The warrants, the first issued in connection with the year-old Ukraine conflict, cites alleged ...

Former Pakistan Premier Imran Khan vowed to turn up in court on Saturday after skipping hearings, potentially setting the scene for further political unrest in a country that’s at risk of a default. Supporters battled with security forces outside the former cricket star’s private residence in Lahore this week as police attempted to arrest Khan. He faces charges of failing to disclose funds ...

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is investigating whether the Chinese owner of TikTok has been conducting improper surveillance on American citizens and journalists in particular, as the company deals with significant opposition in its efforts to continue operating the popular video-sharing app in the U.S. The probe is being conducted by the department’s criminal division and the FBI, ...