| Islamic State leader raped American hostage, US finds Posted: 14 Aug 2015 03:49 PM PDT  American hostage Kayla Mueller was repeatedly forced to have sex with Abu Bakr Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State group, according to accounts provided to U.S. intelligence officials.
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| Cost of hunt for escaped NY killers topped $1 million a day Posted: 14 Aug 2015 12:08 PM PDT  Payroll records suggest the hunt for two escaped killers in northern New York cost more than $1 million a day, with overtime alone for state troopers and corrections officers $22 million higher than last year.
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| Islamic State uses theology to justify rape, enslavement of Yazidi women Posted: 14 Aug 2015 05:37 AM PDT  A wrenching look by The New York Times into the Islamic State's enslavement and rape of women from the Yazidi minority group has shed light on one of the most disturbing aspects of its rule in Syria and Iraq. The practice, according to reporter Rukmini Callimachi, was formalized a year ago, when IS announced it was bringing institutionalized slavery back. To handle them, the Islamic State has developed a detailed bureaucracy of sex slavery, including sales contracts notarized by the ISIS-run Islamic courts.
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| Kerry urges 'genuine democracy' at U.S. flag ceremony in Cuba Posted: 14 Aug 2015 03:55 PM PDT  By Daniel Trotta and Lesley Wroughton HAVANA (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry declared a new era in relations as he celebrated restored diplomatic ties in Havana on Friday, but he also urged political change in Cuba, telling Cubans they should be free to choose their own leaders. The first U.S. secretary of state to visit the Caribbean island in 70 years, Kerry presided over a ceremony to raise the U.S. flag over the newly reopened American embassy. "We remain convinced the people of Cuba would be best served by a genuine democracy, where people are free to choose their leaders," he said in a country where the Communist Party is the only legal political party, the media is tightly controlled, and political dissent is repressed.
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| How St. Louis police added Twitter to its arsenal Posted: 14 Aug 2015 05:33 AM PDT  The St. Louis County Police Department has significantly altered its approach to social media since Michael Brown's death last year.
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| AP EXCLUSIVE: Top secret Clinton emails include drone talk Posted: 14 Aug 2015 02:32 PM PDT WASHINGTON (AP) — Neither of the two emails sent to Hillary Rodham Clinton now labeled by intelligence agencies as "top secret" contained information that would jump out to experts as particularly sensitive, according to several government officials. |
| In speech, Rubio slams Obama's outreach to Iran and Cuba Posted: 14 Aug 2015 04:53 AM PDT  NEW YORK (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio is slamming President Barack Obama's outreach to Iran and Cuba, calling his diplomacy with the two nations evidence of "every flawed strategic, moral and economic notion" that has driven his foreign policy.
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| Japanese leader Abe stops short of apology for World War II Posted: 14 Aug 2015 02:33 PM PDT  TOKYO (AP) — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe acknowledged Friday that Japan inflicted "immeasurable damage and suffering" on innocent people in World War II, but stopped short of offering his own apology and said future generations of Japanese should not have to make them either.
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| U.S. woman hostage raped by Islamic State leader before death: U.S. officials Posted: 14 Aug 2015 03:26 PM PDT  Kayla Mueller, the U.S. aid worker who died earlier this year while being held hostage by Islamic State militants, was raped repeatedly by the group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi while in captivity in Syria, U.S. officials said on Friday. The officials confirmed a report by ABC News, which said Mueller's family had been told by U.S. government officials that their daughter, who was 26 at the time of her death, had been sexually assaulted by al-Baghdadi. The White House declined to comment.
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| Exclusive: Scandal-tainted U.S. Secret Service to hire 1,100 staff - sources Posted: 14 Aug 2015 03:18 PM PDT  By Julia Edwards and Jason Szep WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Facing accusations that it cannot adequately protect the White House, the U.S. Secret Service plans to hire 1,100 more officers and agents for an agency besieged by embarrassing scandals and security lapses, two law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the plans said. The addition of 700 uniformed division officers and 400 agents over five years would expand its staff of 6,647 by nearly 17 percent, the biggest hiring increase in more than a decade at the 150-year-old agency whose job it is to protect the president, his family, and senior officials, along with fighting financial crime. The Secret Service is trying to rebound from a leadership crisis and mend a culture of covering up mistakes that some trace back 12 years to when it was pulled out of the Treasury Department and absorbed into the sprawling new Department of Homeland Security, where it had to compete for turf and money.
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| Battle over same-sex status on birth certificates in Texas and Arkansas Posted: 14 Aug 2015 04:43 PM PDT  AUSTIN, Texas/LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) - Two states that had blocked gay marriage are in legal battles over granting parenthood status to same-sex couples: Arkansas is trying to throw out a suit from couples seeking the status and Texas is saying it does not have forms ready. The cases come as states that had barred same-sex marriage grapple with changes brought by the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in June that made gay marriage legal in the United States. Three Arkansas same-sex couples have sued the state Health Department for refusing to record both partners as parents on birth certificates of the children they are raising.
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| Jeb Bush leaves door open for use of torture by government Posted: 13 Aug 2015 06:23 PM PDT  Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Thursday declined to rule out resuming the use of torture under some circumstances by the U.S. government.
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