| White House security scare prompts Secret Service shooting Posted: 20 May 2016 01:01 PM PDT  A shooting on a street just outside the White House created a brief national security scare Friday afternoon. A uniformed Secret Service officer reportedly shot an armed person on West Executive Ave. NW, a street that borders the White House to the west. An official, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity for lack of authorization to release the information, said the Secret Service officer opened fire around 2 p.m., after the person approached a White House gate with a handgun.
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| Oklahoma governor vetoes bill to jail abortion doctors Posted: 20 May 2016 02:52 PM PDT  Oklahoma's Republican Governor Mary Fallin vetoed a bill calling for prison terms of up the three years for doctors who performed abortions, saying the legislation would not withstand a criminal constitutional legal challenge, her office said on Friday. The bill, which was approved a day earlier in the Republican-dominated legislature, would have made performing an abortion a felony. The bill allowed an exemption for an abortion necessary to save the life of the mother.
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| Number of Zika cases in the U.S. increases dramatically, CDC says Posted: 20 May 2016 10:52 AM PDT  The number of pregnant women infected with the Zika virus in the U.S. has more than tripled, increasing from 48 to 157 since May 11, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Friday. According to the CDC statement, a total of 279 pregnant women have tested positive for Zika in either the U.S. or its territories. The CDC has found that when pregnant women contract the virus, there is a direct correlation to miscarriage and severe prenatal brain abnormalities, such as microcephaly, a defect in fetal neurological development that results in a smaller than average head and brain.
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| How a convicted felon nicknamed ‘Joey No Socks’ covered Donald Trump in stars Posted: 20 May 2016 08:30 AM PDT  There was the Donald at his new golf club in the rolling Scottish dunes. The gaudy plaque Trump carried that day in 2013 was a Star Diamond award distributed by the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences — a group that turns out to have extensive ties with Trump.
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| Wreckage of EgyptAir plane found in Mediterranean Posted: 20 May 2016 12:39 PM PDT  Egypt found wreckage including seats and luggage Friday from the EgyptAir plane that crashed in the Mediterranean, as investigators tried to unravel the mystery of why it swerved and plummeted into the sea. Search teams spotted personal belongings of passengers and parts of the Airbus A320 about 290 kilometres (180 miles) north of Egypt's coastal city of Alexandria, the military said. The country's aviation minister has said a "terrorist attack" was a more likely cause than technical failure for the plane's disappearance on a flight from Paris to Cairo with 66 people on board.
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| Paris attack suspect Abdeslam tight-lipped in first interrogation Posted: 20 May 2016 09:57 AM PDT  The last surviving member of the jihadist team that attacked Paris, Salah Abdeslam, refused to answer questions in his first interview with a French anti-terror judge on Friday. Authorities had hoped Abdeslam would shed some light on the operational details of the November 13 attacks that killed 130 people, as well as provide clues as to whether other members of the wider jihadist cell are still at large. A source close to the investigation said Abdeslam's silence may have been the result of advice from Mehdi Nemmouche, the man suspected of a shooting at the Jewish museum in Brussels in 2014.
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| Israel defence minister quits, says Netanyahu fanning extremism Posted: 20 May 2016 12:01 PM PDT  Israel's defence minister resigned Friday, saying extremists had taken over the country, after he clashed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the army's handling of a wave of Palestinian violence. Moshe Yaalon said he no longer had any trust in Netanyahu after the hawkish premier offered his post to a hardliner loathed by the Palestinians, in a bid to expand the governing coalition's majority. "I told the prime minister this morning that due to his conduct in recent developments, and in light of my lack of trust in him, I am resigning from the government and Knesset (parliament) and taking a break from political life," Yaalon said on Twitter.
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| Trump fires back at ex-Sec. of Defense Gates: ‘He knows nothing about me’ Posted: 20 May 2016 08:15 AM PDT  Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Bob Gates found himself on the receiving end of Donald Trump's barbed tongue Friday. Gates had publicly criticized his foreign policy proposals and temperament several times the day before.
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| Over 500,000 flee homes as Sri Lanka flood misery worsens Posted: 20 May 2016 06:18 AM PDT  Desperate Sri Lankans clambered onto rubber dinghies and makeshift rafts Friday to escape monster floods in the capital Colombo as officials said half a million people had fled their homes across the island. The heaviest rains in a quarter of a century have pounded Sri Lanka since last weekend, triggering huge landslides that have buried some victims in up to 50 feet (15 metres) of mud. President Maithripala Sirisena urged people to provide shelter and donate cash or food as offers of assistance came in from overseas.
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| Cosby spends millions as lawsuits, criminal case rage on Posted: 19 May 2016 07:53 PM PDT  PHILADELPHIA (AP) — In any given week, teams of high-priced lawyers fan out across the country to defend Bill Cosby amid a cascade of sexual assault allegations, defamation claims and insurance disputes.
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| Taiwan installs 1st woman president amid tension with China Posted: 19 May 2016 08:10 PM PDT  TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan inaugurated Tsai Ing-wen as its first female president on Friday, returning the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party to power amid new concerns over increasingly fractious relations with Beijing and a flagging economy.
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| San Francisco's police chief resigns amid racial issues Posted: 19 May 2016 07:40 PM PDT  San Francisco's police chief resigned Thursday at the request of the mayor hours after an officer fatally shot a young black woman driving a stolen car — the culmination of several racially charged incidents ...
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| Oklahoma lawmakers OK bill criminalizing performing abortion Posted: 19 May 2016 05:16 PM PDT  OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma lawmakers have moved to effectively ban abortion in their state by making it a felony for doctors to perform the procedure, an effort the bill's sponsor said Thursday is aimed at ultimately overturning the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
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