NEW YORK (AP) — Free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick has been named GQ’s magazine’s “Citizen of the Year” for his activism. Kaepernick began kneeling instead of standing during the national anthem last season to protest racial inequality and police brutality. The demonstration sparked a wave of NFL protests by players during the anthem that repeatedly … Continue reading
GENEVA (AP) — Sri Lanka’s government faced increasing pressure Friday to answer for alleged human rights violations following a recent war crimes lawsuit and allegations from over 50 men who said they were raped, branded or tortured as recently as this year. The men’s anguished descriptions of their abuses come nearly a decade after Sri … Continue reading
LA VERNIA, Texas (AP) — By the time Paul Brunner rolled up in his ambulance to the worst mass shooting in Texas history, the First Baptist Church was a chaotic triage scene. Parents cried and kids screamed, and nearly all the victims appeared to have been hit more than once. Two of the first four … Continue reading
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah prosecutor asked the FBI on Tuesday to investigate a police shooting that left a black man dead when he ran from officers who stopped him after he rode his bike across six lanes of traffic and they noticed he didn’t have a required rear light. The request to … Continue reading
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Leaders of several faiths on Tuesday called for peace and justice amid the turmoil that followed the acquittal of a white former St. Louis police officer in the 2011 death of a black man. Several hundred people gathered on a hot, unshaded public plaza for an interfaith service followed by a … Continue reading
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A 23-year-old white man whom police call a “person of interest” in the fatal shootings of two black men in Baton Rouge has been released from jail after his arrest on drug charges. Baton Rouge Police Sgt. Don Coppola, a department spokesman, said Monday that Kenneth Gleason “has not been … Continue reading
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The owner of an Iowa boarding school for teenagers coerced one female student into a sexual relationship, had others undress during “body image therapy” sessions and kept classmates in solitary confinement for long stretches, prosecutors alleged Friday. Former Midwest Academy owner and director Benjamin Trane, 39, is charged with third-degree … Continue reading
ST. LOUIS (AP) — The mayor of St. Louis says the city is “on edge” as it awaits a verdict in the first-degree murder trial of former police officer Jason Stockley, in part because of a troubled history of justice in St. Louis and nationwide. Stockley is accused of fatally shooting Anthony Lamar Smith in … Continue reading
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump persists in suggesting that his 2016 campaign has been exonerated on the question of whether it colluded with Russians, even as a powerful investigation forms to look into that matter and multiple other inquiries press on. The president joined Colombian counterpart Juan Manuel Santos in a news conference Thursday. … Continue reading
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Tulsa leaders on Thursday called for a peaceful response to a jury’s decision to acquit a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man, and said more must be done to fight racial divisions in Oklahoma’s second-largest city. The comments came after a jury on Wednesday found Tulsa officer … Continue reading
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump lashed out at the appointment of a special counsel to investigate allegations that his campaign collaborated with Russia to sway the 2016 election, tweeting Thursday that it is “the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!” The Justice Department on Wednesday appointed former FBI Director Robert … Continue reading
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — With wreath-laying ceremonies and prayers, Poland on Monday observed the seventh anniversary of a plane crash in Russia that killed President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 94 others. Poland’s ruling party, Law and Justice, is headed by Kaczynski’s twin brother, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who has led regular commemorations of the tragedy and … Continue reading
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Defense attorneys in the wrongful-death lawsuit by Michael Brown’s parents cite recent ambushes of police in Texas and Louisiana among reasons against expanding who can see sensitive grand jury details related to Brown’s 2014 death in Ferguson. A St. Louis federal judge agreed in June to let no more than … Continue reading
MANASSAS, Va. (AP) — After 15 years of denial, a northern Virginia drug dealer admitted his role in a 2001 murder as part of a plea bargain that spares him a possible death sentence. Justin Wolfe’s guilty plea Tuesday in Prince William Circuit Court ends a long-running saga which at one point left him only … Continue reading
FREDERICKSBURG, Va. (AP) — A man shot by a Fredericksburg police officer who had been dragged about 600 feet by a fleeing vehicle has died, Virginia State Police said Tuesday. Department spokeswoman Corinne Geller said in an email that the man died about 6 p.m. Tuesday at a hospital. Geller says the body will be … Continue reading
Spartan Echo 