A former CIA case officer who has served as top policy aide to House Republicans is launching an independent campaign for the presidency on Monday with the backing of veteranย GOPย strategists and donors determined to block Donald Trump fromย getting anywhere near the White House. Feeding off mounting discontent within GOP ranks over Trump, Evan McMullin โ who is resigning todayย as chief policy director for the House Republican Conference โ announced his campaign with an open โLetter to Americaโ that took pointed shots at both the GOP nominee and Democrat Hillary Clinton.
The data recorder from the cargo ship El Faro, which sank near the Bahamas during a Caribbean hurricane last October, has been recovered, offering possible answers about why the vessel went down, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said on Tuesday. A U.S. Coast Guard panel in May revealed the ship's captain intended to avoid the brewing storm when he departed, but may have had outdated weather data.
U.S. District Judge James Zagel said itโs an โunfortunate realityโ that Blagojevichโs innocent family members are made to suffer the consequences. Blagojevich, known as Inmate No. 40892-424 since he went to prison in 2012, appeared on a courtroom video in prison-issued clothing, his once dark hair now white. Federal prosecutors said the dismissal of the five counts doesnโt reduce the seriousness of Blagojevichโs offenses and argued the sentence shouldnโt be reduced.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday pledged to reinvigorate ties after their first meeting since Ankara shot down a Russian warplane last November. Erdogan's visit to Putin's hometown of Saint Petersburg is also his first foreign trip since the failed coup against him last month that sparked a purge of opponents and cast a shadow over Turkey's relations with the West. "We lived through a very complicated moment in the relations between our states and we very much want, and I feel our Turkish friends want, to overcome the difficulties," Putin told journalists at a joint press conference.
Kentucky police are searching for a man who set fire to a business on Sunday.
The mother of a skydiver who plummeted to his death with an instructor in a California vineyard said her teenage son was an adventurous spirit who was willing to try just about anything โ including the jump that was on his bucket list of things to do in life. Tyler Turner, 18, had a mild case of cerebral palsy and walked with a crouched gait. Tyler Turner had graduated from high school with honors and had been bound for the University of California at Merced this month to study biomedical engineering.
A young California man was shot dead Saturdayย while he was playing Pokemon Go at a San Francisco tourist hot spot, and his killer is on the loose. Calvin Riley was using the wildly popular app at aboutย 10 p.m. at Fisherman's Wharf when he was apparently shot at random. Nothing was taken from Riley's person, leaving investigators puzzled over a possible motive, the San Francisco Chronicleย reported.
The 71-year-old woman had visited her daughter, who operates a horse boarding and riding center in King County, Washington, the report said. The report is published in the Aug. 5 issue of the journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
World record holder Chen Lijun pulled out of the men's weightlifting 62-kilogram class because of leg cramps, which opened the class for Oscar Albeiro Figueroa Mosquera of Colombia to win gold at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Sukanya Srisurat and Pimsiri Sirikaew gave Thailand gold and silver earlier Monday in the women's 58-kilogram class at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
The father of Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen was spotted sitting behind Hillary Clinton at a Monday campaign rally in Kissimmee, Fla. Clinton, visiting the central Florida cityย to talk about jobs, was actually paying tribute to the victims of the Pulse nightclub massacre when an employee of NBC affiliate WPTVย noticedย that one of the rallygoers seated prominently behind the Democratic presidential nominee was Seddique Mateen, the mass shooterโs father. The elder Mateen became the subject of widespread media attention in the aftermath of the attack on the gay nightclub that killed 49 people.