WASHINGTON, D.C. — Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer said President-elect Donald Trump is disturbed by President Obama’s decision to commute the prison sentence of convicted leaker Chelsea Manning. “I think the president-elect is troubled by this action,” Spicer said during a Wednesday news conference at Trump’s presidential transition team headquarters. Spicer was also asked if Trump wanted to see WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange make good on a promise to allow himself to be extradited to the United States if Manning was given a deal.
Ricky Gray was pronounced dead at 9:42 p.m. following a lethal injection at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt. Gray showed no emotion as he was walked into the execution chamber wearing blue jeans and handcuffs. Gray was condemned to death in 2006 for the murders of 9-year-old Stella Harvey and 4-year-old sister Ruby, and sentenced to life in prison for the slaying of their parents, Bryan and Kathryn Harvey.
Rescue workers in Tehran were desperately hunting for firefighters trapped under the rubble after a fire Thursday led to the collapse of Iran's oldest high-rise, the 15-storey Plasco building. Officials had yet to confirm if anyone had been killed, but Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told state television that between 20 and 25 firefighters were thought to be inside when the building fell. Three people were pulled alive from the rubble and taken to hospital, the head of Tehran's emergency services said, according to the ISNA news agency.
Police in Israel said an Arab Israeli on Wednesday rammed his car into a group of policemen in the southern Negev region, killing one before being shot dead, though a rights activist who was present disputed it was an attack. Police spokeswoman Merav Lapidot said the suspect was a local teacher who "surged towards the forces intending to kill" and that riots erupted after he was shot.
After a mutilated dog was discovered in Michigan, a local animal shelter is offering a reward of more than $11,000 in exchange for information about who would do such a thing. Baron, a Rottweiler, was found roaming the streets of downtown Detroit Tuesday with his ears, nose and tail cut off. "Baron is doing remarkably well considering his injuries," a veterinarian of the Michigan Humane Society said in a Facebook Live video.
A video of a massive alligator walking through a reserve near Lakeland, Florida, had people speculating earlier this week whether it was a hoax. The video, which was uploaded Sunday to Facebook by Florida resident Kim Joiner, shows the massive reptile appearing out of a nearby bush at the Circle B Bar Reserve in Polk County and then casually walking on the reserve's Marsh Rabbit Run. Officials for the county's natural resources division said that while they appreciate the attention the nature reserve has been getting, they are also worried about the safety of visitors and wildlife.
The deep-sea sonar search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 may not have found the plane but will reveal more about how land beneath the Indian Ocean formed over millions of years and where oil fields could lie. National geoscience agency Geoscience Australia will soon release detailed sonar mapping of 120,000 square kilometers (46,000 square miles) of seabed that was searched for the wreckage of the Boeing 777 that vanished with 239 passengers and crew on March 8, 2014. The unique information about plate tectonics would interest geoscientists as well as oil and gas explorers, said Australian National University marine geologist Neville Exon, who has advised Geoscience Australia on the sonar data.
As Constitution Daily counts down to Inauguration Day, we look back at three presidential ceremonies from the 1800s that ended very badly. Mobs descend on Jackson’s White House. For example, there were constant rumors that Abraham Lincoln would be killed at his 1861 inauguration.
The Tesla was being driven a few miles per hour over the speed limit in the left lane of a two-way highway, when a truck with a trailer turned across both lanes towards an exit. The Tesla’s radar and cameras failed to pick up the trailer, and the Tesla drove directly into the side of it, killing the driver. Since the accident, Tesla has updated its semi-autonomous Autopilot feature to force drivers to be more hands-on, and treat it like a driving aid rather than an actual Autopilot.
A high-rise building in Tehran engulfed by a fire collapsed on Thursday, killing at least 30 firefighters and injuring some 75 people, state media reported. The disaster struck the Plasco building, an iconic structure in central Tehran just north of the capital’s sprawling bazaar. Iran’s state-run Press TV announced the firefighters’ deaths, without giving a source for the information.
President-elect Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States on Jan. 20 and Yahoo News will be there to bring you live coverage of the historic Inauguration Day in 360 video.
An affidavit, filed with the Orange County Clerk of Courts a day after 41-year-old Markeith Loyd was arrested in an abandoned home, shows authorities want to make sure he remains in custody, as is customary for a fugitive facing murder charges. Loyd was arrested Tuesday night after a manhunt that lasted more than a week. Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said Wednesday that President-elect Donald Trump had a phone conversation with Clayton's husband.
More than 80 Islamic State jihadists were killed in a US aerial blitz on training camps in Libya, including fighters involved in plotting attacks in Europe, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Thursday. The Pentagon made the highly unusual decision to conduct the air strikes with a pair of B-2 stealth bombers that flew to North Africa on a 34-hour mission from their base in Missouri in America's Midwest. The last time the distinctive, bat-shaped planes were used in Libya was in 2011 during the mission that led to the ouster of longtime leader Moamer Kadhafi.
Woman arrested after accosting Bella Hadid with Palestinian flag, Nancy Sinatra destroys Trump for using ‘My Way’ at inauguration, Kanye apparently wasn’t invited to perform at the inauguration, and Gigi Hadid fuels engagement rumors after wearing a ring on *that* finger. Get all the details at MarieClaire.com!
A three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday said Chicago violated the Second Amendment by restricting gun ranges to manufacturing areas, and banning them from close proximity to residential areas, schools, places of worship and other gun ranges. It said Chicago failed to justify its "extraordinarily broad" claim that minors could not enter gun ranges, and that teenagers can be taught to shoot guns safely.
Startling surveillance video posted to Twitter this week shows a woman in New York being hit by a school bus, which then runs her over. The victim was crossing a Brooklyn intersection when she was struck by a yellow mini-bus. She suffered non-life-threatening
By Elaine Lies and Megumi Lim TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese hotelier's denial of a 1937 massacre by Japanese troops in the Chinese city of Nanjing has prompted Chinese social media calls for a boycott of travel to Japan, threatening tourist arrivals days before the Lunar New Year holidays. The furor erupted over books by Toshio Motoya, the president of Tokyo-based hotel and real estate developer APA Group, which contain his revisionist views and are placed in every room of the company's 400-plus APA Hotels. In one, printed in English and Japanese and entitled "The Real History of Japan", he says the "Nanking Massacre story" was "impossible", blaming looting and killings on members of a branch of the Chinese military who had shed their uniforms.
Animal rights activists Wednesday demanded the closure of an Indonesian zoo after skeletal sun bears were pictured begging for food from visitors and eating their own dung. The bears at the zoo in the city of Bandung were shown waving their arms in the air inside their enclosure -- with their ribs visible through their fur -- as people hurled food at them. Bandung zoo came under fire last year after the death of a critically endangered Sumatran elephant.
The first direct freight train service from China to Britain arrived in London Wednesday, another leg in Beijing's plans for closer trade ties with Europe along a modern-day Silk Road. The 18-day trip saw dozens of containers packed mainly with clothes and household goods transported from the city of Yiwu in eastern China to a freight terminal in Barking in east London, via Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland and western Europe. The train entered Britain from France through the Channel Tunnel, completing a journey of some 7,500 miles (12,000 kilometers).
In the hourlong question-and-answer session, Obama also defended the news media, which Trump likes to bash, and listed the political and social issues that would lead him to speak out after he leaves the White House to his successor. There were no questions about Syria, North Korea or the Iran nuclear deal.
Russell Yates tells The Associated Press on Wednesday that he doesn't know what his wife told their daughters about him. Yates says he is sorry. A woman charged with abducting her two daughters from Rhode Island in 1985 has pleaded not guilty.
Just this week the New York Times documented precisely how a recent graduate of Davidson College made $22,000 off a single fake news story about ballots for Hillary Clinton being discovered in an Ohio warehouse. The most notable current fake news target in the developed world happens to be Germany.
Late last year, UAW representative Bill Johnson said something he possibly shouldn't have-the Bronco and the Ranger are coming back. For Ford fans who want a midsize pickup or a competent off-roader, this was huge news. Americans can't get enough trucks and SUVs right now, making it a perfect time for Ford to expand its lineup.
By Roberto Mignucci PENNE, Italy (Reuters) - Hopes of finding survivors dwindled on Thursday more than 24 hours after an avalanche struck a luxury mountain hotel in Italy burying up to 30 people under tonnes of snow and debris. The Civil Protection department said just two bodies had been recovered but its chief said the search for victims and possible survivors would continue through the night. "There is always hope, if there were no hope the rescuers wouldn't give everything they've got," Fabrizio Curcio told reporters.
Last year, when Joe Biden spoke at Davos, he gave an incisive and passionate address reminding the CEOs and leaders in the audience of their responsibilities to the have-nots of the world. It was powerful stuff, and at the conclusion of his remarks, my dear partner, Carla, leapt to her feet to give him a standing ovation. I stood beside her and then, scanning the room, realized we were the only ones standing. This year, when Biden was introduced for his valedictory speech as vice president of the United States, half the audience stood. It was clear that the packed plenary audience would miss the plainspoken, passionate son of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Watching him deliver the speech, it was also clear that Biden would miss audiences like this one.