'Friend' of suspect in UK slaying arrested LONDON (AP) - Counterterrorism police on Saturday were questioning a friend of Michael Adebolajo, one of two suspects in the savage killing of a British soldier. The friend, Abu Nusaybah, was arrested immediately after he gave a television interview telling his story about how Adebolajo came to be radicalized. In his interview, Nusaybah said Adebolajo became withdrawn after returning from a visit to study in Kenya, where he claimed he had been physically and sexually abused in detention. Nusaybah also alleged that the U.K.'s security services tried to recruit Adebolajo after he returned to Britain.
LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) - Sixteen schoolchildren and a teacher burned to death in eastern Pakistan early Saturday when a short-circuit near a leaking gas tank caused their minibus to be engulfed in flames, police said. Police officer Ijaz Ahmad said five children were also injured, three of whom were listed in critical condition, in the blaze in Gujrat about 200 kilometers (120 miles) northwest of Islamabad. The children were aged between 6 and 12, he said.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Alleged misbehavior by the Internal Revenue Service and other federal agencies gives the GOP something else to talk about and investigate as the economy clearly, if slowly, recovers on President Barack Obama's watch, robbing Republicans of a central argument against Democrats. Amid a series of recent positive economic reports, the GOP is revving up its portrayal of the Obama administration as scandal-ridden and inept, while largely abandoning the party's where-is-the-recovery criticism.
BEIRUT (AP) - Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad shelled a strategic western town on Saturday in their heaviest barrage of a week-long battle to dislodge rebels from there, activists said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 22 people including 18 rebels were killed in the fighting, and dozens wounded.
KUMROVEC, Croatia (AP) - Croatia may be on the doorstep of the European Union, but in this tiny village another group of nations was getting all the glory. In Kumrovec, the birthplace of Yugoslavia's late communist leader Josip Broz Tito, thousands gathered Saturday to mark his birthday and pay their respects to him and the ex-federation that fell apart in a cascade of ethnic wars more than 20 years ago.
MOUNT VERNON, Wash. (AP) - Washington state officials are scrambling to find a temporary fix for a bridge that collapsed on an important interstate highway and, incredibly, left just three motorists with injuries. Whatever the solution, it won't come in time to help with Memorial Day's highway hoards. Transportation experts are also working to find out whether the spectacular disintegration of the heavily used span over the Skagit River, 60 miles north of Seattle, was a fluke or a sign of a bigger problem.
PHOENIX (AP) - A federal judge has ruled that the office of America's self-proclaimed toughest sheriff systematically singled out Latinos in its trademark immigration patrols, marking the first finding by a court that the agency racially profiles people. The decision by U.S. District Judge Murray Snow in Phoenix backs up years of allegations from Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's critics who say his officers violate the constitutional rights of Latinos in relying on race in their immigration enforcement.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) - Making his first official trip to sub-Saharan Africa, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday demanded that Nigeria respect human rights as it cracks down on Islamist extremists and pledged to work hard in the coming months to ease tensions between Sudan and South Sudan. Kerry, attending the African Union's 50th anniversary, backed the Nigerian government's efforts to root out Boko Haram, an al-Qaida-linked radical sect. But he said there is no excuse for abuses by armed forces in Nigeria's long neglected north, where President Goodluck Jonathan has declared emergency rule.
The Boy Scouts of America will get no reprieve from controversy after a contentious vote to accept openly gay boys as Scouts. Dismayed conservatives are already looking at alternative youth groups as they predict a mass exodus from the BSA. Gay-rights supporters vowed Friday to maintain pressure on the Scouts to end the still-in-place ban on gay adults serving as leaders.
Angel Flight crashes in NY, 2 killed, 1 missing EPHRATAH, N.Y. (AP) - The crash of a volunteer Angel Flight in upstate New York that killed at least two people is under investigation, and the search for the missing pilot is ongoing, authorities said. Fulton County Sheriff Thomas Lorey said the flight's two passengers were found dead near where the twin-engine plane crashed in a wooded area in Ephratah, about an hour west of Albany. He said the search for the pilot will continue Saturday morning. Officials did not immediately identify the passengers or pilot.
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