Survivors of deadly Mexico abduction return to America

March 8, 2023

By Alfredo Pena, Fabiola Sanchez and Travis Loller Associated Press CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — A road trip to Mexico for cosmetic surgery veered violently off course when four Americans were caught in a drug cartel shootout, leaving two dead and two held captive for days in a remote region of the Gulf coast before they were rescued from a wood shack, officials said Tuesday. Their minivan crashed and was fired on shortly after they crossed into the border city of Matamoros on Friday as drug cartel factions tore through the streets, the region’s governor said. A stray bullet ...

Jury quickly finds Murdaugh guilty of murder of wife, son

March 3, 2023

By Jeffrey Collins and James Pollard Associated Press WALTERBORO, S.C. (AP) — Disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh was convicted of murder Thursday in the shooting deaths of his wife and son in a case that chronicled the unraveling of a powerful Southern family with tales of privilege, greed and addiction. The jury deliberated for less than three hours before finding Murdaugh guilty of two counts of murder at the end of a six-week trial that pulled back the curtain on the once-prominent lawyer’s fall from grace. Murdaugh, 54, faces 30 years to life in prison ...

After Ohio train wreck, Biden orders door-to-door checks

February 25, 2023

By Matthew Daly and Farnoush Amiri Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday directed federal agencies to go door-to-door in East Palestine, Ohio, to check on families affected by the toxic train derailment that has morphed into a heated political controversy. Under Biden’s order, teams from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Environmental Protection Agency and Federal Emergency Management Agency will visit homes beginning Saturday. Workers will ask how residents are doing, see what they need and connect them with appropriate resources ...

Prosecutor: Alex Murdaugh ‘fuzzy’ about new details of case

February 25, 2023

By Jeffrey Collins Associated Press Disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh faced intense questioning about his movements the night his wife and son were killed as the prosecutor challenged inconsistencies in his memory Friday at his double murder trial. A day after revealing for the first time that he was at the kennels where his wife and son were shot shortly before they died, Murdaugh returned to the stand in his own defense. During cross-examination, prosecutor Creighton Waters grilled Murdaugh about what he repeatedly called the once-prominent lawyer’s “new ...

Court proceedings advance in deadly shooting on film set

February 25, 2023

By Susan Montoya Bryan Associated Press A film-industry weapons supervisor made her first formal court appearance Friday on a felony charge in the shooting death of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin on the set of a Western movie. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s attorney said his client will plead not guilty, but the judge did not take that plea during the virtual court proceeding. Instead, the judge issued conditions of release that allow Gutierrez-Reed to keep a gun at home for self-defense. Gutierrez-Reed and Baldwin were charged last month with felony involuntary manslaughter ...

Michigan State set to resume classes after fatal shootings

February 20, 2023

By Joey Cappelletti Associated Press EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan State University professor Marco Diaz-Munoz is still haunted by what he witnessed last Monday night, when a gunman entered his classroom in Berkey Hall, killing two of his students in what he describes as “12 minutes of terror.” “Those images haunt me. The images of those two girls,” Diaz-Munoz told The Associated Press. Arielle Anderson and Alexandria Verner, both juniors, would die that night, Feb. 13. The gunman would shoot six more students during the rampage in two campus buildings. Brian ...