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Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday that negotiations have stalled between the United States and Russia to stop fighting in Syria between Russian-backed govement troops and U.S.-supported rebels. Kerry said at the G20 economic summit in China that the talks have stalled over some "technical" issues but they would resume Monday.Obama and Putin were also expected to meet Monday. The countries have tried for weeks to broker a cease-fire between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's govement and moderate rebels in an effort to expand access and humanitarian aid for the hundreds of thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire. The strategy has hinged on an unlikely U.S.-Russian milit...

Two correctional officers are listed in critical condition after being shot in the lobby of a central Califoia county jail Saturday moing, officials said. Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims told reporters that the suspect, 37-year-old Thong Vang of Fresno, shot at correctional officers Juanita Davila and Toamalama Scanlan around 8:30 a.m. local time after he entered the jail's lobby, made his way to the front of the line and stated that he wanted to see someone at the jail. Related Image Expand / Contract Fresno County Correctional Officers Juanita Davila and Toamalama Scanlan. (Courtesy Fresno County Sheriff) Mims said that Vang then pulled out a gun and started shooting at th...

The G20 summit got off to a contentious start Saturday with Chinese officials reportedly confronting National Security Advisor Susan Rice and other U.S. officials in at least three incidents, as President Obama arrived in China for the two-day inteational economic talks. Within minutes of Obama arriving on Air Force One, a member of the Chinese delegation started screaming at White House staff, according to reporters on the tarmac. One reporter described the scene as “a bit of chaos,” as the Chinese official appeared furious about joualists being so near Obama’s arrival, though they purportedly were standing in the area Chinese officials had designated for them. White House officials...

British prisons have become alarmingly fertile breeding grounds for terrorism, according to new govement research that supports the long and widely held beliefs that UK lockups too often double as jihadi training camps. Many of the terror attacks that have plagued Europe in recent years bear a common, chilling hallmark: They were carried out by attackers who went into prison as petty criminals and emerged as hardened terrorists. Officials armed with sobering new research now want to take steps to isolate known jihadists from the general prison population in a bid to stop recruitment. “We caot have a situation where we have extremist prisoners influencing others who are vulnerable to ...

Colin Kaepeick and San Francisco 49ers safety Eric Reid kneeled during the national anthem Thursday night, continuing the quarterback's preseason protest of American racial injustice and minority oppression. Kaepeick and Reid dropped to one knee while a naval officer sang "The Star-Spangled Baer" and dozens of military members unfurled an oversized flag at the Chargers' Qualcomm Stadium. Kaepeick and Reid received scattered boos when they dropped to a knee amid a crowd of teammates, but the protest was otherwise unremarked by the San Diego crowd. The 49ers' visit coincided with the aual Salute to the Military preseason game for the Chargers, who have strong fan support in their city'...

AsDonald Trumparrived in Phoenix lateWednesday, fresh from a visit to Mexico City’s presidential palace, he had in his hands a bigimmigration speechthat omitted the usual line that Mexico would have to pay for his proposed wall along the U.S. southe border. Just after landing, though, Mr. Trump discovered that Mexican President Enrique Peña Nietohad tweeted that he had told the Republican presidential nominee during their private meeting earlier that day that his country would refuse to pay for the wall. Mr. Trump was peeved that Mr. Peña Nieto had gone public with the fact that the Mexican president had broken what Mr. Trump considered a deal to keep the question of paying for the w...

People from the Florida Panhandle down to the Tampa area braced Thursday for Hurricane Hermine, as it lashes the area with strong winds and potentially dangerous storm surge. The National Hurricane Center said the storm's winds ratched up from 75 mph in the afteoon to 80 mph by evening as the former tropical storm gained new fury. Hermine was set to make landfall late Thursday or early Friday, forecasters said. A hurricane waing was in effect for Florida's Big Bend from the Suwaee River to Mexico Beach. And on the East Coast, a tropical storm waing was issued for an area that extended from Marineland, Florida, northward to the South Santee River in South Carolina. [embedded content...

(REUTERS/Brian Snyder) A public school district near Louisville, Kentucky has come down with a bad case of what I call “Participation Trophy Syndrome” – or PTS. The Greater Clark County School Board in Jeffersonville, Indiana, is considering a plan to eliminate the valedictorian system because it creates “unhealthy competition,” according to Supt. Andrew Melin. Click here to join Todd’s American Dispatch: a must-read for Conservatives! Unhealthy competition? Is he serious? Did a kid suffer a concussion while trying to parse a participle? “When students are competing for the Val and the Sal, they’re trying to find ways to maneuver through the system to try and get the best grades they can...

Black Lives Matter slammed the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee after a memo leaked late Wednesday seemed to show the group carefully coaching candidates on how to avoid angering the "radical" activists. The November 2015 memo included tips like: Do not offer “support for concrete policy positions;” be sure to "lead from behind;" stick to "small" meetings; and avoid mentioning terms like "black-on-black crime." On its Facebook page, BLM said officials should "stop pacifying" them. “We are disappointed at the DCCC’s placating response to our demand to value all Black life. Black communities deserve to be heard, not handled. People are dying,” the organization said, in respo...

Donald Trump vowed Thursday to “rebuild our depleted military” and ensure America’s soldiers are the best-equipped in the world as he addressed the American Legion's aual convention – and sought to rebut Hillary Clinton’s suggestion to the same crowd a day earlier that he doesn’t believe America is “exceptional.” Kicking off the address in Cinciati, Ohio, by invoking his campaign slogan, “America First,” Trump tried to settle any doubts about his support for the Armed Forces. He called for a state-of-the-art missile defense, a “total reform” of the Veterans Affairs Department and a policy of “peace through strength.” “Nobody will be able to compete with us,” Trump said. His Democrati...

President Obama has extended the U.S. military’s combat mission in Libya for another month at the request of senior military leaders, two defense officials with knowledge of the order told Fox News. The decision keeps two U.S. Navy warships off the coast of Libya to continue striking ISIS and assist Libyan ground forces fighting the terror group in the coastal city of Sirte. One of the U.S. warships had been scheduled to go to the Persian Gulf in September to begin airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria and keep an eye on Iran, a week after four provocations between Iranian gunboats and U.S. Navy ships -- one of which resulted in waing shots being fired by a U.S. warship. The oth...

John Legend is standing with Colin Kaepeick in his decision not to stand during the national anthem, calling the "Star Spangled Baer" "weak," and saying he doesn't "truly love" the song. "For those defending the current anthem, do you really truly love that song? I don't and I'm very good at singing it. Like, one of the best," he wrote on Twitter. For those defending the current anthem, do you really truly love that song? I don't and I'm very good at singing it. Like, one of the best — John Legend (@johnlegend) August 30, 2016 He continued, "My vote is for 'America the Beautiful.' 'Star Spangled Baer' is a weak song anyway." My vote is for America the Beautiful. Star spangled baer ...

Indian climber Satyarup Sidhantha holds on his right hand a photograph that shows him on Mount Everest, along with what he says is the Indian couple's doctored photo. (AP Photo/ Bikas Das, File) Nepal mountaineering authorities have determined that an Indian couple faked a Mount Everest ascent earlier this year by altering photographs to make it appear they were on the summit, officials said Tuesday. Mountaineering Department official Gyanendra Shrestha said the govement has canceled the climbing certificates issued to Indian citizens Dinesh and Tarakeshwari Rathod and baed them from climbing any mountain in the Himalayan nation for 10 years. They had claimed they scaled the 29,035-foot ...

NFL quarterback Colin Kaepeick’s conversion to social activism coincided with his romancing of a hip hop DJ of Egyptian descent who has frequently spoken about perceived racial injustices and “Islamaphobia” in the U.S. Related Image Expand / Contract Nessa Diab, left, and Colin Kaepeick. (Twitter/AP) Kaepeick, 28, who has come under fire for his decision to remain seated during the playing of The Star-Spangled Baer before San Francisco 49ers games, reportedly began dating Hot 97 DJ and MTV host Nessa Diab in July 2015. A few months later, his social media posts began to reflect the Black Lives Matter and Muslim activism of Diab. "History!" Kaepeick wrote on Instagram Oct. 15, wh...

Musical guest Sturgill Simpson performs on 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon' on July 27, 2016. (NBC) Merle Haggard performs at the 56th aual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, Califoia January 26, 2014. (Reuters) Previous Next Sturgill Simpson took to Facebook Monday night to blast the Academy of Country Music for it's new Merle Haggard Spirit Award. The country music traditionalist accused the ACM of "hitch[ing] their wagon to his name" while knowing "what [Haggard] thought about them." "If the ACM wants to actually celebrate the legacy and music of Merle Haggard, they should drop all the formulaic caon fodder bulls--t they’ve been pumping down rural America’s throat for th...

North Korea publicly executed two top officials earlier this month by shooting them with anti-aircraft guns, a South Korean newspaper reported Tuesday. The JoongAng Ilbo identified the murdered officials asformer agriculture minister Hwang Min and senior education ministry official Ri Yong Jin. According to Reuters, Hwang was identified by North Korea's state-run media as an agriculture minister in 2012 and a vice minister of agriculture in 2014. Due to the North Korean state's secretive nature, reports of executions and other govement purges are difficult to confirm. This past May, a former North Korean general believed executed was revealed to still be alive, in an embarrassing moment for...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump criticized San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepeick Monday, calling Kaepeick's refusal to stand for the national anthem "a terrible thing." "I think it’s personally not a good thing," Trump told Seattle radio station KIRO when asked about the controversy. "I think it’s a terrible thing, and you know, maybe he should find a country that works better for him, let him try, it’s not goa happen." Kaepeick became the subject of national controversy over the weekend when he remained seated on the San Francisco bench during the playing of the "Star-Spangled Baer" prior to Friday night's preseason game against the Green Bay Packers. While e...

This image released by the the Mass Graves Directorate of the Kurdish Regional Govement shows a human skull in a mass grave containing Yazidis killed by Islamic State militants in the Sinjar region of northe Iraq in May, 2015. An analysis by The Associated Press has found 72 mass graves left behind by Islamic State extremists in Iraq and Syria, and many more are expected to be discovered as the group loses territory. (Kurdish Mass Graves Directorate via AP) (The Associated Press) FILE - In this April 3, 2015, file photo, an Iraqi man prays for his slain relative at the site of a mass grave believed to contain the bodies of Iraqi soldiers killed by Islamic State group militants when ...

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Nearly a third of U.S. counties will be left with just one insurance option next year on the ObamaCare exchanges, according to a new analysis fueling waings about the impact of the insurance company exodus from markets across the country. The Kaiser Family Foundation study found residents in Pinal County, Ariz., are even at risk of having no insurance options on the exchanges, which provide subsidized plans. Republicans seized on the report Monday to claim that the health care overhaul is not providing the choices promised by President Obama and others. "The president repeatedly promised that his health care law would provide more choices, ‘bend the cost curve,’ and allow Americans ...