WEARE, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire police department is adding semiautomatic weapons to its arsenal nearly two years after getting rid of them amid scrutiny over a fatal officer involved shooting. Weare Police Chief Sean Kelly tells The Concord Monitor six patrol rifles were donated last month by an anonymous benefactor. Selectmen approved the […]

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Residents of northern New England are waking up to the coldest weather of the season. The National Weather Service forecast lows Tuesday morning of 3 degrees in Concord, New Hampshire; 6 degrees in Portland; temperatures in Vermont’s Champlain Valley temperatures are forecast to be between 0 and minus 5. Meteorologist Tom […]

The gun control measures a tearful President Barack Obama announced Tuesday would not have prevented the slaughters of 20 first graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, or 14 county workers at a holiday party in San Bernardino, California. Obama’s executive action expands mandatory background checks to gun shows, flea markets and online […]

WASHINGTON President Barack Obama’s plan to strengthen controls on guns in the U.S. is meeting swift resistance from gun rights groups, Republicans and even a few Democrats who say it’s up to Congress to enact new policies on firearms. Yet the overall effect on gun violence could prove to be relatively small. Some questions and […]

DES MOINES, Iowa Players will have a chance tonight at an estimated $450 million Powerball jackpot, making it the biggest lottery prize in nearly a year. The jackpot will be the largest since a Powerball prize that climbed to $564.1 million last February before it was won by players from North Carolina, Texas and Puerto […]

BURNS, Ore. The small, armed group occupying a remote national wildlife preserve in Oregon has said repeatedly that local people should control federal lands — a sentiment that frustrates critics who say the lands are already managed to help everyone from ranchers to recreationalists. With the takeover entering its fourth day today, authorities had not […]

TEHRAN, Iran Iraq today offered to act as a mediator to ease tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran that escalated after the kingdom’s execution of a Shiite cleric and attacks on two of Saudi diplomatic posts in the Islamic Republic. Some Sunni Arab nations have followed the Saudis’ lead and severed or downgraded ties with […]

SEOUL, South Korea Soon after the ground shook around its nuclear testing facility, North Korea trumpeted its first hydrogen bomb test — a powerful, self-proclaimed “H-bomb of justice” that would mark a major and unanticipated advance for its still-limited nuclear arsenal. Pyongyang’s announcement today was met with widespread skepticism, but whatever the North detonated in […]

ISTANBUL A U.S.-based Muslim cleric, who has become Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s chief foe, is being tried in absentia, accused of attempting to overthrow the government by masterminding corruption probes in 2013 that targeted people close to the Turkish leader. The trial of Fethullah Gulen and 68 other people, including former police chiefs, opened […]