SUV crash that killed 9 family members followed matriarch's 80th birthday celebration in Florida (2024)

Fifty years after his iconic high-wire walk between the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center, Philippe Petit recreated the death-defying stunt with a performance about seven miles north of the trade center at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The 74-year-old artist sought to celebrate the “glorious days of the twin towers” rather than focus on their tragic end in a terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001. Petit said he aimed to honor both his remarkable feat and the legacy of the towers. Petit was arrested after crossing the towers and depicted that in the performance on Wednesday.

A top U.N. counterterrorism official has told the Security Council that a vast stretch of Africa could fall under the control of groups affiliated with the Islamic State group and affiliated terrorist groups. Austrian authorities say both suspects in a foiled plot to attack Taylor Swift shows in Vienna appeared to be inspired by the Islamic State group and al-Qaida, although there was no link known between the alleged plot and the Islamic State group or its affiliates elsewhere in the world. In a regular report to the council, Under-Secretary-General for Counterterrorism Vladimir Voronkov told members that ISIS affiliates have “expanded and consolidated their area of operations” in West Africa and the Sahel.

The average rate on a 30-year mortgage fell this week to its lowest level in more than a year, a welcome affordability boost for prospective homebuyers and homeowners looking to refinance their home loan to a lower rate. The rate fell to 6.47% from 6.73% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.96%. After jumping to a 23-year high of 7.79% in October, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage has mostly hovered around 7% this year — more than double what it was just three years ago. The elevated mortgage rates have discouraged home shoppers, extending the nation’s housing slump into its third year.

The final regular-season PGA Tour event won't be starting until Friday. Wind and rain from Tropical Storm Debby led to the first round of the Wyndham Championship being postponed on Thursday. That raises the possibility of a Monday finish. Tour officials were still waiting to see how much rain Sedgefield Country Club gets. The course already got 2 inches of rain, and as many as 6 inches were possible by the end of Thursday. The tournament decides the top 70 players who advance to the FedEx Cup playoffs with its lucrative prize funds and bonus money.

Rights groups say Nigerian security forces used gunshots and force to respond to mass protests against hardship and alleged bad governance in the country. Although the security agencies admitted killing only one person, The Associated Press spoke to three families that said their relatives were shot dead during the protests. One boy still has a bullet stuck in his back. Amnesty International says at least 22 protesters were shot dead. Nigerian security forces are known to use excessive force to respond to protests, often leading to loss of lives. The protests this time were against the country's worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation.

California’s largest wildfire so far this year continues to chew through timber in very hot and dry weather. The Park Fire has scorched more than 660 square miles since erupting July 24 near the Sacramento Valley city of Chico and burning northward up the western flank of the Sierra Nevada. Containment remains at 34% on Thursday. The conflagration’s early explosive growth quickly made it California’s fourth-largest wildfire on record. The latest assessments show 636 structures destroyed and 49 damaged. To the south, a new blaze called the Crozier Fire has spread over about a square mile of El Dorado County forest. Authorities say extreme fire behavior is occurring there.

Freddie Mac says average rate on a 30-year mortgage fell to 6.47% this week, the lowest level in more than a year.

The artist formerly known as Kanye West is blaming booze for his now infamous antisemitic tweet from 2022, in which he said he was going to go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.”

Milo Yiannopoulos, the former chief of staff for Kanye West, is alleging celebrity dentist Thomas Connelly provided the rapper with nitrous oxide for recreational use, which led to addiction.

EDITORS: The bestselling books list from Publishers Weekly is delayed. It will move as soon as it is available, but may not move until late Friday.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s military record has come under scrutiny since he was named as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket. Republicans are questioning both Walz’s characterization of his time in uniform and his departure from service. Walz served a total of 24 years in the Army National Guard before retiring in 2005. As he ramped up for a congressional bid in 2005, Walz’s campaign in March issued a statement saying he still planned to run despite a possible mobilization of Minnesota National Guard soldiers to Iraq. Walz retired from service in May of that year, according to the Guard. A mobilization order for his unit was issued in August 2005. The unit mobilized in October and was deployed to Iraq in March 2006.

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A zoo in Syracuse, New York, has welcomed two baby patas monkeys born weeks apart. The Rosamond Gifford Zoo said Thursday that the monkey babies are being raised by keepers because their mothers showed a lack of maternal instinct. The wide-eyed, big-eared babies, which were born in April and May, were fathered by the patas troop leader, Mac, making them half-sisters. The zoo says the survival rate for patas monkeys is relatively low in the wild because young mothers often can’t or won’t raise their young. Knowing this, handlers were on the lookout for signs the new mothers needed help and stepped in.

A six-episode mockumentary on Peaco*ck, “Mr. Throwback,” stars Adam Pally as a sports memorabilia dealer named Danny who, desperate for money, seeks out his old childhood friend-turned-NBA star Steph Curry. The show comes from Pally and David Caspe, the latter of whom created the vastly super…

Samsung is recalling more than 1.12 million electric ranges used for stovetops after reports of 250 fires and dozens of injuries. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, these slide-in ranges have front-mounted knobs that can be activated by accident if humans or pets unintentionally contact or bump into them. That poses a fire hazard. The recalled ranges were sold between May 2013 and August 2024 online at Samsung.com as well as in retailers nationwide — including Best Buy, Costco, Home Depot and Lowe’s. Consumers in possession of a recalled range are urged to contact Samsung Electronics America for a free set of knob locks or covers compatible with their model.

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus is sworn in as Bangladesh's interim leader after uprising ousts former prime minister.

Cookbook author and TV personality Sandra Lee is a co-host and judge on a new Netflix competition series called “Blue Ribbon Baking Championship" out Friday. On the show, 10 bakers compete for a blue ribbon prize and a chance at $100,000. Lee says the show is just one of the many career ideas that she's had percolating as she's “cleaned house” and started over in the last decade. In 2015, Lee battled breast cancer. In 2019 she ended a 14-year relationship with former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Lee later moved from New York to California to start anew.

Author-educator Kwame Anthony Appiah has received a $500,000 lifetime achievement award from the Library of Congress. Appiah, 70, has won the John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity, given every two years to “individuals whose outstanding scholarship in the humanities and social sciences has shaped public affairs and civil society.” Appiah is known for such books as “Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers,” “The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen” and for co-editing “Africana: The Encyclopedia of African and African American Experience.”

A tornado death in North Carolina has raised Tropical Storm Debby's death toll to 7, authorities say.

“Alien” Romulus," one of the most anticipated movies of the summer, is set to be one of the scariest, as well. Director Fede Álvarez, the horror filmmaker behind “Evil Dead” and “Don't Breathe,” used animatronic and puppet alien creatures, including the famed “face huggers” and the dreaded xenomorph, as he made the film. The film's star, Cailee Spaeny, says those practical effects made it easy to act terrified. She called the frightful creations “such a gift because you’re not having to act against a tennis ball.” The creatures were created with help from a team who worked with legendary practical effects wizard Stan Winston. “Alien: Romulus” releases in theaters Aug. 16.

Austrian chancellor defends decision to cancel Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna, says arrests came too close to showtime.

London’s Metropolitan Police says Taylor Swift shows will go on next week, no indication of link to foiled Austrian plot.

For the seven athletes competing for Haiti, participating in the Paris Games has always been about more than just winning gold. For athletes like swimmer Alexandre Grand’Pierre, it’s about sending a message of hope to a nation reeling from gang violence and political turmoil. The symbol of pride for many in Haiti, the athletes hope to change the narrative around the Caribbean country, long portrayed as a victim. It’s also in part about reclaiming their history from France, the former colonizer that bankrupted Haiti for more than a century. But the path to France hasn’t been easy.

LOS ANGELES — A palpable tension hangs over Encino as news of the latest burglary spreads through the San Fernando Valley neighborhood after months of reported break-ins.

There was a bogeyman at Republican Rep. Mike Garcia's town hall in Santa Clarita this week: the state of California.

Iran’s president told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron the U.S. and Europe must urge Israel to accept a truce in Gaza to reduce tensions in the Middle East.

After a lull where Debby was over the Atlantic Ocean, the tropical storm returned to South Carolina on Thursday, and is continuing to soak the Columbia area as it slowly moves through the Palmetto State.

LOS ANGELES — At a recent celebration of San Francisco's vibrant transgender past, one speaker after another directed the crowd's attention to a worrisome future, casting November's presidential election as a turning point for the LGBTQ+ community and the nation as a whole.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus arrived in Bangladesh on Thursday ahead of the swearing in of an interim government that he will lead after student-led protests forced Sheikh Hasina to flee the country.

A revival of the cutthroat business play “Glengarry Glen Ross” is slated for Broadway this spring, cast with a star from “Succession.” Kieran Culkin will join “Better Call Saul” star Bob Odenkirk and comedian Bill Burr in a new production of an examination of two days in the lives of four desperate Chicago real estate salesmen. The production is set to open on Broadway in the spring of 2025. Culkin is the latest “Succession” star to make their way to Broadway after Jeremy Strong appeared in a revival of “An Enemy of the People” this year.

Russia declared a state of emergency in a western region as Ukraine’s military launched what appeared to be its biggest incursion into Russian territory since the Kremlin’s war began more than two years ago.

So close, yet so fah. The Boston-set heist movie “The Instigators,” on a few screens here and there and streaming on Apple TV+ Aug. 9, features a relaxed-bordering-on-napping Matt Damon and Casey Affleck as glib everymen enlisted by some underworld overactors, led by Michael Stuhlbarg, to st…

In the year since the Lahaina fires on Maui, the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement has helped more than 6,000 families through a robust recovery project. It financially supports families who take in displaced loved ones, leases apartments for displaced survivors, runs workforce development programs to train people for cleanup and construction jobs, and builds temporary housing for families. The Associated Press spoke with the council's CEO, Kuhio Lewis, a few weeks before the one-year anniversary of the Aug. 8, 2023 fires. He discussed how CNHA became one of the most crucial providers of housing for survivors, what program he’s most proud of, and what still worries him about Maui’s long recovery.

Officials say part of a cornice that fell from a building in downtown Prague hit a tram stop, killing one person. Television footage showed a hole in the roof of the stop. The victim was not immediately identified. The accident took place Thursday on Lazarska street before noon. Police say the street would be closed for traffic for two hours. Several tram lines use the street. At the time of the accident, the Czech capital was hit by a thunderstorm. Firefighters said that after the accident they removed about 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of unidentified material from the top of the building that could possibly fall later.

A recent pullback in mortgage rates is spurring more homeowners to refinance their home loan and lower their monthly payments. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s refinance index, which tracks home loan application volume, surged 16% last week from the previous week to its highest level in two years, the association said Wednesday. Refinance applications were up nearly 60% versus the same week last year. Despite the lower borrowing costs, applications for loans to buy a home rose only 0.8% from the previous week and were down about 11% from a year earlier, the MBA said.

The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits fell last week but remain at slightly elevated though not troubling levels. Jobless claims for the week of Aug. 3 fell by 17,000 to 233,000 last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s fewer than the 240,000 analysts surveyed by FactSet were expecting. Weekly unemployment claims are widely considered representative of layoffs, and though they have trended higher recently, they remain at historically healthy levels. Continuing claims, which represent the total number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits, rose by 6,000 to 1.88 million for the Week of July 27. That the most since the week of Nov. 27, 2021.

Boeing ‘s new CEO is on the job and visiting a key factory near Seattle. Robert “Kelly” Ortberg officially took over as Boeing CEO on Thursday. He is inheriting a company that’s been losing billions, is struggling fix its aircraft-manufacturing process, and has agreed to plead guilty in a fraud case. Ortberg says he is excited to dig in to the new assignment. Ortberg was the CEO of aerospace supplier Rockwell Collins from 2013 to 2018. He retired in 2021 but, now 64, is coming back to attempt a turnaround at Boeing. On his first day, he's visiting the plant near Seattle where Boeing assembles the 737 Max jetliner.

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 8, 2024--

Vice President Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, looking to strengthen the Democratic ticket in Midwestern states. With both major party tickets now decided, the campaign is set to play out as a 90-day sprint, and the Rust Belt and the Sun Belt are prime fronts. Both the Harris-Walz and Trump-Vance campaigns will be on the trail in key states Michigan and Wisconsin Wednesday for their respective battleground state tours.

Former President Donald Trump says he'll hold a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida beachside compound. The event scheduled for Thursday at 2 p.m. EDT will be his first public appearance since Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee and selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. Trump announced the news conference on his Truth Social network and posted that he was eager to debate Harris. He had teased an announcement about the presidential debate earlier this week after pulling out of an ABC News debate scheduled for Sept. 10. Trump had said he'd prefer that Fox News sponsor the debate, but on Wednesday was showing willingness to reconsider ABC.