BEIRUT -- Fresh off their takeover of Syria's eastern Ghouta enclave earlier this month, loyalist forces were poised Friday to subdue pockets south of Damascus held by Islamic State and rebel groups, Syrian pro-government media and activists said.

The move is part of a larger bid to secure the capital, the seat of power of Syrian President ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- A Los Angeles police officer was arrested Friday and charged with three counts of murder in connection with a suspected DUI crash on the 605 Freeway in Whittier last fall, authorities said.

Edgar Verduzco, 26, was taken into custody at a friend's home in Long Beach about 7:30 a.m. Friday and booked on suspicion of three counts of...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- A federal judge postponed a ruling on a request by President Donald Trump and his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who is now the subject of a federal investigation, for a 90-day delay of a lawsuit filed against them by porn star Stormy Daniels.

U.S. District Court Judge S. James Otero took the request under submission Friday, ...Read more

WASHINGTON -- They are among the most storied memos-to-self in recent Washington history: 15 pages that James B. Comey, at the time the FBI director, wrote about his increasingly uncomfortable meetings with newly elected President Donald Trump.

Under pressure from Republicans, the Justice Department on Thursday sent Congress the memos that ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA -- Southwest Airlines has sent passengers of Flight 1380 a letter of apology that includes a check for $5,000 "to cover any of your immediate financial needs" after the plane suffered an engine failure and had to make an emergency landing in Philadelphia.

The letter also says the passengers would separately receive a $1,000 flight ...Read more

NORRISTOWN, Pa. -- Bill Cosby's lawyers shifted strategies at his retrial Friday, hoping to convince jurors that it was impossible for his sexual encounter with accuser Andrea Constand to have occurred when she says it did.

Calling a series of assistants and tour managers to the witness stand, defense lawyer Becky S. James walked jurors through...Read more

CHICAGO -- A man told his girlfriend on the phone that he was being followed by a black Dodge Charger shortly before he was shot to death Thursday evening on a dark, dead-end street on Chicago's Far South Side, according to police and a family member.

The man, identified by family members and the medical examiner as Jerome Fouch, was pronounced...Read more

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Locks for multiple cell doors were not functioning at the Lee Correctional Institution where a riot killed seven inmates earlier this week.

The Department of Corrections would not say how many cell doors at the Bishopville maximum security prison did not lock or how long the locks had been broken. But Department of Corrections...Read more

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Those who get arrested in Southern Pines, N.C., for celebrating 'Weed Day' on Friday are in for a treat when they arrive at the police station.

The Southern Pines Police Department is taking a light-hearted approach to April 20, informally known as 'Weed Day.'

"To ensure the Southern Pines Police Department is prepared for ...Read more

MIAMI -- While Cuba's National Assembly was applauding a historic transition that brought Miguel Diaz-Canel to power Thursday, Miami exiles were underwhelmed by the changing of the guard, calling it everything from "undemocratic" to a "sham transition" to more of the same.

"Nothing more than a predetermined charade by the Castro regime," said ...Read more

Lois Riess, the Minnesota grandmother with a gambling addiction, was captured Thursday night in South Texas, far from where she allegedly killed her husband in Minnesota and a woman who looked like her in Florida, according to local and national authorities.

Riess was arrested without incident in a restaurant in the resort area of South Padre ...Read more

Federal regulators slapped Wells Fargo & Co. with a fine of $1 billion on Friday, punishing the San Francisco bank for abuses that harmed mortgage and auto loan borrowers, and for what regulators said was a pervasive and "reckless" lack of risk management.

The penalty, announced by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Consumer ...Read more

PARKLAND, Fla. -- A group of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School teachers waved signs Friday morning in front of the school, as part of a day of activism against violence in schools.

Before classes began Friday, about two dozen gathered, holding the signs and chanting as passers-by honked their horns in support.

Friday is the National Day of ...Read more