COLU @ CONCEPTS

LONDON (AP) — Britons will find armed troops at vital locations Wednesday after the official threat level was raised to its highest point following a suicide bombing that killed 22, as new details emerged about the bomber. Home Secretary Amber Rudd said bomber Salman Abedi was known “up to a point” to the British intelligence services and police. France’s interior minister said Abedi is believed to have traveled to Syria and had “proven” links with the Islamic State group. Investigators hunted for possible accomplices of the suicide bomber who attacked an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, killing 22 people and sparking a stampede of young concertgoers Monday night. (May 23) Gerard Collomb said on BFM television Wednesday that British and French intelligence have information that the British-born attacker had been to Syria. He did not provide details, and said it is unclear whether Abedi was part of a larger network of attackers. Collomb, who spoke with British P...

It never figured to end well for Rio. Just hosting the Olympics took everything out of the city. Trying to recover from them may be impossible. Nine months after hosting the world’s best athletes in a flawed — and mostly joyless — Olympics, Rio has little to show for the $12 billion effort. Arenas sit empty or boarded-up, the Olympic Park is vacant, and the city’s former mayor is being investigated for allegedly accepting $5 million in payments for construction projects tied to the games. And now, even  some of the medals  presented to athletes are falling apart. It wasn’t supposed to be like this when Rio won the first Olympics in South America in 2009, with a promise to showcase Brazil and its culture. Chicago was the odds-on favorite to get the games, but Rio organizers convinced IOC voters they could stage a historic Olympics. “There was absolutely no flaw in the bid,” then IOC president, Jacques Rogge, said at the time of the vote. This was before Zika ma...

NEW YORK (AP) — Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity said Tuesday he’s backing off his speculation about the 2016 murder of Democratic National Committee employee Seth Rich after talking with Rich’s family, which had appealed to the media to stop. The decision took Hannity off a potential collision course with his network, which earlier Tuesday had removed a week-old story about the case from its website because “it was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting.” The report quoted a private investigator suggesting that Rich had some connection to WikiLeaks and its leaks of Democratic National Committee emails during the last campaign. Rich’s family has said they don’t believe their son, who was shot in July 2016 in Washington, gave any information to WikiLeaks. The investigator has since recanted his claim, and the independent researcher Politifact.com has said the notion that Rich was involved in the leak was flimsy and ill...

JERUSALEM (AP) — What do world leaders talk about when they are alone? Not much, it seems. President Donald Trump spent part of his two-day visit to Israel with open microphones nearby, giving the world a small glimpse into his private banter with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu between official appearances. They chatted about paint on the walls, their wives and where to stand during a ceremony. And they exchanged compliments — lots of compliments. This presidential small talk provided just some of the memorable moments of Trump’s swing through the Middle East, the first stop on his first overseas trip as president. There was an awkward Saudi sword dance, an airport selfie with a pushy Israeli lawmaker and a possible snub by Melania Trump. With Trump now in Rome to meet the pope, here is a look at some of the highlights: SAUDI ARABIA —The Orb: While Trump’s speech before Muslim leaders grabbed headlines, the buzz on social media was the image of him, Saudi Ki...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top officials in President Donald Trump’s Cabinet are heading to Capitol Hill to defend his plans to cut domestic programs and parry Democratic criticism of his tax proposals. Budget Director Mick Mulvaney appears Wednesday before the House Budget panel while Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will testify at the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. The budget contains virtually no further detail on taxes beyond the cuts the administration proposed in a one-page outline last month. White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney released President Donald Trump’s $4.1 trillion spending plan Tuesday that relies on steep cuts to programs for the poor and faster economic growth in a bid to balance the government’s books. (May 23) Trump on Tuesday released a 10-year budget plan containing jarring, politically unrealistic cuts to the social safety net and a broad swath of domestic programs. The plan, Trump’s first as president, combines $4.1 trillion for ...

BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO is not only rolling out the red carpet for U.S. President Donald Trump in Brussels Thursday, but the military alliance — which Trump has declared obsolete — has been busy repackaging its image and is ready to unveil a new headquarters worth 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion). In recent months, member nations have strained to show they are ramping up defense spending as Trump has demanded. And while they agree with the chief of the alliance’s most powerful member that NATO can do more to fight terrorism, they say it can be achieved with more of the same; training and mentoring troops in Afghanistan, and equipping local forces in Iraq so they can better fight the Islamic State group themselves. “They’ll only talk about what he cares about, so really he should come out of this meeting feeling as though NATO responds to him,” said Kristine Berzina, NATO analyst at the German Marshall Fund think tank. “At least that’s what they hope here.” Indeed, as part of the...

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Amy Pittman learned on her first day in jail to bottle up her grief. As soon as she arrived, guards took her shoelaces so she wouldn’t try to hang herself. Cry too much or scream too loud and she feared they would come back to take everything she had left — her clothes, a sheet, a plastic spork. But how could she not? How could anyone? Ten weeks before, Pittman was a single mom who worked overnight shifts as a gas station cashier to keep her three kids fed and clothed. When a child shoots himself or another, there’s always an adult somewhere in the mix. An Associated Press/ USA Today review found that almost identical incidents can lead to a lengthy prison sentence in one state and no charge in another. (May 24) Now, alone in a cinderblock cell, she faced criminal charges for not doing enough to protect them. She pictured her youngest, Christian, 9, in his coffin. Blue shirt neatly tucked. Cold to the touch. Dead at the hands of his 12-year-old br...

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Muslim extremists abducted a Catholic priest and more than a dozen churchgoers while laying siege to a southern Philippine city overnight, burning buildings, ambushing soldiers and hoisting flags of the Islamic State group, officials said Wednesday. President Rodrigo Duterte has declared martial law in the southern third of the nation and warned he would enforce it harshly. The violence erupted Tuesday night after the army raided the hideout of Isnilon Hapilon, an Abu Sayyaf commander who is on Washington’s list of most-wanted terrorists with a reward of up to $5 million for his capture. The militants called for reinforcements from an allied group, the Maute, and some 50 gunmen managed to enter the city of Marawi. Archbishop Socrates Villegas, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, said the militants forced their way into a cathedral in Marawi and seized a priest, 10 worshippers and three church workers. The priest, Father...

LONDON (AP) — The Latest on the suicide bombing at a pop concert in Manchester (all times local): 9:05 a.m. Germany’s interior minister has ordered that flags on federal government buildings be flown at half-staff following the attack in Manchester. Thomas de Maiziere’s ministry said Wednesday that flags will be lowered to half-staff for the day on Wednesday. It described the order as “a signal of sympathy and solidarity after the cruel attack in Manchester.” At least 22 people were killed in Monday evening’s attack at an Ariana Grande concert. ___ 8:55 a.m. British Home Secretary Amber Rudd says Manchester suicide bomber Salman Abedi was known “up to a point” to the British intelligence services and police. She said Wednesday the investigation is continuing and declined to provide further details about Abedi, whose improvised bomb killed 22 people at a pop concert in Manchester. Rudd says Britain’s increased official threat level will remain at “critical” as the...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — President Donald Trump met with Pope Francis, the famously humble pontiff with whom he has publicly clashed, concluding his tour of the ancestral homes of the world’s three largest monotheistic religions. Trump, midway through his grueling nine-day maiden international journey, called upon the pontiff at the Vatican early Wednesday where the two had a private 30-minute meeting laden with religious symbolism and ancient protocol. The president, accompanied by his wife and several aides, arrived at the Vatican just after 8 a.m. local time. The president greeted Francis in Sala del Tronetto, the room of the little throne, on the second floor of Apostolic Palace Wednesday morning. The men shook hands and Trump could be heard thanking the pope and saying it was “a great honor” to be there. They then posed for photographs and then sat down at the papal desk, the pope unsmiling, as their private meeting began. It ended a half hour later when Francis rang the bel...