COLU @ CONCEPTS

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The family of an Australian woman who was shot and killed by police in Minneapolis says they’re trying to understand why it happened. In a statement released by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the family of the woman — whom Minneapolis authorities haven’t identified — said it’s a difficult time. The Star Tribune ( http://strib.mn/2tZtSB2  ) identified the woman as Justine Damond, 40, from Sydney, Australia. The family of an Australian woman who was shot and killed by Minneapolis police says they’re trying to understand why it happened. The woman has not been identified. Officers shot her while responding to a call. Their body cameras were not on. (July 17) The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension released a statement Sunday saying two Minneapolis officers responded to a 911 call for a potential assault late Saturday. Exact details weren’t released, but officials said an officer fired a gun, killing the woman. Officials say the off

LOWELL, Mass. (AP) — They hide in weeds along hiking trails and in playground grass. They wash into rivers and float downstream to land on beaches. They pepper baseball dugouts, sidewalks and streets. Syringes left by drug users amid the heroin crisis are turning up everywhere. In Portland, Maine, officials have collected more than 700 needles so far this year, putting them on track to handily exceed the nearly 900 gathered in all of 2016. In March alone, San Francisco collected more than  13,000  syringes, compared with only about 2,900 the same month in 2016. People, often children, risk getting stuck by discarded needles, raising the prospect they could contract blood-borne diseases such as hepatitis or HIV or be exposed to remnants of heroin or other drugs. It’s unclear whether anyone has gotten sick, but the reports of children finding the needles can be sickening in their own right. One 6-year-old girl in California  mistook  a discarded syringe for a thermometer and p

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Foes of President Nicolas Maduro said more than 7 million Venezuelans cast symbolic votes rejecting his plan to retool the constitution in a strong but not overwhelming showing that left the opposition facing tough choices two weeks before the socialist leader seeks to reshape the political system. The vote was marred by violence when a 61-year-old woman was killed and four people wounded by gunfire after government supporters on motorcycles swarmed an opposition polling site in a church in western Caracas. Venezuelans lined up across the country to vote in an opposition-sponsored referendum meant to reject President Nicolas Maduro’s plan to rewrite the constitution. The success of the symbolic vote will be measured by how many participate. (July 16) Analysts said the 7,186,170 ballots the opposition says were cast across Venezuela and around the world on Sunday was an impressive show of support. However, it fell short of the opposition’s 7.7

LONDON (AP) — Never count out Roger Federer. Seems obvious, right? Especially after he won his record-breaking eighth Wimbledon championship and second Grand Slam title of this resurgent season. There have been times, though, when folks wondered whether he was done winning major tournaments. He was getting older. He went 4½ years without such a title. He was surpassed in the rankings by the other members of tennis’ Big 4 as they began accumulating Grand Slam trophies — first Rafael Nadal, then Novak Djokovic, then Andy Murray. Even Federer himself began to wonder. He took the last half of 2016 off to let his surgically repaired left knee heal properly and has returned to the top of the game. First, he ended his Slam drought by winning the Australian Open in January. Then, after skipping the French Open, he raised his major total to 19 by winning Wimbledon without a dropping a set, finishing the fortnight with a 6-3, 6-1, 6-4 victory over 2014 U.S. Open champion Marin Cilic in

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Martin Landau, the chameleon-like actor who gained fame as the crafty master of disguise in the 1960s TV show “Mission: Impossible,” then capped a long and versatile career with an Oscar for his poignant portrayal of aging horror movie star Bela Lugosi in 1994′s “Ed Wood,” has died. He was 89. Landau died Saturday of unexpected complications during a short stay at UCLA Medical Center, his publicist Dick Guttman said. “Mission: Impossible,” which also starred Landau’s wife, Barbara Bain, became an immediate hit upon its debut in 1966. It remained on the air until 1973, but Landau and Bain left at the end of the show’s third season amid a financial dispute with the producers. They starred in the British-made sci-fi series “Space: 1999" from 1975 to 1977. Landau might have been a superstar but for a role he didn’t play — the pointy-eared starship Enterprise science officer, Mr. Spock. “Star Trek” creator Gene Rodenberry had offered him the half-Vulcan, h

LOUTOLIM, India (AP) — Age sits lightly on the sprawling, 4-centuries-old Figueiredo Mansion. The home is a lived-in repository of memories tracing to the days when the west-coast Indian state of Goa was a Portuguese colony. The Figueiredo family of Portuguese diplomats, lawyers and parliamentarians began building the mansion in 1590 as they made their home in quaint Loutolim, surrounded by paddy fields and a few neighbors. The family added a second section with similar design to the home 200 years later. Today, about an hour’s drive from Goa’s airport, a rundown, roadside sign reads “Casa Museu V.J. De Figueiredo Loutolim” to let visitors know they’ve reached their destination. Far from the party beaches and liquor shacks for which Goa is now known, the mansion operates as a homestay and a museum, filled with antique furniture and artifacts from the 17th century. The musty smell of aged wood fills arcaded corridors, with rooms to both sides. “It’s really like Portugal i

LOWELL, Mass. (AP) — They hide in weeds along hiking trails and in playground grass. They wash into rivers and float downstream to land on beaches. They pepper baseball dugouts, sidewalks and streets. Syringes left by drug users amid the heroin crisis are turning up everywhere. In Portland, Maine, officials have collected more than 700 needles so far this year, putting them on track to handily exceed the nearly 900 gathered in all of 2016. In March alone, San Francisco collected more than 13,000 syringes, compared with only about 2,900 the same month in 2016. People, often children, risk getting stuck by discarded needles, raising the prospect they could contract blood-borne diseases such as hepatitis or HIV or be exposed to remnants of heroin or other drugs. It’s unclear whether anyone has gotten sick, but the reports of children finding the needles can be sickening in their own right. One 6-year-old girl in California mistook a discarded syringe for a thermometer and put i

Your speech may, um, help reveal if you’re uh ... developing thinking problems. More pauses, filler words and other verbal changes might be an early sign of mental decline, which can lead to Alzheimer’s disease, a study suggests. Researchers had people describe a picture they were shown in taped sessions two years apart. Those with early-stage mild cognitive impairment slid much faster on certain verbal skills than those who didn’t develop thinking problems. “What we’ve discovered here is there are aspects of language that are affected earlier than we thought,” before or at the same time that memory problems emerge, said one study leader, Sterling Johnson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This was the largest study ever done of speech analysis for this purpose, and if more testing confirms its value, it might offer a simple, cheap way to help screen people for very early signs of mental decline. Don’t panic: Lots of people say “um” and have trouble quickly recalling

ISTANBUL (AP) — Running a school in the enclave controlled by Syria’s al-Qaida affiliate, Syrian-American Rania Kisar has become skilled in getting her way, either by negotiating with the militants or by pushing back against them. When she was preparing for the students’ graduation, the militant group sent an inspector who told her not to play music at the ceremony. She argued back. Then on graduation day, she invited the group. The ceremony started with a nod to tradition with a Quranic recital in line with the inspector’s wishes. But then as the students filed out in front of an audience of relatives and local officials, as well as representatives from the militant group, Kisar played “Pomp and Circumstance” — the anthem used at American graduations. It was a calculated gamble: she was betting the militants would not make a scene. “It was matter-of-fact. They did nothing,” she said. But she knew why they had intervened in the first place. “If they don’t interfere, they w

MIDDLETOWN, R.I. (AP) — Former national security adviser Michael Flynn, at the center of multiple probes into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, seeks sanctuary from the swirling eddy of news coverage in the beach town where he grew up surfing and skateboarding, one of nine siblings crammed into a 1,200-square foot house. Middletown is his refuge and the ocean is his therapy, and he’s spent recent weeks here surfing and figuring out his path forward, according to friends and family members. They say the man they have known since his childhood here in the 1960s and 1970s — the student body president who rose from a start in Army ROTC to the rank of lieutenant general — isn’t the same man they see portrayed in news reports. “Have you seen that in the news? They talk about Mike as a traitor? The thought of that is absolutely insane to me,” said older brother Jack. Forced from government service into retirement in 2014 by the Obama administration, Flynn wen

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea offered Monday to talk with North Korea to ease animosities along their tense border and resume reunions of families separated by their war in the 1950s. It’s unclear if North Korea would agree to the proposed talks as it remains suspicious of the South Korean president’s overtures, seeing the new leader’s more liberal policy as still resorting to the United States to force North Korea to disarm. Seoul’s proposal for two sets of talks indicates President Moon Jae-in is pushing to improve ties with Pyongyang despite the North’s first intercontinental ballistic missile this month. Vice Defense Minister Suh Choo Suk said the South’s defense officials are proposing talks at the border village of Panmunjom on Friday to discuss how to end hostile activities along the border. Seoul’s acting Red Cross chief Kim Sun Hyang said it wants separate talks at the border village on Aug. 1 to discuss family reunions. North Korea’s state media hasn’t im

TONTO NATIONAL FOREST, Ariz. (AP) — Adults, teens and children as young as 2 were enjoying a summer afternoon by cooling off in an Arizona creek when the gentle waters turned deadly. The group from the Phoenix and Flagstaff areas had met Saturday for a day trip along a popular swimming hole near Payson, about 100 miles (160.9 kilometers) northeast of the capital. They set up lounge chairs not knowing an intense thunderstorm was dumping heavy rainfall just upstream in the Tonto National Forest. A Phoenix resident on a hiking trip described the terror of seeing a sudden torrent of water brought on by heavy rains along a popular stream. The flash flood hit an area about 85 miles north of Phoenix on Saturday, leaving nine people dead. (July 16) The storm unleashed 6-foot-high floodwaters, dark with ash from a summer wildfire, onto the unsuspecting family and friends. The torrent carried away tree branches and other debris and left a wake of nine bodies. Search and rescue