COLU @ CONCEPTS

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The sky was darkening Thursday afternoon as 10-year-old Sarah Jimenez laid out three plastic buckets on her grandmother’s patio in hopes of capturing rainwater. “We can use it to at least flush the toilets,” she told her grandmother. A day after Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, flooding towns, crushing homes and killing at least two people, millions of people on the island faced the dispiriting prospect of weeks and perhaps months without electricity. The storm knocked out the entire grid across the U.S. territory of 3.4 million, leaving many without power to light their homes, cook, pump water or run fans, air conditioners or refrigerators. As a result, Jimenez and others hunted for gas canisters for cooking, collected rainwater or steeled themselves mentally for the hardships to come in the tropical heat. Some contemplated leaving the island. “You cannot live here without power,” said Hector Llanos, a 78-year-old retired New York poli...

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump added economic action to his fiery military threats against North Korea on Thursday, authorizing stiffer new sanctions in response to the Koreans’ nuclear weapons advances. Its leader Kim Jong Un issued a rare statement, branding Trump as “deranged” and warning he will “pay dearly” for his threat to “totally destroy” the North if it attacks. The exchange of super-heated rhetoric and unusually personal abuse between the adversaries will escalate tensions that have been mounting as North Korea has marched closer to achieving a nuclear-tipped missile that could strike America. The crisis has dominated the Trump’s debut at this week’s annual U.N. General Assembly meeting. Kim’s statement, carried by North Korea’s official news agency in a dispatch from Pyongyang early Friday, responded to Trump’s combative speech days earlier where he not only issued the warning of potential obliteration for the isolated nation, but also mocked the North...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — On the surface it seems like more of the same: North Korea responds to another threat by U.S. President Donald Trump by calling him a “deranged” old man who will “pay dearly” for his insults. These words, however, carry the weight of an unprecedented personal rebuke from North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Un. Behind Kim’s colorful language released Friday is a remarkable window into the thinking — albeit filtered through state media — of the leader of a country that, despite opposition by the world’s sole superpower, stands on the brink of nuclear weapons mastery. Here are five things to know about Kim Jong Un’s statement: ___ HE’S BREAKING GROUND It was written in the first person, and issued directly to the international community generally and to Trump specifically. Seoul’s Unification Ministry, which is responsible for North-South relations, said it was the first time a North Korean leader had addressed the world with such a direct...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in an extraordinary and direct rebuke, called President Donald Trump “deranged” and said he will “pay dearly” for his threats, a possible indication of more powerful weapons tests on the horizon. Hours later, North Korea’s foreign minister reportedly said his country may test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean to fulfill Kim’s vow to take the “highest-level” action against the United States. Kim, in his statement, said Trump is “unfit to hold the prerogative of supreme command of a country.” He also described the U.S. president as “a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire.” The dispatch was unusual in that it was written in the first person, albeit filtered through the North’s state media, which are part of propaganda efforts meant to glorify Kim. South Korea’s government said it was the first such direct address to the world by any North Korean leader. Some analysts saw a clear sign that North Korea ...

BUNIA, Congo (AP) — She had been orphaned by a brutal conflict, but the 14-year-old Congolese girl found refuge in a camp protected by United Nations peacekeepers. The camp should have been safe the day she was raped. A delegation from the U.N. was paying a visit, and her grandmother had left her in charge of her siblings. That was the day, the girl says, that a Pakistani peacekeeper slipped inside their home and assaulted her in front of the other children. But that was not the end of her story. Even though she reported the rape, the girl never got any help from the U.N. She did become pregnant, however, and had a baby. If the U.N. sexual abuse crisis has an epicenter, it is the Congo, where the scope of the problem first emerged 13 years ago - and where promised reforms have most clearly fallen short. Of the 2,000 sexual abuse and exploitation complaints made against U.N. peacekeepers and personnel worldwide over the past 12 years, more than 700 occurred in Congo, The As...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Hour after excruciating hour, Mexicans were transfixed by dramatic efforts to reach a young girl thought buried in the rubble of a school destroyed by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake. She reportedly wiggled her fingers, told rescuers her name and said there were others trapped near her. Rescue workers called for tubes, pipes and other tools to reach her. News media, officials and volunteer rescuers all repeated the story of “Frida Sofia” with a sense of urgency that made it a national drama, drawing attention away from other rescue efforts across the quake-stricken city and leaving people in Mexico and abroad glued to their television sets. But she never existed, Mexican navy officials now say. “We want to emphasize that we have no knowledge about the report that emerged with the name of a girl,” navy Assistant Secretary Angel Enrique Sarmiento said Thursday. “We never had any knowledge about that report, and we do not believe — we are sure — it was not a rea...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Some of the 4,000 immigrants who gathered Wednesday in Los Angeles to take their U.S. citizenship oath let out a collective moan when they learned they were going to watch a videotaped message from President Donald Trump. For them, the president’s remarks welcoming them into the “American family” and urging them to help newcomers assimilate felt insincere after he previously ordered a travel ban, moved to end a program shielding nearly 800,000 young immigrants from deportation, and referred to Mexican immigrants as rapists. “You look at the track of others things he’s said and you don’t feel like he’s a genuine person to want to welcome new citizens,” said Kevin Alvarado, a 21-year-old college student who arrived in the U.S. from Nicaragua as a toddler. Others, however, appreciated Trump’s message of unity — especially at a time of political division. “I thought the video was great,” said Moises Rodriguez, a 28-year-old wedding disc jockey who came from ...

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A cult-like figure whose spiritual and financial hold over a formerly Amish couple enabled him to have sexual relationships with six of their daughters was sentenced to up to 87 years in prison Wednesday. The sentencing of Lee Donald Kaplan on multiple counts of child rape, statutory sexual assault and other charges that authorities said were committed during at least six years marks the end of a set of criminal cases that have landed the victims in protective custody and their parents in prison. “Corrupted, perverted, atrocious. Use what adjective you would like to use,” Bucks County Judge Jeffrey Finley told Kaplan, 52, adding that the court has classified him as a sexually violent predator. Kaplan befriended and financially supported Daniel and Savilla Stoltzfus as they were leaving the Amish community almost two decades ago and eventually opened his home to the female members of the family, authorities said. He cast himself as a divine prophet, off...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Iran’s president warned Wednesday that his country will “respond decisively” to any violation of the agreement that reins in its nuclear program and called President Donald Trump’s “ignorant, absurd and hateful rhetoric” about Iran unfit for the United Nations. In remarks clearly directed at Trump’s 8-month-old administration, Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani told the U.N. General Assembly: “It will be a great pity if this agreement were to be destroyed by rogue newcomers to the world of politics.” “The world will have lost a great opportunity, but such unfortunate behavior will never impede Iran’s course of progress and advancement,” Rouhani said. As he spoke to the assembly, other nations began signing the first treaty to ban nuclear weapons, a pact spurned by nuclear powers. Fifty states put their names on the nuclear weapons pact by the end of the day. Guyana, the Vatican and Thailand also have already ratified the treaty, which would take effe...

Jake LaMotta, an iron-fisted battler who brawled his way to a middleweight title and was later memorialized by Robert De Niro in the film “Raging Bull,” has died. He was 95. The former middleweight champion died Tuesday at a Miami-area hospital from complications of pneumonia, according to his longtime fiancee, Denise Baker. LaMotta handed Sugar Ray Robinson his first defeat and reigned for nearly two years as middleweight champion during a time boxing was one of America’s biggest sports. He was a fan favorite who fought with fury, though he admitted to once intentionally losing a fight to get in line for a title bout. LaMotta gained fame with a new generation because of the 1980 film based loosely on his autobiography from a decade earlier. De Niro won an Academy Award playing the troubled boxer - violent both inside and outside the ring - in a Martin Scorsese film that several critics have ranked as among the top 100 movies ever made. “Rest in Peace, Champ,” De Niro ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday the Republicans’ last-resort “Obamacare” repeal effort remains two or three votes short, forecasting days of furious lobbying ahead with a crucial deadline looming next week. The legislation by Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina would repeal major pillars of former President Barack Obama’s health law, replacing them with block grants to states to design their own health care programs. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is trying to round up 50 votes to pass the legislation before Sept. 30, when special rules preventing a Democratic filibuster will expire. “We think this has a very good chance, Obamacare is only getting worse,” Trump told reporters covering the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York. “At some point the Senate is going to be forced to make a deal.” By his reckoning, “we’re at 47 or 48 already, senators, and a lot of others are looking at it very positively.” Trump’s com...