COLU @ CONCEPTS

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A woman who pointed a gun at employees inside the Kardashian-owned DASH boutique in West Hollywood while screaming about Cuba and then returned hours later to wave a machete at reporters has been arrested, Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials said Friday. Maricia Medrano, 35, was arrested on suspicion of assault and making criminal threats, the sheriff’s office said in a statement. Medrano walked into the DASH boutique late Thursday morning, pointed a handgun at two employees and shouted “stay away from Cuba,” the statement said. She then knocked several items off a counter and left. About two hours later, Medrano returned with a 14-inch (36-centimeter) machete and swung it at reporters and photographers who had gathered outside the shop after the robbery, threatening to stab them, the statement said. The woman was captured on video saying, “The Kardashians will be executed if they step on communist territory.” Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — A 19-year-old man who spent 60 hours locked alone inside a gated southern Indiana cave says he feels lucky to be alive. Indiana University freshman Lukas Cavar was on a spelunking trip to Sullivan Cave about 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of Bloomington when he became separated Sunday afternoon from 12 other members of the university’s Caving Club. When he eventually reached the cave entrance, Cavar found club members had padlocked its gate, unaware that he remained inside. He couldn’t get a cellphone signal and screamed for hours, hoping motorists passing on a nearby road might hear him. “It took me a little while to wrangle my emotions and sort of approach things analytically, sensibly, to come up with a game plan to survive,” Cavar said Thursday, two days after his rescue. The Bloomington man, whose parents are Indiana University linguistics professors, tried picking the padlock with a paper clip to no avail. Dressed in light clothes, hik...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s asteroid-chasing spacecraft is swinging by Earth on Friday on its way to a space rock. Launched a year ago, Osiris-Rex was on track to pass within about 11,000 miles (17,700 kilometers) of the home planet Friday afternoon — above Antarctica. It needs Earth’s gravity as a slingshot to put it on a path toward the asteroid Bennu. Osiris-Rex should reach the small, roundish asteroid next year and, in 2020, collect some of its gravel for return to Earth. If all goes well, scientists should get the samples in 2023. Friday’s flyby is a quick hello: The spacecraft will zoom by at about 19,000 mph (31,000 kph). NASA has taken precautions to ensure Osiris-Rex — about the size of an SUV — does not slam into any satellites. “Everything looks great! Thanks for the well wishes,” the University of Arizona’s Dante Lauretta, chief scientist for Osiris-Rex, said late Thursday via Twitter. Ground telescopes have been trying to observe the spacecraft...

A South Carolina city sought the federal government’s help in rebuilding community trust after the 2015 fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by a white officer. Civil rights advocates hoped the resulting comprehensive review of police interactions would be a first step toward meaningful change. But North Charleston’s review and similar efforts in several other cities effectively ended last week when the U.S. Justice Department announced it was rolling back an Obama-era program aimed at improving relations between residents and police. Instead, the program will now focus on tackling such issues as violent crime and gangs — moving away from federal scrutiny of law enforcement and more closely reflecting the Trump administration’s law-and-order agenda. Civil rights advocates called the move appalling, saying it will hurt minority communities and may keep police from facing consequences for bad behavior. “I don’t know how we are going to handle this going forward,” said ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Friday scrapped Obama-era guidance on investigating campus sexual assault, replacing it with new instructions that allow universities to require higher standards of evidence when handling complaints. DeVos has said that Obama’s policy had been unfairly skewed against those accused of assault and had “weaponized” the Education Department to “work against schools and against students.” The change is the latest in Trump’s broader effort to roll back Obama policies. Women’s rights groups slammed Friday’s decision, saying it will discourage students from reporting assault. The guidance released in 2011 and then updated in 2014 instructed universities to use a “preponderance of the evidence” standard when assessing and investigating a claim of sexual assault. DeVos’ new interim guidelines let colleges choose between that standard and a “clear and convincing evidence” standard, which is harder to meet. Those rules will be in place t...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Survivors were still being pulled from the rubble in Mexico City as rescue operations stretched into a fourth day Friday, spurring hope among desperate relatives gathered at the sites of buildings collapsed by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake. Mexico’s federal police said several people were lifted out of the debris of two buildings Thursday. Rescuers removed or broke through slabs until they found cracks that allowed workers to wiggle through to reach the victims and lift them to safety. The city government said 60 people in all had been rescued since the quake hit at midday Tuesday. The official death toll stood at 286, with more than half, 148, in the capital. National Civil Defense chief Luis Felipe Puente tweeted early Friday that there were also 73 deaths in the state of Morelos, 45 in Puebla, 13 in Mexico, six in Guerrero and one in Oaxaca. At the site of a quake-collapsed seven-story building in Mexico City’s Roma Norte neighborhood, rescue effort...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico faced another night of darkness Friday, two days after Hurricane Maria hurled rain and wind at the U.S. territory and knocked out its electricity grid. Residents feared power could be out for weeks - or even months - and wondered how their battered island would cope. Some of the island’s 3.4 million residents planned to come to the U.S. to temporarily escape the desolation left by the destruction. At least in the short term, though, the soggy misery will continue: additional rain - up to 6 inches - is expected through Saturday. Neida Febus wandered around her San Juan neighborhood with bowls of cooked rice, ground meat and avocado, offering food to anyone in need. The damage was so extensive, the 64-year-old retiree said, that she didn’t think the power would be turned back on until Christmas. “This storm crushed us from one end of the island to the other,” she said. The National Weather Service in San Juan said Friday the north...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un lobbed a string of insults at President Donald Trump on Friday, calling him a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard” and hinting at a frightening new weapon test. It was the first time for a North Korean leader to issue such a direct statement against a U.S. president, dramatically escalating the war of words between the former wartime foes and raising the international nuclear standoff to a new level. Trump responded by tweeting that Kim is “obviously a madman who doesn’t mind starving or killing his people.” In a lengthy statement carried by state media, Kim said Trump would “pay dearly” for his recent threat to destroy North Korea. He also called Trump “deranged” and “a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire.” Kim said his country will consider the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history,” a possible indication of more powerful weapons tests on the horizon, but didn’t elaborate. His foreign m...

NEW YORK (AP) — If the latest Republican attempt to repeal Obamacare doesn’t work, it may become known as the Jimmy Kimmel Non-Law. The comic’s withering attacks this week have transformed the debate over the bill (sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy) and, in the process, illustrated how thoroughly late-night talk shows have changed and become homes for potent points of view. “Late-night has really become an important part of the civic conversation,” said Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University’s Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture, on Thursday. Kimmel’s monologues on Tuesday and Wednesday were deeply personal. His newborn son underwent surgery in May for a heart defect and faces two more operations. He felt a sense of personal betrayal from Cassidy, who was on the show this spring after Kimmel talked about his son’s medical problems, and felt that Cassidy lied to him about Republican health care plans. Cassidy said the comedian was mis...

NEW YORK (AP) — Megyn Kelly says she left Fox News Channel to bring more joy to her life. NBC hopes that starting Monday, she can spread some to the network and its viewers. The former Fox News Channel star and Donald Trump foil debuts her talk show at 9 a.m. EDT, nestled into the four-hour “Today” show block and competing in most of the country with Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest’s “Live!” Kelly hosted a Sunday-night newsmagazine this summer to middling ratings, and it returns next spring. It’s the daily talk show, in the lucrative morning market, that will ultimately determine the wisdom of NBC News’ decision to hire her. She promises that “Megyn Kelly Today,” shown live with a studio audience, will be an information-packed hour with a sense of fun. “It will be very similar to the ‘Today’ show, but we’re going to have a lot more elbow room,” she said in an interview. Ellen DeGeneres initiated Kelly into daytime TV this week by having her awkwardly toss pizza dough, stuff...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The Latest on Hurricane Maria (all times local): 9:55 p.m. The White House says President Donald Trump has spoken with the governors of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Trump said earlier Thursday that Puerto Rico was “absolutely obliterated” and the Virgin Islands were “flattened” by recent hurricanes Irma and Maria. The entire island of Puerto Rico was left without power after Maria knocked out its already weakened electrical grid. Trump said FEMA and other emergency responders are helping both U.S. territories begin the recovery process. He says he’ll visit Puerto Rico. ___ 8:05 p.m. Hurricane Maria has continued to strengthen slightly as its large eye approaches the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas. The National Hurricane Center in Miami says data from reconnaissance aircraft showed maximum sustained wind speed increasing Thursday to 125 mph (200 kph), up slightly from 120 mph (195 kph). It remains a...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — It’s Trump versus Trumpland. President Donald Trump’s political muscles are getting a workout in a Republican runoff election in Alabama that has an awkward dynamic: He’s campaigning for the establishment-backed incumbent over an upstart beloved by many of his own most ardent supporters, including his former chief strategist Steve Bannon. Motivated by personal loyalty and a sense that the race is newly competitive, Trump heads to Huntsville, Alabama, on Friday to campaign for Sen. Luther Strange, appointed in February to temporarily fill the seat that opened up when Jeff Sessions became attorney general. The winner of next Tuesday’s runoff will be the GOP candidate in a December election to serve out the rest of Sessions’ term, ending in January 2021. Strange is locked in a tight race with former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, a jurist known for pushing unsuccessfully for the public display of the Ten Commandments and opposing gay marriage. A su...