National News

By JONATHAN J. COOPER and BRIAN MELLEY , Associated Press REDDING, Calif. (AP) — The death count from a rapidly growing Northern California wildfire rose to five Saturday after two young children and their great-grandmother who had been unaccounted for were confirmed dead. "My babies are dead," Sherry Bledsoe said through tears after she and…

By JONATHAN J. COOPER and LORIN ELENI GILL , Associated Press REDDING, Calif. (AP) — Only a handful of homes remain in the small northern California community of Keswick. The air chokes with the smell of smoke and chemicals, smoldering what's left of people's lives. The so-called Carr Fire roared through Shasta County, so thoroughly…

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Curiosity and awe have greeted a complete lunar eclipse, the longest one of this century and visible in much of the world. The so-called "blood moon," when it turns a deep red, was visible at different times in Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe and South America when the sun, Earth and moon lined…

By JONATHAN J. COOPER and BRIAN MELLEY , Associated Press REDDING, Calif. (AP) — A wildfire that roared with little warning into a Northern California city claimed two lives as thousands of people scrambled to escape before the walls of flames descended from forested hills onto their neighborhoods, officials said Friday. Residents who gathered their…

CHICAGO (AP) - The last of four defendants in Chicago to plead guilty in the beating of a mentally disabled teenager that was livestreamed on Facebook has been sentenced to seven years in prison. Twenty-year-old Tesfaye Cooper pleaded guilty this month to committing a hate crime and aggravated kidnapping. One of the suspects posted video…