Catholic News 2
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- What do computer hackers, the divisive U.S. presidential campaign and racial tensions have to do with the Emmys?...
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The latest on Sunday's 68th annual Primetime Emmy Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. All times local....
NEWTOWN, Ohio (AP) -- The veteran police chief in a bucolic Ohio village, where the last murder was two decades ago and he can just about count the number of drug cases on both hands, finds himself in the spotlight on the front lines against heroin overdoses in one of the nation's hardest-hit states....
ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP) -- A man in a private security uniform stabbed nine people at a Minnesota shopping mall, reportedly asking one victim if he or she was Muslim before an off-duty police officer shot and killed him in an attack the Islamic State group claimed as its own....
NEW YORK (AP) -- The bomb that rocked a New York City neighborhood known for its vibrant arts scene and large gay community contained residue of an explosive often used for target practice that can be picked up in many sporting goods stores, a federal law enforcement official said Sunday, as authorities tried to unravel who planted the device and why....
(Vatican Radio) The ruling United Russia party was expected to win even greater dominance over the Russian lower house in parliamentary elections, though Sunday's ballot has been overshadowed by reports of vote-rigging and apathy. The vote was for the first time held in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, sparking protests. Listen to the report by Stefan Bos: In front of reporters, Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to appear confident as he cast his ballot in Moscow at a polling station set up in Russia's Academy of Science. Yet, it remained unclear how many others would bother to cast ballots amid reported widespread apathy among Russia's 110 million registered voters at a time of economic difficulties. Russia is also facing international tensions over its involvement in conflicts in Ukraine and Syria. Yet Russia's Foreign Ministry fought back this weekend, condemning U.S.-led airstrikes on Syrian Army forces, calling t...
(Vatican Radio) The ruling United Russia party was expected to win even greater dominance over the Russian lower house in parliamentary elections, though Sunday's ballot has been overshadowed by reports of vote-rigging and apathy.
The vote was for the first time held in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, sparking protests.
Listen to the report by Stefan Bos:
In front of reporters, Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to appear confident as he cast his ballot in Moscow at a polling station set up in Russia's Academy of Science.
Yet, it remained unclear how many others would bother to cast ballots amid reported widespread apathy among Russia's 110 million registered voters at a time of economic difficulties.
Russia is also facing international tensions over its involvement in conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.
Yet Russia's Foreign Ministry fought back this weekend, condemning U.S.-led airstrikes on Syrian Army forces, calling them "on the boundary between criminal negligence and direct connivance" with Islamic State militants.
The incident, which Russia said killed 62 Syrian soldiers, sparked an angry exchange between diplomats at the United Nations, and threatened to further unravel a fragile cease-fire that went into effect on September 12 aimed at allowing humanitarian assistance into besieged areas.
OPPOSITION STRUGGLING
Amid all these tensions, Russia's opposition says it has been struggling to gain ground in part because most media are controlled by the state. And in some cases opposition leaders have been shot or detained.
With few voices expressing public dissent over domestic and international policies, opinion polls quoted by Kremlin-run media already claimed that the 63-year-old Putin has a personal approval rating of around 80 percent after 17 years in power as either president or prime minister.
Independent observers predict that the pro-Putin United Russia party will win
even greater dominance in the State Duma, the lower house of Parliament, where it already occupies more than half of the 450 available seats.
Three other largely cooperative parties are also expected to be re-elected.
However Russia's election commission warned that election results in a Siberian region could be annulled if allegations of vote fraud there are confirmed.
A candidate from the liberal Yabloko party in the Altai region of Siberia told state news agency Tass that young people were voting in the name of elderly people unlikely to come to polling stations. Violations were also reported in other regions including in Moscow.
VOTE RIGGING
Russian officials are concerned that widespread allegations of vote rigging could spark protests similar to the massive demonstrations after elections in 2011. There were other controversies as well. For the first time, elections were held in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. But the United States has already said it will not recognize voting in the peninsula.
It also sparked tensions in Ukraine's capital Kiev where dozens of right-wing protesters gathered around the Russian embassy, where a voting station was set up. At least one demonstrator was detained in a scuffle with police.
Louisville surged to No. 3 in The Associated Press college football poll on Sunday, matching the best ranking in school history, and Ohio State moved up to No. 2 behind Alabama....
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The issue of what to do about the world's 65.3 million displaced people takes center stage at the United Nations General Assembly Monday when leaders from around the globe converge on New York for the first-ever summit on Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants....
ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP) -- The Latest on the stabbing of eight people at a central Minnesota shopping mall (all times local):...
BEIRUT (AP) -- Syria's fragile cease-fire started to unravel on Sunday with the first aerial attacks on rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo and a southern village that killed at least eight people, violations that came as tensions between the American and Russian brokers of the deal worsened following a deadly U.S. strike on Syrian government forces....
