NATION & WORLD BRIEFS
Trump adds Lewandowski, other longtime allies to campaign
Faced with a new challenge from Vice President Kamala Harris, the campaign of former President Donald Trump moved Thursday to expand its staff with longtime allies from his first two presidential bids.
Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s first campaign manager during the 2016 presidential cycle, is among those coming aboard. Trump fired Lewandowski as campaign manager in 2016, but he remained something of an informal adviser. In 2021, Trump’s political organization cut ties to Lewandowski amid allegations of sexual misconduct lodged by a Trump donor. Lewandowski has denied the accusations.
Tim Murtaugh, who was communications director for Trump’s 2020 campaign, is also on board, the former president’s campaign confirmed in a statement on Thursday. Other additions – Taylor Budowich, Alex Pfeiffer and Alex Bruesewitz – have previously worked with MAGA Inc., the Trump-aligned Super PAC.
Escaped prisoner captured in NC hotel after dayslong manhunt
The exhaustive search in North Carolina for an escaped prisoner convicted of murder ended shortly before 2 a.m. Friday when he was taken into custody by police at a hotel in Kannapolis, less than 30 miles northeast of Charlotte.
The North Carolina Department of Adult Correction said in a news release that Ramone Jamarr Alston, 30, is being taken to a high-security unit in the state prison system to await court appearances on felony charges of escape from prison.
Alston escaped from correction officers Tuesday morning as he was arriving for a hospital appointment about 150 miles west of the Bertie Correctional Institution, where he was serving a life sentence for a driveby shooting that killed 1-year-old Maleah Williams in Chapel Hill on Christmas Day 2015, according to authorities.
A female acquaintance of Alston’s, identified as Jacobia Crisp, was also arrested and charged with felony aiding and abetting a fugitive, according to the news release.
Driver hailed as hero for saving 14 kids aboard burning school bus
Officials in Colorado are praising a school bus driver for swiftly evacuating more than a dozen children from the vehicle after it caught fire this week.
The fire broke out as the Aurora School District employee drove 14 children home after school, officials said, and no injuries were reported.
According to Aurora Fire Rescue, which responded to the emergency call, the bus caught fire in the municipality located less than 10 miles east of downtown Denver.
“The outcome of this incident could have been tragic, but the quick and effective actions of the bus driver and firefighters were truly heroic,” fire officials wrote on Facebook, noting the bus was “fully engulfed in flames” about 4 p.m. Wednesday when firefighters arrived.
Ex-Ala. officer agrees to plead guilty to drug planting scheme
Court records obtained by USA TODAY show a former Alabama police officer, Michael Kilgore, 40, has agreed to plead guilty in connection with a scheme to plant drugs on innocent motorists to manufacture drug arrests, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.
Kilgore was charged with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, specifically methamphetamine, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Alabama.
The federal charge is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a financial penalty. Prosecutors said in their sentencing recommendation that Kilgore’s acceptance of personal responsibility and intention to enter a guilty plea would be taken into consideration.
He began working as a police officer with the Centre Police Department in 2022, then was arrested in May 2023 and fired, according to a statement from the department.
France’s Macron invites parties for talks with view to name new PM
PARIS – President Emmanuel Macron has invited party leaders from France’s two parliamentary chambers for talks on Aug. 23 with a view to appointing a new premier, his office said on Friday.
After a surprise July 7 election delivered a hung parliament and a blow to Macron’s centrist coalition, outgoing Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s government steered France through the Paris Olympics in a caretaker role.
With a political truce in place for the Games, Macron had aimed to name a prime minister by mid-August. So far, he has ignored the candidate agreed on by the left-wing alliance, the New Popular Front, which came out on top in the vote.
The aim of next Friday’s meetings with presidents of the party groups in the National Assembly and Senate is to “build the broadest and most stable majority possible to serve the country,” Macron’s office said in a statement.
Suicide bomber kills 16 soldiers in southern Yemen, council says
ADEN – A suicide bomber killed 16 Yemeni soldiers and wounded 18 other troops in a military post in the southern province of Abyan on Friday morning, authorities said.
The attacker “drove a booby-trapped car into a site for the security forces,” in the Mudiyah district, Mohamed al-Naqib, a spokesperson for the Southern Transitional Council, said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility, but militants linked to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have stepped up attacks on military facilities in Yemen.
Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has used a nine-year conflict between the Iran-aligned Houthi group and a Saudi-backed coalition to bolster its influence in a country that shares a border with Saudi Arabia and sits near major shipping lanes.