TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — A Washington state man who made over 20 “swatting” calls around the country and in Canada, prompting emergency responses to his fake bombing, shooting and other threatening reports, pleaded guilty on Thursday to four crimes.

Ashton Garcia, 21, pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to two counts of extortion and two counts of threats and hoaxes regarding explosives, U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman said in a news release. He was

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has approved the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey following the this week of Sweden’s membership in NATO. The move is a significant development in the expansion of the alliance, which has taken on additional importance since .

The State Department notified Congress of its approval of the $23 billion F-16 sale to Turkey, along with a companion $8.6 billion sale of advanced F-35 fighter jets to Greece, late Friday.

DENVER (AP) — An forced four boys who lived in the institution to engage in sexual acts more than a decade ago, a prosecutor said Friday.

Michael Geilenfeld, 71, is a “dangerous, manipulative and cunning child sexual predator” who for decades has preyed on poor children while working abroad as a missionary, Jessica Urban, a prosecutor with the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, said during a detention hearing in Denver federal court.

Her statements marked the first time authorities have disclosed details

ATMORE, Ala. (AP) — As witnesses including five news reporters watched through a window, Kenneth Eugene Smith, who was convicted and sentenced to die in the 1988 murder-for hire slaying of Elizabeth Sennett, as Alabama carried out the nation’s .

Critics who had worried the new execution method would be cruel and experimental said Smith’s final moments Thursday night proved they were right. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, however, characterized it on Friday as a “textbook” execution.

Here

CHICAGO (AP) — Two teenage boys were shot and killed Friday afternoon while they were leaving school, authorities said.

The boys, ages 16 and 17, were among a group of students walking out of the Innovations High School around 12:25 p.m. when they were shot, Chicago police said.

Masked suspects got out of two vehicles and fired shots at the group, police said. The boys died at a hospital.

No immediate arrests were made.

“Wherever the tragedy like

WASHINGTON (AP) — Arrests for illegal from Mexico reached an all-time high in December since monthly numbers have been released, authorities said Friday, exposing a growing vulnerability for President Joe Biden in his campaign for a second term.

The Border Patrol tallied 249,785 arrests on the Mexican border in December, up 31% from 191,112 in November and up 13% from 222,018 in December 2022, the previous

MEXICO CITY (AP) — At first it sounds like a typical case of .

The Mexico City International Airport acknowledged in a statement Friday that a man had opened an emergency exit and walked out on a wing of a plane that was parked and waiting for takeoff Thursday.

The airport said the man had been turned over to police.

But dozens of fellow passengers signed a written copy of a statement saying the airline made them wait for four hours without ventilation or water while the flight was delayed. According to photos of the

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The Minnesota governor’s office did not have complete information about the woman the governor appointed as director of Minnesota’s new marijuana regulatory agency, leading to her surprising resignation after media reports about according to an audit released Thursday.

The audit, produced by the Office of the Legislative Auditor, says the governor’s office “departed from its Standard Operating Procedure for Executive Director Appointments” when selecting Erin Dupree as director of the state’s Office of Cannabis Management.

OLYMPIC VALLEY, Calif. (AP) — An alleged carjacking suspect was fatally shot by police Friday at a California ski resort near Lake Tahoe, authorities said.

The shooting occurred around 10 a.m. near an event center that often hosts weddings at Palisades Tahoe, according to California State Parks. The suspect’s identity was not immediately released.

The parks agency said one of their officers tried to pull over a vehicle that had been involved in a carjacking in Tahoe City, about 10 miles (1