USA

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — The only man ever convicted in a U.S. court for a role in the Sept. 11 attacks now says he is renouncing terrorism, al-Qaida and the Islamic State.

Zacarias Moussaoui is serving a life sentence at a federal prison in Colorado after narrowly escaping the death penalty at his 2006 trial.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen will be released from federal prison Thursday and is expected to serve the remainder of his sentence at home, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

Cohen has been serving a federal prison sentence at FCI Otisville in New York after pleading guilty to numerous charges, including campaign finance fraud and lying to Congress.

PHOENIX (AP) — A North Dakota construction company favored by President Donald Trump has received the largest contract to date to build a section of Trump’s signature wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Republican U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota confirmed the $1.3 billion contract for building the 42-mile section of wall through “really tough terrain in the mountains” in Arizona. That’s about $30 million per mile.

Cramer said Fisher Sand and Gravel Co. offered the lowest price for the project. He did not know how many companies bid.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he’s considering holding a meeting in the U.S. with the leaders of the world’s major economies after all because it would be a “great sign to all” of things returning to normal during the coronavirus pandemic.

The announcement was the latest effort by Trump to signal to the nation that the U.S. economy is humming again after months-long shutdowns meant to slow the spread of COVID-19 are beginning to be lifted across the country.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday temporarily prevented the House of Representatives from obtaining secret grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

The court’s unsigned order granted the Trump administration’s request to keep previously undisclosed details from the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election out of the hands of Democratic lawmakers, at least until early summer.

(AP) --- Decades before a security camera caught Michael Taylor coming off a jet that was carrying one of the world’s most-wanted fugitives, the former Green Beret had a hard-earned reputation for taking on dicey assignments.

Over the years, Taylor had been hired by parents to rescue abducted children. He went undercover for the FBI to sting a Massachusetts drug gang. And he worked as a military contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan, an assignment that landed him in a Utah jail in a federal fraud case.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — A hydroelectric dam that failed to hold back floodwaters this week in Michigan was the target of lengthy investigations by federal regulators, who revoked the facility’s license over safety violations two years before the flooding that forced 10,000 people to evacuate their homes.

NEW YORK (AP) — This is what “normal” will look like for the foreseeable future.

In Connecticut, restaurants are reopening with outdoor-only dining and tables 6 feet (2 meters) apart. In Beverly Hills, California, the rich and glamorous are doing their shopping from the curb along Rodeo Drive. And preschools around the U.S. plan to turn social distancing into an arts-and-crafts project by teaching kids how to “create their own space” with things like yarn and masking tape.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to hold up federal funds for two election battleground states that are trying to make it easier and safer to vote during the coronavirus pandemic. He backed away from that threat but stuck with his unsupported claim that widespread voting by mail promotes “a lot of illegality.”

The president targeted Michigan with an inaccurate tweet on its voting plans and also went after Nevada in the latest — and the most confused — episode in his campaign against mail-in voting.

20 May 2020; MEMO: A US State Department inquiry into whether the Trump Administration acted illegally in declaring an “emergency” to bypass a congressional freeze on arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has been facing stiff resistance from the White House.