North America

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Saudi Arabia’s first astronauts in decades rocketed toward the International Space Station on a chartered multimillion-dollar flight Sunday.

SpaceX launched the ticket-holding crew, led by a retired NASA astronaut now working for the company that arranged the trip from Kennedy Space Center. Also on board: a U.S. businessman who now owns a sports car racing team.

The four should reach the space station in their capsule Monday morning; they’ll spend just over a week there before returning home with a splashdown off the Florida coast.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Joe Biden embarks on his reelection campaign, just 33% of American adults say they approve of his handling of the economy and only 24% say national economic conditions are in good shape, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

NEW YORK (AP) — Jonnifer Neal’s Kia was stolen twice in one day — first from in front of her Chicago home and later from outside the mechanic shop where she took it to get fixed.

WASHINGTON, May 20 (NNN-XINHUA) – More than 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2022, according to data released this week, from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The year 2022 was the deadliest on record, for drug overdoses, which claimed the lives of an estimated 109,680 people, according to numbers posted Wednesday, by the CDC.

Overdose deaths in the United States surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. The death number rose from 71,000 in 2019, to over 90,000 in 2020, and surpassed 100,000 in 2021, for the first time.

May 21 (Reuters) - Alberta authorities hope cooler temperatures and showers forecast for the coming week will help firefighters battling blazes in the oil-rich Canadian province, although storms could complicate efforts.

Amid hot, dry conditions, forecasters were tracking a front likely to move into the province on Sunday that should bring much-needed relief, including humidity and even rain, Christie Tucker, information unit manager at Alberta Wildfire, said at a Saturday briefing.

MEXICO CITY, May 20 (Reuters) - At least 10 people were killed and nine injured in a shootout at a car show in northern Mexico's Baja California on Saturday, the municipal government reported.

The attack occurred during an all-terrain car racing show in the San Vicente area of the city of Ensenada. Around 2:18 p.m. (2118 GMT) people with long guns got out of a gray van and began shooting at participants at a gas station, according to reports of 911 calls.

SAN SALVADOR, May 20 (Xinhua) -- At least nine people were killed and several others injured in a stampede at the Cuscatlan Stadium here in the Salvadoran capital on Saturday, said the National Civil Police of the Central American country.

The incident occurred when the Salvadoran league's quarter-final game was being played between the popular teams of Alianza and FAS.

According to Salvadoran media, although the stadium was full, fans pushed from outside, resulting in a stampede that pressured several people against the fences of the stadium.

GALLATIN, Tenn. (AP) — Shortly after being sworn in last fall, the new majority of the Sumner County Commission in Tennessee acted to update one of its official documents. The new version said county operations would not only be orderly and efficient, but “most importantly reflective of the Judeo-Christian values inherent in the nation’s founding.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sudan’s warring factions have agreed to a new short-term ceasefire, U.S. and Saudi mediators announced on Saturday, after several previous attempts to broker a truce that holds have failed.

Meeting in the Saudi port city of Jeddah, the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces signed off on a seven-day ceasefire that is due to take effect on Monday 9:45 p.m. local time in Sudan, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia said in a joint statement. The ceasefire could be extended if both sides agree.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A lawyer who quit Donald Trump’s legal team this past week attributed his decision Saturday to strategy disagreements with a close adviser to the former president.

Timothy Parlatore, who had been a key lawyer for Trump in a Justice Department special counsel investigation into the potential mishandling of classified documents at his Florida estate, told CNN in an interview on Saturday that there were “certain individuals that made defending the president much harder than it needed to be.”