USA

RIVERDALE, Utah (AP) — A foreign exchange student from China who was reported missing last week in Utah has been found in what authorities said was an apparent “cyber kidnapping” scheme to extort $80,000 from the student’s family.

The 17-year-old student was reported missing Friday, a day after he was last seen at the home where he had been staying in Riverdale, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Salt Lake City.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A man who died after crashing an SUV loaded with gas cans outside an upstate New York concert venue appeared to have been aiming at a pedestrian crossing, but investigators have found no evidence that the crash that killed two ride-hail passengers early on New Year’s Day was terror-related, police said Tuesday.

WASHINGTON, Jan 1 (Reuters) - The Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier will return to its home port, the U.S. Navy said on Monday, ending its deployment to the eastern Mediterranean, which started in support of Israel after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants.

The nuclear-powered Ford, the Navy's newest carrier with over 4,000 personnel and eight squadrons of aircraft, became a powerful symbol of American support by rushing closer to Israel after the Palestinian militant group's attack.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California law that bans people from carrying firearms in most public places will take effect on New Year’s Day, even as a court case continues to challenge the law.

A U.S. district judge issued a ruling Dec. 20 to block the law from taking effect, saying it violates the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and deprives people of their ability to defend themselves and their loved ones.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. John Fetterman acknowledges having “dark conversations” about harming himself before he hit “the emergency brake” and sought treatment for depression.

He remembers thinking about his three school-age kids. “I can’t be a blueprint for my children. I can’t let them be left alone or not to understand why he would have done that,” the first-term Pennsylvania Democrat told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in a deeply personal and introspective interview taped before the broadcast that aired Sunday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In this time of war overseas, more Americans think foreign policy should be a top focus for the U.S. government in 2024, with a new poll showing international concerns and immigration rising in importance with the public.

About 4 in 10 U.S. adults named foreign policy topics in an open-ended question that asked people to share up to five issues for the government to work on in the next year, according to a December poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

SECAUCUS, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey mayor says buses of migrants bound for New York City have been stopping at the train station in his town and others in an apparent effort to evade an executive order by New York’s mayor trying to regulate how and when migrants can be dropped off in the city.

WASHINGTON, December 30. /TASS/: Aggressive statements of the US administration for a more violent confrontation in Ukraine are leading to serious consequences, including for global security, Russian Ambassador in Washington Anatoly Antonov said.

UNITED NATIONS, December 30. /TASS/: Russia has requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council later on Saturday following Ukraine’s shelling attack on Belgorod, Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky said.

"We have requested an UNSC meeting on Belgorod at 3:00 p.m. New York time (8:00 p.m. GMT) today, December 30. We also demanded that the Czech permanent representative be present to explain his country’s supplies of weapons, which are used to kill civilians," he wrote on his Telegram channel.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — More than 700,000 immigrants living illegally in California will gain access to free health care starting Monday under one of the state’s most ambitious coverage expansions in a decade.

It’s an effort that will eventually cost the state about $3.1 billion per year and inches California closer to Democrats’ goal of providing universal health care to its roughly 39 million residents.