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A window sticker on a downtown Indianapolis business announces objection to the Religious Freedom bill passed by the Indiana legislature. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy) WASHINGTON — Indiana lawmakers are set to introduce new language for the state’s “religious freedom” law Thursday, to clarify that the law does not allow businesses to deny goods or services to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, signed last week by…

News Sports Life Money Tech Travel Opinion Settings Full Forecast Crosswords Your Take Investigations Video Stocks Apps Best-Selling Books Classifieds College Corrections Interactives Newsletters Photo Galleries Portfolio Tracker Scores Video Network Web to Watch Your Take Newsstand Search User Get the news Log In or Subscribe to skip 545 4 Share This Story! Let friends in your social network know what you are reading about Nearly 600 held hostage, at…

A Russian trawler, the same type as Dalny Vostok, is seen in an undisclosed location. The Russian freezer trawler with an international crew of 132 sank on Thursday morning in the Sea of Okhotsk off of the Kamchatka Peninsula, rescue workers said. Photo: Russian Emergency Ministry Moscow: A Russian trawler sank in icy seas off Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka peninsula on Thursday, killing at least 56 of the 132 crew,…

AP Photo By Seung Min Kim 4/2/15 10:20 AM EDT NEWARK, N.J.—Bob Menendez was just accused of trading his powers as a United States senator for jaunts to a posh resort home in the Dominican Republic, a $1,500 suite in Paris and more than $750,000 in campaign cash. To which his…

International negotiators made “significant progress” in overnight meetings but have not yet completed the preliminary deal they have been seeking to curb Iran’s nuclear program, Iran’s foreign minister said Thursday morning. As talks between Iran and six world powers entered their eighth straight day, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the diplomats had narrowed their differences in overnight wrangling between Secretary of State John F. Kerry, the Iranian team and…

Gunmen attacked Garissa University College in eastern Kenya early Thursday, shooting indiscriminately in campus hostels, killing at least two people and wounding four others, police said. (April 2) AP

KHOST (Reuters) – A suicide bomber on Thursday blew himself up in the middle of a demonstration against corruption in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Khost, killing 17 people and injuring at least 50 more, government officials said. Violence has escalated in Afghanistan as most foreign troops withdrew in 2014 and last year was the worst on record, with more than 10,000 civilian casualties, the United Nations says. There was no…

Former California governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown and his wife, Bernice, after their son, Gov. Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr., was inaugurated to his second term in Sacramento in 1979. (AP Photo/Walter Zaboski, File) In 1979, a balding man with a touch of gray at the temples and glasses like windshields was holding forth on his favorite subject: H2O. Pat Brown, former governor of California — and father of current…

If the indictment unsealed this week lands Sen. Bob Menendez in a prison cell, he will at least have the memory of the $1,536.96-a-night suite with a woman in a five-star Paris hotel—thanks to the generosity of his good friend and now co-defendant, Dr. Salomon Melgen. “King bed, work area with internet, limestone bath with soaking tub and enclosed rain shower,” Menendez wrote in an email allegedly asking his pal…

(CNN)The Golden State could soon refer to the hue of California’s lawns. Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday imposed mandatory water restrictions for the first time on residents, businesses and farms, ordering cities and towns in the drought-ravaged state to reduce usage by 25%. “We’re in a new era,” Brown told reporters. “The idea of your nice little green grass getting lots of water every day, that’s going to be a…

WASHINGTON — Nothing affects public policy like pressure from America’s corporations, and that muscle was vividly on display this week in Indiana and Arkansas. The states’ governors, facing the threat of dollars, jobs and tourists fleeing their states, quickly and publicly softened their positions on religious freedom acts. We don’t intend to discriminate, they insisted, as Wal-Mart, American Airlines, Marriott, NASCAR, the NCAA and other corporate powerhouses weighed in. Business…

MOSCOW (Reuters) – At least 54 crew on a Russian fishing trawler died and 15 were missing after it sank in freezing waters off the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Western Pacific Ocean late on Wednesday, officials in the area said. Sixty-three of the 132 people on board the Dalniy Vostok were rescued with the sea’s temperature near zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit), Viktor Klepikov, coordinating captain of the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky…

NEWARK, N.J. — U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez promised to fight federal corruption charges that he took almost $1 million in gifts and campaign donations to help a longtime friend, vowing to stay in office as he temporarily leaves a key committee post. Prosecutors accused the New Jersey Democrat of accepting private jet flights and Caribbean vacations from Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen in exchange for assistance…

International talks on Iran’s nuclear program are due to continue in Switzerland on April 2. Senior officials from Iran and six powers failed to reach a framework deal by a self-imposed deadline of March 31. The talks aim at blocking Iran’s capacity to build a nuclear bomb in exchange for lifting sanctions. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter…

March 23, 2015: U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., answers questions as he addresses a gathering in Garwood, N.J. (AP) DEVELOPING: A defiant NJ Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez vowed Wednesday to fight corruption charges, saying ‘this is not how my career is going to end.’ ORIGINAL STORY: ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez was indicted Wednesday on corruption charges, accused of using his office to improperly benefit a political donor…

Washington (CNN)Republicans on Wednesday rebuked President Barack Obama for refusing to walk away from nuclear talks with Iran after negotiators in Switzerland missed a key deadline. The Obama administration said earlier in the day that talks would be extended for a second time, to Thursday, after world powers haggling with Iran failed to conclude a political framework agreement by Tuesday’s target date. Republicans are seizing on the delay as a…

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) – Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson told lawmakers on Wednesday to revise a bill that rights activists and U.S. businesses said allowed discrimination against gays, and home-state corporate giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc praised his action. Indiana’s governor a day earlier said lawmakers should fix a similar Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). After it was enacted last week, the state was hit with protests, threatened boycotts and warnings…

PHILLIPS, Calif. (Reuters) – California Governor Jerry Brown, acting in the face of a devastating multiyear drought, ordered the first statewide mandatory water restrictions on Wednesday, directing cities and communities to reduce usage by 25 percent. The cutbacks, to be implemented by state and local water agencies, will affect consumers and businesses throughout the most populous U.S. state, but farmers, who are already making do with less water for irrigation,…

McDonald’s Corp. on Wednesday became the latest big company to raise wages for its low-income workers, announcing plans to pay at least $1 more than the local minimum wage plus some paid vacation starting July 1 for about 90,000 workers at its 1,500 corporate-owned U.S. restaurants. But don’t expect organized labor to give the company a break today, or any day, for doing so. The wage increase is worth cheering,…

Last Updated Apr 1, 2015 2:05 PM EDT Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Wednesday he would not sign a religious freedom bill passed by the legislature unless it makes changes to the legislation. “This is a bill that in ordinary times would not be controversial,” Hutchinson said. “But these are not ordinary times.” “We just didn’t quite get it perfect through that legislative process,” he said later. Hutchinson’s request for…