【AZ】 AP News Summary at 6:31 p.m. EDT | National – Arizona News

LONDON (AP) — Britain and the world said farewell to Queen Elizabeth II with pomp and pageantry. Crowds massed in the streets of London and at Windsor Castle to honor a monarch whose 70-year reign defined an era. The first state funeral since Winston Churchill’s drew world leaders and other royalty. Before the service, a bell tolled 96 times for each year of Elizabeth’s life. Royal Navy sailors pulled a gun carriage carrying her flag-draped coffin to Westminster Abbey before pallbearers carried it inside. Atop the coffin was a handwritten note from King Charles III. After a committal service at a chapel in Windsor Castle, the coffin was lowered into the royal vault.

‘Serial’ case: Adnan Syed released, conviction tossed

BALTIMORE (AP) — A Baltimore judge has ordered the release of Adnan Syed after overturning Syed’s conviction for a 1999 murder that was chronicled in the hit podcast “Serial.” Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn on Monday ordered that Syed’s conviction be vacated and she approved the release of the now-41-year-old who has spent more than two decades behind bars. Syed has always maintained that he never killed his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee. The case received widespread attention in 2014 when “Serial” focused on Lee’s killing and raised doubts about some of the evidence prosecutors had used. Last week, prosecutors filed a motion saying a lengthy investigation had uncovered new evidence that could undermine Syed’s conviction.

A day after blackout, Fiona dumps more rain on Puerto Rico

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Hurricane Fiona is dumping more rain on Puerto Rico. The deluge comes a day after the storm knocked out power and water to most of the island. National Guard troops have rescued hundreds of people who got stranded. The governor warned that it could take days to get the lights back on. The blow from Fiona was made more devastating because Puerto Rico has yet to recover from Hurricane Maria, which killed nearly 3,000 people and destroyed the power grid in 2017. Five years later, more than 3,000 homes on the island are still covered by blue tarps.

Ukraine warns of ‘nuclear terrorism’ after strike near plant

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian missile has blasted a crater close to a nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, damaging nearby industrial equipment but not hitting its three reactors. Ukrainian authorities denounced Monday’s attack as an act of “nuclear terrorism.” Ukraine’s nuclear operator said the missile struck within 300 meters (328 yards) of reactors at South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant. The strike followed warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin of possible stepped-up attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure after his forces suffered humiliating battlefield setbacks. It also renewed fears of a possible radioactive disaster in the near seven-month war. One Western analyst said the Russian military was apparently trying to knock Ukrainian nuclear plants offline before winter sets in.

Strong earthquake shakes Mexico´s Pacific coast; 1 killed

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A magnitude 7.6 earthquake has shaken Mexico’s central Pacific coast, killing at least one person and setting off an earthquake alarm in the capital. The quake hit at 1:05 p.m. local time, according to the U.S. Geologic Survey. And it caused at least some damage near the epicenter Alarms for the new quake came less than an hour after a quake alarms warbled in a nationwide earthquake simulation marking major quakes that struck on the same date in 1985 and 2017. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the secretary of the navy told him one person was killed in the port city of Manzanillo, Colima.

US contractor freed by Taliban in swap for drug trafficker

WASHINGTON (AP) — An American contractor held hostage in Afghanistan for more than two years by the Taliban has been released. The White House and family members said Monday his release came in an exchange for a convicted Taliban drug lord jailed in the United States. Mark Frerichs, a Navy veteran who spent more than a decade in Afghanistan as a civilian contractor, was abducted in January 2020 and is believed to have been held since then by the Taliban-linked Haqqani network. Negotiations for his release centered on a deal that also included the release of Bashir Noorzai, a notorious drug lord and member of the Taliban.

Judge says alleged clinic shooter can be forcibly medicated

DENVER (AP) — A federal judge says a mentally ill man charged with killing three people at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic in 2015 because it offered abortion services can be forcibly medicated to try to make him competent to stand trial. Monday’s ruling followed a hearing this summer on Robert Dear’s treatment. His prosecution in the attack has stalled because he has been repeatedly found mentally incompetent since his arrest and he has refused to take anti-psychotic medication for delusional disorder. Dear’s lawyers and experts said the government’s plan did not take into account Dear’s age and his health problems.

GOP’s election-year standing with independents at risk

COLUMBUS, Wis. (AP) — Some independent voters who began 2022 looking to Republicans for answers have drifted back to moving toward Democrats. This comes as the GOP’s indictment of President Joe Biden’s and majority Democrats’ handling of the economy has run into mixed Republican messaging. Interviews with independent voters in a competitive county in swing-voting Wisconsin reveal how the June U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe. v. Wade and former President Donald Trump’s protests over the 2020 election and the federal investigation of records recovered at his Florida home are disrupting Republican leadership’s hope of making November a straight-up referendum on Democratic control in Washington.

Blinken hosts Armenia, Azerbaijan FMs in bid to boost peace

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan on Monday in a bid to ease tensions and maintain a fragile ceasefire between the ex-Soviet countries and rivals following the largest outbreak of hostilities in more than two years. Blinken brought Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov together at a New York hotel on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly. It was the foreign ministers’ first face-to-face meeting since two days of shelling last week by both sides killed more than 200 troops.

NASA Mars lander captures strikes by 4 incoming space rocks

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A NASA lander on Mars has captured the vibrations and sounds of four meteoroids striking the planet’s surface. Scientists reported Monday that Mars InSight has detected seismic and acoustic waves from a series of impacts in 2020 and 2021. A satellite orbiting the red planet confirmed the impact locations, as far as 180 miles from the lander. Scientists are delighted by the detections _ a first for Mars _ and the resulting craters. They’ve been waiting more than three years for InSight’s seismometer to sense impacts from incoming space rocks. InSight has already detected more than 1,300 marsquakes.