Brett Wilkins

Washington - President Barack Obama delivered a major foreign policy speech on Thursday in which he addressed hot-button issues including drones, civilian casualties, force-feeding of hunger striking Guantánamo detainees and the targeted assassination of US citizens.

Denver - Citing the "imperfect and inherently inequitable" nature of capital punishment, Colorado's governor has halted the execution of a man convicted of murdering four people at an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in 1993.

New Delhi - India has become the fourth-- and most important-- nation to ban captive dolphin shows, describing them "morally unacceptable" and calling for the cetaceans to be recognized as "non-human persons."

Mckinney - A lesbian couple has been forced to break up their happy home by a Texas judge who threatened to take their two children away if they continued to live together.

Boston - Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev reportedly left a note claiming responsibility for the deadly terror attack in the boat he was hiding in as police closed in on him last month.

Lake City - An 11-year-old North Florida boy has died two days after being accidentally shot by a four-year-old identified as a relative.

Washington - The Pentagon has quietly granted itself the power to police the streets of US towns and cities without obtaining state or local consent.

Saint Paul - Minnesota has become the 12th US state to achieve marriage equality for LGBT residents after the governor signed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage on Tuesday.

San Francisco - Something rather interesting happened to me this morning after I posted a Facebook comment regarding photos of a very young child playing with actual military gear.

One of Swaziland's top civil aviation officials has cautioned all witches to keep their flying brooms below the legal 150 meter altitude limit or risk facing stiff penalties.

Muldrow - An Oklahoma teen and his sister are facing harassment after he contacted the nation's leading atheist group in a bid to have the biblical Ten Commandments removed from every classroom of his public high school.

Roselle - A suburban Chicago man has been arrested and charged with animal cruelty and other crimes after he allegedly raped his pet peacock to death.

Guatemala City - A former US-backed military dictator of Guatemala has been found guilty of the genocide of more than 1,700 of his countrymen during his de facto rule 30 years ago.

Bakersfield - A California man begged for his life as a pack of Kern County sheriff's deputies beat him to death before seizing the cell phones of witnesses who recorded the incident on video.

Newark - The Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey has paid $650,000 to settle sex abuse claims against a pedophile priest who allegedly sexually assaulted numerous children in the 1970s and '80s.

New York - New York could become the first major city in the nation to allow some non-citizens to vote in local elections as the city council considers a measure that would enfranchise hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

Cedar Hill - A Dallas-area middle school teacher was arrested on Wednesday following allegations by two of her students that she engaged in illicit sexual conduct with them.

A Facebook page glorifying violence against female Marines was shut down after a US congresswoman brought it to the attention of Pentagon commanders.

Phoenix - Jodi Arias was convicted of first-degree murder Wednesday in the gruesome slaying of her former boyfriend Travis Alexander.

Cambridge - The world's most famous scientist has announced that he will boycott an upcoming Israeli conference to show solidarity with Palestinian academics and protest Israel's oppressive occupation of Palestine.