Obama quickly signs Puerto Rico financial rescue bill

Obama quickly signs Puerto Rico financial rescue bill

WASHINGTON

President Barack Obama signed a rescue package Thursday for financially strapped Puerto Rico, which is facing more than $70 billion in debt and a major payment due today.

Obama signed the bill hours after it won final Senate passage Wednesday night. Obama said there is still tough work to do to get Puerto Rico out of the hole.

“But it is an important first step on the path of creating more stability, better services and greater prosperity over the long term for the people of Puerto Rico,” Obama said as he signed the bill in the Oval Office.

Police captain’s son indicted on terror charges in plot

BOSTON

A police captain’s son accused of plotting an attack on a college campus to support the Islamic State group was indicted Thursday on terrorism charges.

A federal grand jury indicted Alexander Ciccolo on one count each of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and attempting to use weapons of mass destruction. Those charges were added to a pending indictment charging Ciccolo with being a convicted person in possession of firearms and stabbing a nurse with a pen during a jail intake process.

Ciccolo was arrested last July in a plot to detonate homemade bombs similar to the pressure cooker bombs used in the deadly 2013 Boston Marathon attack. Twin bombs placed near the marathon finish line killed three people and injured more than 260 others.

Source: Gingrich being vetted for Trump VP

WASHINGTON

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has begun formally vetting prospective vice presidential picks.

The New York billionaire is considering former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, among what he previously described as a short list of possible running mates. Gingrich’s inclusion was confirmed by a person involved in the vetting process who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the situation publicly.

Trump begins the vetting process with less than three weeks before the start of the Republican National Convention, when he said he would publicly unveil his pick.

Gingrich has emerged as a prominent Trump ally in recent months, even as the presumptive nominee faced deep and sustained skepticism from many GOP leaders.

Judge’s ruling still awaited on gay-marriage law

JACKSON, Miss.

An attorney said he’s “not at all concerned” that a federal judge didn’t hand down rulings by the close of business Thursday in two challenges to a Mississippi law dealing with religious objections to gay marriage.

Rob McDuff filed one of two pending lawsuits that seek to block House Bill 1523 from becoming law today. The law would allow clerks to cite religious objections to recuse themselves from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

It also would protect merchants and others who refuse services by citing three specific beliefs: That marriage should only be between a man and a woman, that sex should take place only inside such a marriage and that a person’s gender is determined at birth and is unchangeable.

Associated Press