Memorial set for 20th anniversary of TWA Flight 800 crash

Memorial set for 20th anniversary of TWA Flight 800 crash

SHIRLEY, N.Y.

A memorial service will take place Sunday night to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the TWA Flight 800 plane crash.

The Boeing 747 exploded off Long Island soon after the Paris-bound flight took off from Kennedy Airport on July 17, 1996. The crash killed all 230 aboard.

The head of a victims’ family group says the service will take place at Smith Point County Park, on Long Island. The park is near the crash site.

Woman spread Zika virus through sex

NEW YORK

A New York City woman infected her male partner with Zika virus through sex, the first time female-to-male transmission of the germ has been documented.

Zika is usually spread by mosquitoes, and health officials have known for some time that men can spread it through sex. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the case Friday and updated its advice for pregnant women.

The CDC now advises them to use protection if their sex partner has traveled to a Zika-infected region, whether the partner is a man or a woman.

Georgia executes man

JACKSON, GA.

Georgia on Friday executed its sixth inmate this year, the most in any calendar year in the state since the death penalty was reinstated four decades ago.

John Wayne Conner, 60, was put to death for beating a friend to death during an argument after a night of partying in January 1982. Warden Eric Sellers told witnesses the time of death was 12:29 a.m.

Conner didn’t make a final statement and declined to have a prayer said for him.

Man caught in sting trying to join IS gets 8.5 years in prison

ALEXANDRIA, Va.

As a kid, he went by the name “Jersey Joe,” identifying more with mob movies and culture than his father’s Iranian heritage. As a young adult, he abused drugs but still was not particularly religious.

Then came a sudden and steep radicalization that led “Jersey Joe” Farrokh to try to join the Islamic State as a soldier in Syria. On Friday, Farrokh, 29, of Woodbridge, was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison for attempting to support a terrorist group.

Farrokh was arrested in January at the Richmond airport, where he intended to begin a trip to Jordan and eventually Syria. He had discussed his plans with people he thought were Islamic State facilitators but who were actually informants on a government sting operation.

Farrokh is one of six men from northern Virginia in 2016 alone who have been arrested on terror-related charges.

US, Russia agree on steps in Syria, but won’t say what

MOSCOW

The United States and Russia agreed Friday on new steps they said could make a difference in Syria’s relentless civil war, hinting at an improbable military partnership that has been the subject of intense negotiation.

Underscoring the extreme fragility of their effort, neither of the country’s top diplomats spelled out what form the new steps would take.

“The results will not be tomorrow or the next day,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said at a joint news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, after they had met for more than 10 hours in a Russian government villa in Moscow.

Both sides stressed that closer cooperation between the U.S. and Russia was critical to ending a conflict that has killed as many as a half-million people, contributed to a global migration crisis and spawned the international expansion of the Islamic State group.

Associated Press