Trump to skip Kennedy Center Honors program

Trump to skip Kennedy Center Honors program

BRIDGEWATER, N.J.

Acknowledging that he has become a “political distraction,” President Donald Trump has decided to skip the festivities surrounding the annual Kennedy Center Honors arts awards later this year, the White House announced Saturday amid the continuing fallout over Trump’s stance on last weekend’s white supremacist demonstration in Charlottesville, Va.

The Kennedy Center said it respected Trump’s decision and the show will go on.

Trump and first lady Melania Trump reached their decision Friday, a White House official said, the same day that the entire membership of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities resigned in protest over Trump’s remarks about Charlottesville. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations and insisted on anonymity to comment.

Suspect in killings of 2 Fla. officers arrested at bar

KISSIMMEE, Fla.

A police officer in Florida died from his injuries Saturday, a day after his colleague was killed when a suspect fired at them during a scuffle while they were on patrol. The suspect was later arrested at a bar.

Sgt. Sam Howard died Saturday afternoon at a hospital where he had been taken after Friday night’s attack in Kissimmee, Fla., south of the theme park hub of Orlando.

Officer Matthew Baxter died Friday night, a short time after authorities say he was shot by 45-year-old Everett Miller.

Miller faces a charge of first-degree murder in the killing of Baxter. Authorities hadn’t yet said what charges he could face for Howard’s death.

During a patrol late Friday of a neighborhood with a history of drug activity, Baxter was “checking out” three people, including Miller, when the officer got into a scuffle with Miller. Howard, his sergeant, responded as backup, said Kissimmee Police Chief Jeff O’Dell.

Professor, staffer extradited to Chicago

CHICAGO

Two employees of elite universities charged in the fatal stabbing of a 26-year-old hair stylist were returned to Chicago on Saturday to face charges of first-degree murder in the brutal killing.

Chicago police escorted fired Northwestern University professor Wyndham Lathem, 43, and Oxford University financial officer Andrew Warren, 56, from Northern California, where they surrendered peacefully Aug. 4 after an eight-day, nationwide manhunt. Detectives were questioning the men Saturday. They could appear in court as early as today.

The men are accused of killing Trenton James Cornell-Duranleau last month in Lathem’s high-rise Chicago condo.

Comedian, civil rights activist Dick Gregory dies

LOS ANGELES

Dick Gregory, who broke racial barriers in the 1960s and used his humor to spread messages of social justice and nutritional health, has died. He was 84.

Gregory’s son, Christian, told The Associated Press his father died late Saturday in Washington, D.C., after being hospitalized for about a week. He had suffered a severe bacterial infection.

Gregory was one of the first black comedians to find mainstream success with white audiences in the early 1960s. He rose from an impoverished childhood in St. Louis to become a celebrated satirist who deftly commented upon racial divisions at the dawn of the civil rights movement.

Associated Press