Family returns to Canada after five years in captivity

Family returns to Canada after five years in captivity

TORONTO

U.S.-Canadian couple Caitlan Coleman and Joshua Boyle landed in Canada late Friday, five years after they were kidnapped in Afghanistan. They arrived with their three young children, who were all born in captivity.

Boyle provided a written statement to The Associated Press on the plane saying, “God has given me and my family unparalleled resilience and determination.”

Coleman and Boyle were rescued Wednesday, five years after they had been abducted by a Taliban-linked extremist network while in Afghanistan as part of a backpacking trip. Coleman was pregnant at the time.

The final leg of the family’s journey was an Air Canada flight Friday from London to Toronto.

Coleman is from Stewartstown, Pa., and Boyle is Canadian.

‘Star Wars’ fantasy? Cubans doubt US sonic attacks claims

HAVANA

A bizarre string of attacks on diplomats in Havana has sent Cuban-American relations to their lowest point in decades, with the Trump administration virtually closing its embassy here and expelling Cuban officials from Washington. But few people on this communist-run island believe a word of the U.S. allegations.

Despite increasingly tough talk by the U.S., including White House Chief of Staff John Kelly saying Thursday that Cuba “could stop the attacks on our diplomats,” the common reaction in Havana is mocking disbelief.

“It isn’t the first or the last excuse that they invent to discredit Cuba and its leaders,” lawyer Alexander Tamame, 36, said as he walked through the Vedado neighborhood in this city where the U.S. says at least 22 strange episodes have occurred over the past year. “I don’t think anything really happened.”

This skepticism stretches from government supporters such as Tamame to its detractors; from fans of the United States to those wary of the giant to the north.

Suspect in slayings arrested while walking along road

COLUMBUS

Unarmed, worn out and ready to give up, the suspect in the fatal shootings of three adults and a 7-year-old boy didn’t try to flee when officers arrested him Friday as he walked along a road in far southern Ohio, a sheriff said.

Officers were acting on a tip from a resident who spotted 23-year-old Arron Lawson. Authorities had said he fled into the woods Thursday, shortly after midnight.

The sheriff wouldn’t discuss any potential motive or the chronology of the slayings, and he declined to disclose what Lawson said to the arresting officers.

Lawyer: Priebus interviewed by Mueller team

WASHINGTON

Former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus was interviewed Friday by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team of investigators as part of an ongoing investigation into potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, his attorney said.

“He was happy to answer all of their questions,” the lawyer, William Burck, said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear what questions Priebus was asked or how long the interview lasted.

Priebus is one of several current and former White House aides expected to be interviewed by Mueller’s team in the coming weeks.

Associated Press