World/Nation
• California cities threaten legal action on ride-sharing firms
SAN FRANCISCO - Ride-sharing companies Uber, Lyft and Sidecar are being threatened with legal action in San Francisco and Los Angeles over how they screen drivers and charge passengers, along with other business practices.
The cities' district attorneys sent letters to the three companies, warning they could face legal action if they fail to change their practices.
The company Sidecar publicly released a copy of the letter it received Thursday from San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon.
Gascon said he and Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey have concluded Sidecar is making "misleading representations" on its website that it screens out drivers "who have ever committed driving violations, DUI, sexual assault and other criminal offenses."
The prosecutors also claim the way Sidecar calculates shared fares - allowing people going the same way to hop in a car and pay separately - is illegal.
Sidecar's rivals Lyft and Uber received similar letters which also included complaints about airport trips and the transparency and accuracy of the companies' fares.
• Police: Woman beheaded by co-worker who had been fired
OKLAHOMA CITY - A man fired from an Oklahoma food processing plant beheaded a woman with a knife and was attacking another worker when he was shot and wounded by a company official, police said Friday.
Moore Police Sgt. Jeremy Lewis said police are waiting until Alton Nolen, 30, is conscious to arrest him in Thursday's attack and have asked the FBI to help investigate after co-workers at Vaughan Foods in the south Oklahoma City suburb told authorities that he recently started trying to convert several employees to Islam.
Nolen severed the head of Colleen Hufford, 54, Lewis said.
"Yes, she was beheaded," Lewis told The Associated Press before a Friday news conference.
Lewis said Nolen then stabbed Traci Johnson, 43, a number of times before Mark Vaughan, a reserve sheriff's deputy and the company's chief operating officer, shot him.
• US hits ISIS in Syria and Iraq as nations join coalition
BEIRUT - American warplanes and drones hit Islamic State group tanks, Humvees, checkpoints and bunkers in airstrikes Friday targeting the extremists in Syria and Iraq, as the U.S.-led coalition expanded to include Britain, Denmark and Belgium.
The European countries committed to take part only in the Iraq part of the military campaign, leaving the operation in Syria to the United States and five Arab allies who began conducting airstrikes there on Tuesday. Still, the broadening of the coalition provides a welcome boost for President Barack Obama and the American-led campaign.
The U.S.-led operation aims to roll back and ultimately crush the Islamic State group, which has carved out a proto-state stretching from Syria's northern border with Turkey to the outskirts of Baghdad. The militants have employed brute force to achieve their goals, massacring captured Syrian and Iraqi troops, terrorizing minorities in both countries and beheading two American journalists and a British aid worker.
While striking fear into its opponents, the Islamic State group's tactics have also helped galvanize the international community to move against the extremists. France has already joined the U.S.-led effort in Iraq, and is considering expanding its role to Syria as well. The Netherlands, too, has said it would take part in the bombing campaign in Iraq.
Denmark, Belgium and Britain all signed on as well on Friday. Denmark said it would send seven F-16 fighter jets and 250 pilots and support staff, while Belgium will contribute six F-16s that are already en route to Jordan so they can go into action as early as Saturday.
• Coach: Missing UVa. woman witty, with dry humor
ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Yellow ribbons adorn the streets of Hannah Graham's northern Virginia neighborhood, symbols of hope in a community devastated by the disappearance of a woman known for her intelligence, wit and dry sense of humor.
Graham vanished on Sept. 13, her steps recorded by grainy surveillance videos as she walked unaccompanied on the streets of Charlottesville and its popular Downtown Mall, an open air center of shops, bars and restaurants. She is a sophomore at the University of Virginia.
A suspect in her disappearance, Jesse Leroy Matthew Jr., was released from the county jail in Galveston, Texas, and extradited to Charlottesville on Friday evening, said Charlottesville spokeswoman Miriam Dickler. Capt. Aaron Carver of the Charlottesville-Albermarle Regional Jail said Matthew is in custody there.
Matthew was being held without bond and is expected to have an initial court appearance Thursday, Dickler said. He was arrested on a beach near Galveston on Wednesday.
- The Associated Press