World/Nation Briefs
Trump rivals try to lift campaigns out of his shadow
WASHINGTON - Donald Trump doesn't appear to be going away anytime soon, so his rivals are scrambling to figure out how best to handle the blowback from every new bout of bluster drowning out their campaigns.
Lead the charge, if you're the sole woman in the Republicans' White House race and trying to crack the top tier for the next debate, by questioning Trump's ability to withstand the pressure of the presidency.
Belittle Trump's claim to be a truth-teller by arguing that self-promotion is the billionaire's guiding philosophy.
Warn that Trump's provocative comments about women endanger the party's standing with a group that makes up the majority of voters.
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March marks anniversary of Ferguson death
FERGUSON, Mo. - One year after the shooting that cast greater scrutiny on how police interact with black communities, the father of slain 18-year-old Michael Brown led a march in Ferguson, Missouri, on Sunday after a crowd of hundreds observed 4? minutes of silence.
Those who gathered to commemorate Brown began their silence at 12:02 p.m., the time he was killed, for a length of time that symbolized the 4? hours that his body lay in the street after he was killed. Two doves were released at the end. Police largely remained away from the ceremony.
Michael Brown Sr. held hands with others to lead the march, which started at the site where his son, who was black and unarmed, was fatally shot by Ferguson officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9, 2014. A grand jury and the U.S. Department of Justice declined to prosecute Wilson, who resigned in November, but the shooting touched off a national "Black Lives Matter" movement.
Pausing along the route at a permanent memorial for his son, Michael Brown Sr. said, "Miss you."
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Israel imprisons high-profile Jewish extremists
JERUSALEM - Israel intensified its crackdown on Jewish extremists Sunday, imprisoning two high-profile ultranationalist Israelis for six months without charge and arresting additional suspects in West Bank settlement outposts, security authorities said.
The crackdown comes after a deadly July 31 firebomb attack on a Palestinian home in the West Bank that killed an 18-month-old boy and his father and severely wounded his mother and brother.
Tensions have soared since that attack and on Sunday, Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian who had stabbed an Israeli in the West Bank, wounding him lightly.
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Police: Man who killed eight had issue with female
HOUSTON - A family of six children and two parents were fatally shot in the head at a Houston home by a man with a violent criminal history who had previously been in a contentious relationship with the mother, authorities said Sunday.
David Conley, 48, was charged with capital murder in the deaths. Most of the victims had been handcuffed and some had been shot multiple times, said Sgt. Craig Clopton, the lead investigator for the Harris County Sheriff's Office.
The dead were identified as Dewayne Jackson, 50; his wife, Valerie Jackson, 40; and their children Dewayne, 10; Honesty, 11; Caleb, 9; Trinity, 7; and Jonah, 6. Also killed was a 13-year-old, Nathaniel, who was believed to be Conley's son from the relationship with Valerie Jackson. The sheriff's office had earlier said that there were three adults and five children killed.
"We do not - cannot - fully comprehend the motivation of an individual that would take the lives of so many innocent people. Especially the lives of the young ones," said Chief Deputy Tim Cannon of the sheriff's office. "The killer's motives appear to be related to a dispute with Valerie, who was his former domestic partner."
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Concern rising about workers cheated out of pay
NEW YORK - As a campaign to raise the minimum wage as high as $15 has achieved victories in such places as Seattle, Los Angeles and New York, it has bumped up against a harsh reality: Plenty of scofflaw businesses don't pay the legal minimum now and probably won't pay the new, higher wages either.
Some economists, labor activists and regulators predict that without stronger enforcement, the number of workers getting cheated out of a legal wage is bound to increase in places where wages rise.
Estimates on the size of the problem vary, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that in 2014, roughly 1.7 million U.S. workers - two thirds of whom were women - were illegally paid less than the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour.
Other studies put the number higher. A report by the Department of Labor in December estimated that in New York and California alone, there are 560,000 violations of the law every week, representing $33 million in lost income.
Those figures represent workers like Celina Alvarez, who came to the U.S. from Michoacan, Mexico, four years ago and took a series of poorly paying jobs as a cook after settling in New York City.
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Trump gets backlash for slamming Megyn Kelly, a Fox News anchor popular with GOP base
Donald Trump had already slammed the president, Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clilnton and his Republican rivals in the race for the White House, as well as immigrants from Mexico, the Chinese and Sen. John McCain for being a prisoner of war.
To that fast-growing list he has now added Fox News Channel host Megyn Kelly.
The Republican Party has long wrestled with the public perception that it is waging a "war on women" and has struggled to convince more women that it's on their side.
By Sunday, as Trump made the rounds of the morning TV talk shows, he was insisting, "I cherish women."
And yet for the outspoken, combative Trump, Kelly would seem to represent a type of person primed to get his goat.
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Argentines vote in open primaries for the chance to replace President Cristina Fernandez
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - Millions of voters in Argentina braved heavy rains on Sunday to weigh in on what the South American nation should look like after the departure of President Cristina Fernandez, who along with her late husband guided the country for 12 years with social welfare policies aimed at the poor while often employing combative rhetoric and protectionist policies with other nations.
Voters were casting ballots in open primaries for presidential candidates who have all but sealed the nominations in their respective parties, making the exercise essentially a giant national poll ahead of the Oct. 25 elections.
Voting stations closed at 6 p.m. local time. Because of the rains and flooding in some streets in the greater Buenos Aires area, several polling places were relocated during the day. Otherwise authorities said the elections went smoothly, and initial results were expected late Sunday.
The nation known for its soccer players, tango dancing and choice beef is struggling with myriad economic problems. Independent analysts put inflation at over 30 percent and the Argentine peso has slid sharply against the American dollar in recent months. A long-standing dispute with U.S. hedge funds that Fernandez calls "vultures" has kept foreign investors away.
Polls show voters deeply divided about how, and who, is best to tackle those issues.
— Associated Press