April 22, 2013 (TUCSON, Ariz.) — Authorities say five people died after the van they were traveling in rolled over in southern Arizona as it was being pursued by Border Patrol agents.

Rural/Metro Fire spokesman Willie Treatch says 22 people were in the van at the time it rolled over Saturday night in between Tucson and Benson, Ariz. Seventeen other people were taken to hospitals for treatment. Their injuries are unknown.

Treatch says he didn’t know …

Read more

Marcus Bell knows how important Los Angeles County courts are for at-risk youths.

Bell, a gang intervention and prevention worker in South Los Angeles, has worked hard with young people, trying to get them not to run from police. He has worked to get them to deal with their legal issues responsibly instead of avoiding court appearances so they don’t end up with warrants issued against them at a young age.

On Saturday, Bell said he worries …

Read more

SACRAMENTO — California’s air quality officials soon may be adding a new phrase to their bureaucratic vocabulary: “le rechauffement climatique.”

That’s French for global warming.

The California Air Resources Board on Friday linked its program for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and curbing climate change with one in the French-speaking, Canadian province of Quebec. The merger starts Jan. 1.

On April 8, Gov. Jerry Brown certified the two cap-and-trade systems as compatible. As a result, Quebec’s permits that let …

Read more

On Wednesday, a white man harassed and punched a Palestinian woman in Medford, Massachusetts, calling her a “terrorist” and blaming her for the deadly bombing attack at the Boston Marathon.

Hema Abolaban, a physician, was walking down the street with a friend when they were approached. Malden Patch reported:

“He was screaming ‘F_ you Muslims! You are terrorists! I hate you! You are involved in the Boston explosions! F_ you!’” Abolaban remembered. “Oh …

Read more

• Listen to this segment

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:

HARTMANN: My favorite quote for the day is from John Kenneth Galbraith, “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” So how is that being played out in our world today?

Exxon Mobil, one of the most profitable companies in the world that regularly pays no US …

Read more

The killing of one suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings and the ongoing hunt for another have focused attention on the motivations and background of the suspects themselves. The revelation that the brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev are of ethnic Chechen origin has led commentators to look to culture and history for clues about the sources of this week’s attack.

This angle is misguided, at least at this stage of the investigation and still-ongoing manhunt. In …

Read more

After an overnight chase, the media is reporting that the two suspects the FBI identified in Boston Marathon bombers are brothers from the restive Russian state of Chechnya. Here’s what you need to know about Chechnya and why that matters.

Russia is actually a much more diverse country than many realize, with several ethnic groups and states making up the larger Russian Federation. Chechnya is one of those states, home to an ethnic group known as …

Read more

(The Root) — Many media sources have propagated the view that black male teachers are “becoming extinct.” Currently, black males represent less than 2 percent of the nation’s teacher workforce. One article suggests that black males are underrepresented in the teaching profession because they prefer to pursue more lucrative careers. The article also postulated that because black males have had negative educational experiences, they are less likely to choose a career in education.

What are the …

Read more

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John F. Kerry implored Congress on Thursday not to impose tough new sanctions on Iran, warning that such a move could disrupt diplomacy over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program at a delicate moment.

Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry said that because Iran is two months away from an election, new U.S. economic penalties could become an inflamed political issue and reduce the chances of a deal to curb the …

Read more

MEXICO CITY — On the first day of trial, a witness named Bernardo Bernal recounted how, as a 9-year-old in the spring of 1983, he hid in a stream and watched Guatemalan soldiers kill his parents and two younger brothers.

On the second day of testimony in Guatemala City, a man named Pedro Chavez Brito described how soldiers found him and his siblings hiding in a traditional sauna in their village on Nov. 4, 1982. His …

Read more