US strikes

ocean vessel

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military says it’s carried out a deadly strike on a vessel accused of trafficking drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, the first since the raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.

U.S. Southern Command said Friday on social media that the boat was “engaged in narco-trafficking operations” and that the strike killed two people and left one survivor.

It said it notified the Coast Guard to launch search and rescue operations. The U.S. military has focused lately on seizing sanctioned oil tankers with connections to Venezuela since the Trump administration launched an audacious raid to capture Maduro. The last boat strikes occurred in late December.

Former Olympian

in custody

ONTARIO, Calif. (AP) — Authorities say they have arrested Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder facing charges related to drug trafficking and the killing of a federal witness.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel on Friday confirmed Wedding’s arrest. Patel said Wedding was arrested after turning himself in at a U.S. embassy in Mexico, where authorities believe he had been hiding for more than a decade.

The former Olympian was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. Wedding was charged in 2024 with running a drug ring that used semitrucks to move cocaine between Colombia, Mexico, Southern California and Canada.

Political

chaos in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A member of Haiti’s transitional presidential council has announced that a majority of the panel has voted to fire the country’s embattled Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé as the country’s political chaos deepens.

Edgard Leblanc Fils made the announcement at a news conference Friday alongside fellow council member Leslie Voltaire, defying U.S. government calls to maintain stability in the country’s leadership. Leblanc said the council would replace Fils-Aimé within 30 days.

Surgeon pleads

not guilty

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An Illinois doctor has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the December shooting deaths of his ex-wife and her dentist husband in their Columbus home. Thirty-nine-year-old Michael David McKee of Chicago appeared remotely from jail for his arraignment in Franklin County on Friday.

He faces aggravated murder and aggravated burglary charges in connection with the Dec. 30 killings of 39-year-old Monique Tepe and 37-year-old Dr. Spencer Tepe.

After the release of a videotape sparked dozens of tips from the community, investigators pursued McKee to Rockford, Illinois, where he was arrested Jan. 10. He was returned Tuesday to Ohio.