North America

ENOCH, Utah (AP) — A southern Utah community was struggling for answers on Thursday after police found eight people from one family, including five children, shot to death in the small town of Enoch.

Police sent officers to check on them on Wednesday and found the family dead from gunshot wounds. Officials did not immediately say why they went to the home.

“At this time, we do not believe there is a threat to the public or that there are any suspects at large,” officials said in a press release, without providing details

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans pondered next moves at a political crossroads Thursday after leader Kevin McCarthy failed over and over to win enough votes from party colleagues to become House speaker, He kept meeting with conservative holdouts and remained determined to persuade enough of them to end the stalemate.

What started as a political novelty, the first time in 100 years a nominee had not won the gavel on the first vote, has devolved into a bitter Republican Party feud and deepening potential crisis.

WASHINGTON, Jan 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United States said it still did not consider Nicolas Maduro to be the legitimate president of Venezuela and would maintain sanctions after the fledgling opposition dissolved its “interim government.”

President Joe Biden’s administration said that Venezuelan government assets in the United States, notably of the state oil company, would remain legally under the authority of the opposition-led National Assembly, which was elected in 2015 but has been disempowered by Maduro’s leftist government.

MEXICO CITY, Jan 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) — An attack by gunmen on a Mexican prison left 19 people dead and allowed 25 inmates to escape, including a gang leader, the government said in an update.

Ten guards, seven prisoners and two attackers died in the assault on Sunday in Ciudad Juarez near the border with the United States, Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval told reporters.

Previously the toll had stood at 14 dead following the dawn incursion attributed to drug traffickers.

Jan 3 (Reuters) - The first major U.S. winter storm system of the year dumped a frosty mix of snow, freezing rain and sleet from the Northern Plains to the Upper Great Lakes region on Tuesday while posing a tornado and flood threat to a large swath of the South.

The National Weather Service (NWS) forecast intense snowfall of 1 to 3 inches (2-1/2 to 7-1/2 cm) per hour in parts of Nebraska, South Dakota and Minnesota on Tuesday, accompanied at times by thunder, with more than a foot of snow expected to accumulate.

WASHINGTON, Jan 4 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell will make a rare joint appearance on Wednesday at a bridge in Kentucky in a display of bipartisanship that offers a guide to how the White House hopes to govern in months to come.

As hardline Republicans create turmoil in the House of Representatives by blocking the rest of the party's chosen leader, Kevin McCarthy, Biden and McConnell's visit is likely to paint a sharp contrast - and that's just what Biden aides and allies are hoping for.

BOSTON, Jan 4 (Reuters) - The architect of the largest U.S. college admissions fraud scheme ever uncovered will be sentenced on Wednesday for helping wealthy parents secure the admission of their children to elite universities through cheating and bribery.

Federal prosecutors in Boston are seeking a six-year prison term for William "Rick" Singer. The former college admissions consultant played a key role as a cooperating witness in the "Operation Varsity Blues" investigation.

WASHINGTON, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Republican Kevin McCarthy's bruising quest to become speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives entered a second day on Wednesday, with the party's new majority fractured by a revolt among hardline members of his party who oppose his candidacy.

McCarthy weathered three failed votes for speaker on Tuesday as about 20 hardliners representing less than 10% of the caucus blocked his path to the powerful post that is second in line to the presidency. It was the first time in 100 years that the House has not elected a speaker on its first day.

Jan 3 (Reuters) - A former Colorado funeral home owner was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on Tuesday for defrauding relatives of the dead by dissecting 560 corpses and selling body parts without permission.

Megan Hess, 46, pleaded guilty to fraud in July. She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. The 20-year term was the maximum allowed under law.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- A spokesman for the United Nations on Tuesday underscored the importance of upholding the status quo in the holy sites, in reaction to the controversial visit by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has always stressed the importance of upholding the status quo in the holy sites, "in line with the special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan," Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for Guterres, told a regular press briefing.