MSNBC: U.S. news

    

    

A five-year-old girl set up a lemonade stand "for peace" right across the street from a notorious church in Kansas which has been accused of spreading hate and homophobia wherever it goes.The purpose behind young Jayden Sink's beverages is to raise money for a nonprofit organization called Planting Peace, which supports orphanages, works to conserve rainforests and provides medication to poverty-s...    

During the more than a decade that Ariel Castro allegedly held kidnapped teenagers and young women captive in his home at 2207 Seymour Ave., police officers were within shouting distance of the house more than a thousand times, according to Cleveland Police Department records analyzed by NBC News.From the time the first kidnap victim vanished in August 2002 until the three women and a 6-year-old g...    

A Utah man was critically injured Sunday after he was shot in the back of the head while attending Mass.Police in Ogden, Utah, about 40 miles north of Salt Lake City, say Charles Richard Jennings, 35, entered  St. James Catholic Church and confronted the victim before shooting him. Authorities believe Jennings then pulled out a gun in the church and fired at the man, whose name has not yet been re...    

Five days after a massive wildfire began to cut a lethal path through Colorado Springs, killing two people and destroying 473 homes, some residents were returning home over the weekend to face the devastation.Fire crews fighting the monstrous Black Forest Fire made strides over the weekend, bringing the blaze to 65 percent containment, following surprise showers and mild winds Friday. By Sunday af...    

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has chosen a high-powered Washington lawyer with extensive experience in all three branches of the government to be the State Department's special envoy for closing down the military-run prison at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.Clifford Sloan is the pick to reopen the State Department's Office of Guantanamo Closure, shuttered since January and folded into...    

An Indiana woman put on death row at age 16 for killing an elderly Bible school teacher is scheduled to be released Monday after serving a prison term that was shortened after the state Supreme Court intervened. Paula Cooper's death sentence at such a young age sparked international protests and a plea for clemency from Pope John Paul II. Now 43 years old, Cooper is being given a second chance at ...    

This may be the first incidence of someone threatening to blow up a building with a burrito.Brian Demarco, 50, was arrested late last week after he allegedly called the FBI’s Public Access line, based in West Virginia, on June 11 and said he was going to blow up the Albuquerque FBI field office by sending “a burrito with CO2 explosive inside of it,” according to a criminal complaint filed in the U...    

    

    

RICHMOND, Texas – After 13 surgeries aimed at saving her lower left leg, including one that used live back muscle to cover an open and infected wound, a mother seriously hurt in the Boston Marathon bombings has managed to keep that injured limb – for now.But the days are full of pain and exhaustion for Rebekah Gregory, 26, who is believed to have been the last patient connected to the Boston bombi...    

The United States might have been able to prevent the deadly Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington had controversial National Security Agency surveillance practices been in place at the time, former Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday. The former No. 2 in the Bush administration defended the NSA's ability to monitor phone and email data, and labeled as a "traitor" the anal...    

JAMISON CITY, Pa. — Four central Pennsylvania residents said they used only a rope and a flashlight during a wild chase to rescue a young bear whose head had been stuck in a plastic jar for at least 11 days.The frightened but powerful bruin fell into a swimming pool at least twice during the ordeal, according to a report Saturday in the Press Enterprise of Bloomsburg (http://bit.ly/166z97k )....    

A private jet carrying former President George W. Bush to Texas was diverted to Louisville, Kentucky late Saturday after the pilot reported possible smoke in the cockpit, according to his spokesman and Federal Aviation Administration officials.The aircraft was traveling from Philadelphia International to Dallas Love Field airport when it made an unscheduled landing. President Bush later continued ...