AP Top News at 11:49 p.m. EDT
WYNNE, Ark. (AP) — Storms that dropped possibly dozens of tornadoes killed at least 26 people in small towns and big cities across the South and Midwest, tearing a path through the Arkansas capital, collapsing the roof of a packed concert venue in Illinois and stunning people throughout the region Saturday with the damage’s scope. Confirmed or suspected tornadoes in at least eight states destroyed homes and businesses, splintered trees and laid waste to neighborhoods across a broad swath of the country. The dead included at least nine in one Tennessee county, four in the small town of Wynne, Arkansas, three in Sullivan, Indiana, and four in Illinois.
WYNNE, Ark. (AP) — With tornadoes hitting the Midwest and the South this weekend, some survivors said they emerged from their homes to find buildings ripped apart, vehicles tossed around like toys, shattered glass and felled trees. J.W. Spencer, 88, had never experienced a tornado before, but when he and his wife saw on TV that a tornado was nearing their town of Wynne, Arkansas, he opened a front window and rear door in his house to relieve air pressure. The couple scurried into the bathroom, where they got into the bathtub and covered themselves with quilts and blankets for protection.
NEW YORK (AP) — When Donald Trump steps before a judge this coming week to be arraigned in a New York courtroom, it will not only mark the first time a former U.S. president has faced criminal charges. It will also be a reckoning for a man long nicknamed “Teflon Don,” who until now has managed to skirt serious legal jeopardy despite 40 years of legal scrutiny. Trump, who is the early front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, is expected to turn himself in Tuesday. He faces charges including at least one felony offense related to hush money payments to women during his 2016 campaign.
HOUSTON (AP) — UConn doled out another drama-free basketball beatdown Saturday, getting 21 points and 10 rebounds from Adama Sanogo to dispatch Miami 72-59 and move one win from the school’s fifth national title. Jordan Hawkins overcame his stomach bug and scored 13 for the Huskies, who came into this most unexpected Final Four as the only team with any experience on college basketball’s final weekend and with the best seeding of the four teams in Houston — at No. 4. Against fifth-seeded Miami, they were the best team on the court from beginning to end. Starting with three straight 3s — one jumper from Hawkins and two set shots from Sanogo — UConn took a quick 9-0 lead and never trailed.
HOUSTON (AP) — San Diego State’s vaunted defense staggered well into the second half as free-flowing Florida Atlantic breezed to a 14-point lead. The Aztecs found their teeth again to get back into the game. Then Lamont Butler delivered at the very end. Butler hit a buzzer-beating jumper for the ages, sending San Diego State to its first national championship game with a 72-71 win over fellow mid-major Florida Atlantic in the Final Four on Saturday night. “I didn’t really know how big it was,” Butler said after his calm reaction to one of the greatest shots in NCAA Tournament history.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Kyiv court ordered a leading priest to be put under house arrest Saturday after Ukraine’s top security agency said he was suspected of justifying Russian aggression, a criminal offense. It was the latest move in a bitter dispute over a famed Orthodox monastery. Metropolitan Pavel is the abbot of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery, Ukraine’s most revered Orthodox site. He has denied the charges and resisted the authorities’ order to vacate the complex. In a court hearing earlier in the day, the metropolitan said the claim by the Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU, that he condoned Russia’s invasion was politically driven and that he had “never been on the side of aggression.” After the court’s ruling, a monitoring bracelet was placed around his ankle, despite his objections that he has diabetes and should not wear it.
LIMON, Costa Rica (AP) — In this colorful Caribbean port, where cruise ship passengers are whisked to jungle adventures in Costa Rica’s interior, locals try to be home by dark and police patrol with high-caliber guns in the face of soaring drug violence. Costa Rica logged a record 657 homicides last year and Limon – with a homicide rate five times the national average -- was the epicenter. The bloodshed in a country better known for its laid-back, “it’s all good” outlook and its lack of a standing army has stirred a public outcry as the administration of President Rodrigo Chaves scrambles for answers.
GAMBELL, Alaska (AP) — Bruce Boolowon, then a lean 20-year-old, and a group of friends were hunting for murre eggs in a walrus skin boat on a remote Alaska island in the Bering Strait when they saw a crippled airplane flying low. “Something was wrong,” Boolowon, now 87, recalled of that day in 1955. “They came in and one engine was smoking.” Long before drones or weather balloons became military targets, a U.S. Navy P2V-5 Neptune maritime patrol aircraft had been attacked at about 8,000 feet (2,438 meters) by two Soviet MiG-15 fighters roaring out of nearby Siberia. The plane’s right engine was destroyed and the pilot was making a controlled crash landing.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kaley Cuoco is flying high after giving birth to her first child. The star of “ The Flight Attendant ” and “ The Big Bang Theory ” said on Instagram Saturday that she and fellow actor Tom Pelphrey now have a daughter named Matilda Carmine Richie Pelphrey. “The new light of our lives!” Cuoco posted, along with a series of pictures of the baby, who was born Thursday. “We are overjoyed and grateful for this little miracle.” Cuoco has been married twice before, most recently to equestrian Karl Cook. The two split in 2021. Last year she began dating Pelphrey, and in October they announced they were expecting a child together.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nine months ago, President Joe Biden signed a sweeping bipartisan gun law, the most significant legislative response to gun violence in decades. “Lives will be saved,” he said at the White House. The law has already prevented some potentially dangerous people from owning guns. Yet since that signing last summer, the tally of mass shootings in the United States has only grown. Five dead at a nightclub in Colorado. Eleven killed at a dance hall in California. And just this past week, three 9-year-olds and three adults were shot and killed at an elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee.