Here's what's happening across the United States and around the world today.
Obama, Cuban President Castro to come face to face at Americas summit amid bid to restore ties
PANAMA CITY (AP) — As leaders from across the Western Hemisphere gather Friday in Panama, all eyes will be on two presidents: Barack Obama and Raul Castro, whose expected encounter at the Summit of the Americas will mark a historic moment as the U.S. and Cuba seek to restore ties they abandoned decades ago.
Americans and Cubans alike can recall just how deep the animosity between their countries ran during the Cold War, when even a casual, friendly exchange between their leaders would have been unthinkable. So while Obama and Castro have no formal meetings scheduled together, even a brief handshake or hallway greeting will be scrutinized for signs of whether the two nations are really poised to put their hostile pasts behind them.
Obama and Castro cross paths at the Summit of the Americas in the throes of a delicate diplomatic experiment: the renewal of formal relations between countries that haven't had any in more than 50 years.
Even their arrival Thursday evening seemed steeped in symbolism: Obama, after arriving in Panama City, was whisked via helicopter to his waiting motorcade at an airport former known as Howard Air Force Base, from which the U.S. launched its 1989 invasion of Panama.
Castro's plane landed on the tarmac minutes later, missing Obama only briefly — two world leaders passing warily in the night.
Aggressive policing of South Carolina city challenged after police shooting of black motorist
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — As North Charleston surged in population last decade, South Carolina's third-largest city fought rising crime through a simple policing solution: be aggressive. But the city's police department lost the respect of many black residents in neighborhoods they blitzed, and now many are upset after the fatal shooting of an unarmed black motorist by a white officer.
Police in North Charleston used computers to track the neighborhoods where crime was on the rise, then sent waves of officers to patrol and conduct traffic stops, looking for offenders and letting drivers know they were present and cracking down. By the numbers, the tactics worked: every major category of crime, from murder to burglary to robbery to rape all fell significantly from 2007 to 2012, the last year for which statistics are available for the State Law Enforcement Division.
But anger is surfacing as civil rights leaders are demanding a full U.S. Justice Department investigation of the North Charleston force and its crime-fighting approach. The fatal shooting of Walter Scott as he fled after a traffic stop Saturday stirred outrage around the nation, but people in North Charleston familiar with the police department's focus said they weren't surprised.
"If the image of the city is more important than the lives of their citizens, there is going to be a problem," said Dot Scott, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Charleston branch. She's unrelated to the slain motorist.
The U.S. Justice Department is conducting a parallel investigation with a local prosecutor into whether there were civil rights violations in the killing of Walter Scott. The NAACP would like that expanded to a full probe of whether racism and lack of respect for civil rights is pervasive through the entire department — like the federal agency's probe after of another black death at the hands of a law enforcement officer in Ferguson, Missouri.
Dashboard cam captures routine traffic stop, but gap remains before encounter turned fatal
NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Questions persist about the shooting death of a black South Carolina motorist after the release of dashboard video of a traffic stop that led to a white officer being charged with murder.
The dash cam footage released by state police on Thursday showed North Charleston Officer Michael Thomas Slager pulling over motorist Walter Scott for a broken brake light last weekend.
Saturday's traffic stop opens routinely as Scott is stopped in a used Mercedes-Benz he had bought days earlier, footage from the patrol car showed. The white officer is seen walking toward the driver's window, requesting Scott's license and registration. Slager then returns to his cruiser.
The video also shows Scott beginning to get out of the car, his right hand raised above his head. He then quickly gets back into the car and closes the door. After Slager goes back to his patrol car, minutes later, Scott jumps from his car and runs. Slager chases him.
What's missing is what happens from the time the two men run out of the frame of dashboard video to the time picked up in a bystander's cellphone video a few hundred yards away. The cellphone footage starts with Scott getting to his feet and running away, then Slager firing eight shots at the man's back.
1 dead after large tornado hits tiny Illinois town, destroying more than a dozen homes
FAIRDALE, Ill. (AP) — A tornado hit the tiny northern Illinois town of Fairdale, killing one person, injuring seven and sweeping homes off their foundations, as part of a storm system that pummeled a large swath of the country.
A 67-year-old woman was found dead inside her home, DeKalb County coroner Dennis Miller said at a news conference early Friday. Seven others were taken to area hospitals for injuries.
In Fairdale, an unincorporated town of about 200 residents about 80 miles northwest of Chicago, "17 structures have been determined to be destroyed," Matthew Knott, division chief for the Rockford Fire Department, told The Associated Press. He added that the total could fluctuate. "All of the others have sustained damage of some sort," he said.
The town's power was out early Friday, and everyone had been evacuated. A shelter was set up at a nearby high school. The Red Cross and Salvation Army were assisting.
Authorities said that they were fairly confident there were no more victims among the debris but that they would be working Friday to account for every single resident, including those who may have left town before the storm.
Pakistani parliament votes not to join Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, urges peaceful dialogue.
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan's parliament on Friday decided not to join the Saudi-led coalition targeting Shiite rebels in Yemen, with lawmakers adopting a resolution that calls on the warring parties in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country to resolve the conflict through peaceful dialogue.
After days of debating, Pakistani lawmakers unanimously voted in favor of a resolution, which states that "the parliament desires that Pakistan should maintain neutrality in the Yemen conflict so as to be able to play a proactive diplomatic role to end the crisis."
The predominantly Sunni Pakistan, which has a Shiite minority of its own and shares a long border with Shiite powerhouse Iran, has been concerned about getting involved in Yemen's increasingly sectarian conflict and a Saudi-Iran proxy war in the region.
The conflict in Yemen pits the Saudi-led Sunni Gulf Arab coalition against Shiite rival Iran, which supports the rebels known as the Houthis and has provided humanitarian aid, though both Iran and the rebels deny it has armed them.
The growing regional involvement risks transforming what until now has been a complex power struggle into a full-blown sectarian conflict like those raging in Syria and Iraq.
Police: Man kidnaps woman, shoots Census Bureau guard, leads officers on chase, is captured
An armed man kidnapped a woman, shot a Census Bureau guard and led police on a car chase through Maryland and Washington, D.C., on Thursday before authorities cornered him in an exchange of gunfire that left the suspect and a police officer wounded, authorities said.
The guard, identified as Lawrence Buckner, died at a hospital in Cheverly, Maryland, at 7:19 p.m. Thursday, said Prince George's Hospital Center spokeswoman Erika Murray. She did not give Buckner's age.
The officer and suspect were both conscious when they were taken for medical care, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier told a news conference.
Lanier said a guard at a gate of the U.S. Census Bureau in Suitland, Maryland, saw two people fighting in a car that matched the description of a vehicle described in a report of an armed kidnapping.
When the guard approached the car, the man shot him and took off, crossing the border into the nation's capital and firing at D.C. police who had begun to chase him, Lanier said.
AP investigation: Airport intruders bike on tarmacs, speed cars down runways, even board jets
One man tossed his bike over a fence and pedaled across a runway at Chicago O'Hare, stopping to knock on a terminal door. Another rammed a sports-utility vehicle through a security gate at Philadelphia International and sped down a runway as a plane was about to land.
At Los Angeles International, a mentally ill man hopped the fence eight times in less than a year — twice reaching stairs that led to jets.
Several hundred times over the last decade, intruders have hopped fences, slipped past guardhouses, crashed their cars through gates or otherwise breached perimeter security at the nation's busiest airports — sometimes even managing to climb aboard jets.
An Associated Press investigation found 268 perimeter breaches since the start of 2004 at airports that together handle three-quarters of U.S. commercial passenger traffic. And that's an undercount, because two airports among the 31 that AP surveyed didn't have data for all years. None of the incidents involved a terrorist plot, according to airport officials.
"Enough is enough," U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said in response to the AP report, adding that since a breach last April in San Jose she's been asking the Transportation Security Administration and airport officials to "work together and resolve this alarming situation."
40 years later, US ambassador feels shame, anger over Cambodia pullout, 1st American 'bug-out'
PARIS (AP) — Twelve helicopters, bristling with guns and U.S. Marines, breached the morning horizon and began a daring descent toward Cambodia's besieged capital. Residents believed the Americans were rushing in to save them, but at the U.S. Embassy, in a bleeding city about to die, the ambassador wept.
Forty years later, John Gunther Dean recalls one of the most tragic days of his life — April 12, 1975, the day the United States "abandoned Cambodia and handed it over to the butcher."
"We'd accepted responsibility for Cambodia and then walked out without fulfilling our promise. That's the worst thing a country can do," he says in an interview in Paris. "And I cried because I knew what was going to happen."
Five days after the dramatic evacuation of Americans, the U.S.-backed government fell to communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas. They drove Phnom Penh's 2 million inhabitants into the countryside at gunpoint. Nearly 2 million Cambodians — one in every four — would die from executions, starvation and hideous torture.
Many foreigners present during the final months remain haunted to this day by Phnom Penh's death throes, by the heartbreaking loyalty of Cambodians who refused evacuation and by what Dean calls Washington's "indecent act."
APPLE WATCH LIVE: Try-on visits, online orders begin in the US, China and other markets
From Beijing to Paris to San Francisco, the Apple Watch made its debut Friday. Customers were invited to try them on in stores and order them online.
The watch is Apple's first new product category since the iPad came out five years ago. Analysts are waiting to see how well the watch will sell beyond devoted Apple fans. Apple has a better chance at succeeding than any other smartwatch maker so far, yet it will likely take time before sales reach the kind of numbers that Apple gets for iPhones and iPads.
Watch prices start at $349, but can go as high as $17,000 for a luxury edition in gold. People can try the watch on in Apple stores, but for now all orders are being handled online. Shipments begin April 24.
It's available in the U.S. and eight other markets around the world. In the U.S., the watch is available only in Apple stores. In some countries, select department stores and resellers also have it.
World's itty bitty (and fake) countries discuss being better nations, see who has best cape
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The largest gathering of world leaders this side of the United Nations is convening Saturday at a decidedly less glamorous edifice: the Anaheim Central Library down the street from Disneyland.
No one will be representing the United States, Great Britain or China, but you may catch a glimpse of the president of Molossia, decked out in a beribboned, full-dress uniform that would be the envy of any Third World dictator. There he'll be hobnobbing with kings, queens, dukes and barons from places like Slabovia, Westarctica, Vikesland and Broslavia.
The occasion is MicroCon 2015, what organizers say is the first North American gathering of micronations, those itty bitty countries that pretty much nobody but the people who rule them believe really exist.
"It's almost like a diplomatic version of a model railroad for nerds," says Steven F. Scharff, who has been studying the micronation movement for decades.
Most of these faux countries print their own stamps and mint their own money. Some even produce sashes, swords, pendants and other royal doodads that Scharff says rival anything coming out of England's royal House of Windsor. Much of it will be on display Saturday, along with the flags of some two dozen countries.
That's what's happening. Read more stories to jump start your day in our special Breakfast Buzz section.
