First Run News

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama was president earlier this year. Really, eyewitness accounts from the period confirm this.

WASHINGTON — President Trump was already revved up when he emerged from his limousine to visit NATO’s new headquarters in Brussels last May. He had just met France’s recently elected president, Emmanuel Macron, whom he greeted with a white-knuckle handshake and a complaint that Europeans do not pay their fair share of the alliance’s costs. On the long walk through the NATO building’s cathedral-like atrium, the president’s anger grew. He looked at the polished floors and shimmering glass walls with a property developer’s eye. (“It’s all glass,” he said later.

WASHINGTON — When Pakistani forces freed a Canadian-American family this fall held captive by militants, they also captured one of the abductors.

WASHINGTON — When Pakistani forces freed a Canadian-American family this fall held captive by militants, they also captured one of the abductors.

To a stranger’s knock, a boy of about 9 opens the door of 1022 Woodycrest Avenue, the Bronx. He listens for a moment, then circles back to summon his mother, Manthia Magassa. The warming fragrance of a stew has drifted from the kitchen, then streams in to the cold doorway. An electronic chirp sounds from the wooden stairwell. The boy watches television. Ms. Magassa appears. Had she heard about the fire in the Bronx? “What?” she replied. “Come inside.

Emmanuel Mensah was a handsome, strongly built young man in his late 20s who immigrated to the Bronx from Ghana five years ago. He joined the Army National Guard but returned to his apartment on Prospect Avenue in December, after graduating from boot camp with the rank of private first class. And on Thursday night, he lost his life trying to save people from his furiously burning apartment building, one of 12 people to die in the blaze. “He brought four people out,” said his uncle, Twum Bredu, who lives next door.

The 3-year-old boy in the kitchen screamed. His mother ran in from the bathroom. He had been playing with the knobs of the stove again. With flames jumping through the kitchen, she scooped up the boy and a 2-year-old child and ran into the cold. She left her first-floor apartment door ajar behind her. The fire flashed out into the hallway of the five-story building in the Bronx on Thursday night. The stairwell became in effect a chimney. The fire climbed up, up, up, seeking air.

Friday on CNN, Rep. Cheri Bustos  (D-IL ) said if the Democratic Party would “perpetually be in the minority” if they ignored jobs and the economy to further embrace identity politics. Partial transcript as follows: Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

Friday on CNN, Rep. Cheri Bustos  (D-IL ) said if the Democratic Party would “perpetually be in the minority” if they ignored jobs and the economy to further embrace identity politics. Partial transcript as follows: Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

The singer who has accused former Trump campaign manager President Trump, filed a police complaint against Lewandowski for allegedly slapping her butt at a Nov. 28 holiday party at the Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C. Villa said she spent three hours being investigated by police on Thursday.