OMIE

Though he didn’t mention him by name,  much of former President Barack Obama’s speech when he accepted a Profile in Courage Award at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library  on Sunday evening seemed aimed at President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress who are attempting to dismantle Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare. Here of some of his more biting quotes, most of which appear directed at Trump as well as in defense of Obamacare: *** About members of Congress who voted to pass the ACA during his presidency, only to lose their seat in later elections. “They had a chance to insure millions. But this vote could also cost them their seats, perhaps end their political careers. … These men and women did the right thing. They did the hard thing. … Their desire to retain a reputation for integrity was stronger than a desire to remain in office.” *** About today’s members of Congress: “It is my fervent hope and the hope of milli...

Pulmonary congestion is a possible cause of Olympic bobsledder Steven Holcomb’s  death on Saturday , USA Bobsled & Skeleton announced on Sunday. The results of a preliminary report by the Adirondack Medical Center revealed the potential cause, pending toxicology performed by an independent laboratory. The preliminary report was negative for drugs, and USA Bobsled said there is no suspicion of foul play. Holcomb, 37, was found to have died in his sleep at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid on Saturday. More Olympics: Olympic champion bobsledder Steven Holcomb found dead at 37 Adolph Kiefer, who won gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, passes away at 98 Michael Phelps, Allison Schmitt talk about battling depression Holcomb won Olympic gold in 2010, piloting the “Night Train” to win the first U.S. gold medal in the four-man bobsled since 1948. In Sochi, Holcomb won bronze medals in the two-man and four-man bobsled. "O...

WASHINGTON – Former President Obama warned his successor Donald Trump against hiring Michael Flynn as national security adviser because of his ties to Russian officials, officials in both camps said Monday. The warning came just two days after the presidential election, during the incoming president's meeting with Obama in the Oval Office on Nov. 10. Despite Obama's warnings, Trump appointed Flynn as national security adviser anyway – and dismissed him less than a month into his presidency, saying that Flynn misled the White House about his conversations with the Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak before Trump's inauguration. Though he did not comment in detail about the Oval Office meeting, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said that Obama made it clear that "he wasn’t exactly a fan of Gen. Flynn’s." That "shouldn't come as a surprise," Spicer said, noting the outgoing president had fired Flynn as the head of the military's intelligenc...

Which is why for the past few weeks, since finishing 33 treatments for throat cancer, part of Snyder’s daily routine has been handwriting thank-you notes to everyone who wrote him. Hundreds? “Oh, more than that,” he says, adding with a trace of pride: “I finally caught up two days ago.” Sitting, legs crossed, on a veranda overlooking a golf course, Snyder could for all the world be another retiree to the Arizona desert. Except he’s wearing a navy pinstripe suit (no tie). And if he’s relaxing now, a dining table just inside the villa is covered with files and paper, evidence of another offseason day’s work. MORE COLLEGE FOOTBALL: What to like about the preseason top 25 college football teams Big 12 sees increase in revenue, but still lags behind SEC Big 12's Bob Bowlsby: They're college athletes, neither amateurs nor pros Already the oldest coach in college football, Snyder turns 78 in October. And after a difficult winter, he looks...

The Facebook page of US newspaper USA Today has been swamped with fake users, its parent company has said. Gannett Co has now asked the FBI to investigate, after it estimated that half of the newspaper's Facebook following was automated. Facebook has removed millions of the fake accounts, but it  has detected more suspicious activity since . And the number of "likes" on the page has fallen from 15.2 million to 8.2 million due to the account deletions, "We don't know why the scope of impact on USA Today's Facebook page appears greater than any other publisher," said Facebook spokeswoman Shabnam Shaik, in a report by USA Today on the issue. The bots were observed commenting on stories, replying to each other and "liking" posts - as well as "liking" the USA Today page itself. "From our point of view, we have done as much as we can in our control to solve the problem at hand," said Maribel Perez Wadsworth, an exec...

The Washington Nationals were the unanimous choice this week for the No. 1 rank in USA TODAY MLB power rankings. But don't look now, the New York Yankees, who just swept the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, moved up to the No. 3 spot -- its best ranking this season. From 1 to 30, how they stack up based on voting from our 10-person panel:

Ever since the second one ended in explosions bright as the sun, we have feared the start of the third. World War III would be the real war to end all wars, and maybe the human race. Einstein said he didn’t know with what weapons it would be fought, but that World War IV would be settled with sticks and stones. Now, America is butting heads in Syria with Russia, the other great nuclear power. We are watching the range of North Korean nuclear missiles stretch inexorably toward Seattle. And people again are thinking about the unthinkable: an attack of which there is no warning, for which there is no defense, and from which there is no escape. At 92, Annamarie Choo has lived through it all — Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis. Now, she says, “In the top of my mind, I think about war. I don’t know how to say this, other than Russia and America, there are communication problems, a big gap. They don’t really understand each other.’’ She lives ...

WASHINGTON –  FBI Director James Comey staunchly defended his decision to publicly announce the reopening of the probe into Hillary Clinton's private email server 11 days before the November election, telling a Senate panel on Wednesday it would have been the "death of the FBI as an institution in America" had he remained silent about possible new evidence. Still, Comey acknowledged the possible repercussions of such a move. "It makes me mildly nauseous that we would have had an impact on the election," Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee in his most detailed explanation yet of his controversial October action.

A chain-smoking Indonesian man who says he was born in 1870 has finally reached the goal he announced to reporters worldwide last summer — "All I want is to die." Sodimejo, or Mbah Gotho (or Ghoto), had an Indonesian ID card that claimed his date of birth was Dec. 31, 1870. Indonesia didn't start recording such things until three decades later, but authorities assured the  BBC  that Sodimejo's papers were valid. Sodimejo died in his village of Cemeng in Indonesia's Central Java region.  The  Daily Mail  says his funeral was held Monday. Sodimejo was hospitalized April 12 because of deteriorating health but insisted on returning home six days later, his grandson Suryanto told the BBC. "Since he came back from the hospital, he only ate spoonfuls of porridge and drank very little," Suryanto said. Read more: 'New' world's-oldest-person is a church-loving, Jamaican 117-year-old At 87 Buzz Aldrin b...

A former member of the Russian parliament is gunned down in broad daylight in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. A longtime Russian ambassador to the United Nations drops dead at work. A Russian-backed commander in the breakaway Ukrainian province of Donetsk is blown up in an elevator. A Russian media executive is found dead in his Washington, D.C., hotel room. What do they have in common? They are among 38 prominent Russians who are victims of unsolved murders or suspicious deaths since the beginning of 2014, according to a list compiled by USA TODAY and British journalist Sarah Hurst, who has done research in Russia. The list contains 10 high-profile critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin, seven diplomats, six associates of Kremlin power brokers who had a falling out — often over corruption — and 13 military or political leaders involved in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, including commanders of Russian-backed separatist for...

AUSTIN — A student with a hunting knife slashed one person to death and injured three others Monday at the University of Texas, causing a brief stir of terror on campus before the man was arrested by police. The suspect was identified by police as Kendrex J. White, 21. A motive for the attack is unknown. Student Rachel Prichett said she was standing in line at a food truck outside a gym when she saw a man with a knife resembling a machete approach the person standing behind her. “The guy was standing next to me,” Prichett said. “He grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved the knife in it. I just started running as fast as I could.” Police said they believe the victims in the 1:46 p.m. attack are all around ages 20 or 21. There is no ongoing threat to the campus community, the university said.