NATIONAL HEADLINES

Did you know you can get breaking newz as it happens?   We update breaking news on our Facebook page often during the day.  Always on.  Always free.  Always ad free.  LIKE US on Facebook to get breaking news as it happens. 

Click here to read about how the former Arkansas police chief who escaped prison while serving a 30-year sentence for murder and rape has been recaptured after nearly two weeks on the run, authorities said. Grant Hardin was captured by law enforcement officials Friday afternoon, approximately 1.5 miles west of the northern Arkansas prison he had escaped.

Click here to read about how the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday in favor of U.S. gun manufacturers and blocked a liability lawsuit brought by the government of Mexico, which sought to hold the companies accountable for the trafficking of their weapons south of the border to fuel violence by the cartels.  The government argued in its historic lawsuit that American firearms manufacturers, including Smith & Wesson, Glock, Beretta and Colt, were "aiding and abetting" the illicit flow of weapons across the border.

"I've had a lot of love and respect for you for what you've done for this country over the last several months, but you've lost your damn mind," Trump ally Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, said to Musk.  The tiff began earlier this week when Musk, newly departed from the administration, called Republicans' sweeping tax bill a "disgusting abomination".  Click here for more.  

Click here to read more about how two Chinese researchers were charged with smuggling a biological pathogen that they planned to study at a University of Michigan lab last summer, a complaint filed Tuesday says.  Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, were charged with conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States.

Law enforcement and the FBI discovered a cache of weaponry and armor, including a machine gun and grenade launchers, along with Nazi paraphernalia during a raid of a home in Washington state, authorities said Tuesday.  The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Seattle said in a statement  two people were arrested and booked into Thurston County Jail for investigation of firearms-related offenses.  “The suspects identified in this case were actively involved in Nazi White Nationalist efforts,” he wrote.  Click here for more.

President Donald Trump’s directives for mass firings at multiple agencies will remain on hold, a federal appeals court ruled Friday evening.  The new order is a major setback for Trump in his efforts to drastically shrink the federal government. His plans for the sweeping layoffs – known as reductions in force, or RIFs – have been on hold since May 9, after US District Judge Susan Illston ruled that Trump could not do such a dramatic overhaul of federal agencies without congressional authorization.  Click here for more on this story.  

Former President Joe Biden, after delivering first public remarks since his office announced earlier this month that he had been diagnosed with 'aggressive" prostate cancer, told reporters on Friday that he was feeling "optimistic" about his prognosis.  Click here for more on this story.  

Reality TV stars and convicted fraudsters Todd and Julie Chrisley were released from federal prison Wednesday night, just one day after President Trump announced plans to pardon the couple.   Todd, 56, was freed first from FPC Pensacola in Florida after serving just over two years of his 12-year sentence. His 52-year-old wife was let out of FMC Lexington in Kentucky, where she had been serving out a seven-year prison term.   Did he make the right decision?  Click here for the full story and photos.

As the World War II bomber Heaven Can Wait was hit by enemy fire off the Pacific island of New Guinea on March 11, 1944, the co-pilot managed a final salute to flyers in an adjacent plane before crashing into the water.  All 11 men aboard were killed. Their remains, deep below the vast sea, were designated as non-recoverable.  Yet four crew members’ remains are beginning to return to their hometowns.  Click here for more on this story.  

Click here to read about how the outbreak of the world's most infectious disease that began in West Texas has officially spread to a major city.  Health officials reported yesterday that two measles cases detected in the Dallas-Forth Worth area, home to nearly 8million people, had been linked to the outbreak that has infected hundreds and killed two children. One case was in Collin County, which includes the suburbs of Plano and Frisco, while the other was in Rockwall County, on the edge of the metropolis.