IN BRIEF Starbucks employee fired after mocking stuttering customer
US: No softening in stance as Pompeo heads to North Korea
The State Department pushed back Thursday against suggestions the Trump administration has softened its stance on North Korea as the top U.S. diplomat traveled to Pyongyang for crucial nuclear talks.
Spokeswoman Heather Nauert told journalists accompanying Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that U.S. policy has not changed and that, “We are committed to a denuclearized North Korea.” Pompeo is due in Pyongyang on Friday.
Feds will allow Yemenis to keep special immigration status
The Trump administration said Thursday that Yemenis granted special immigration status in the U.S. after an escalating civil war can keep the desig- nation.
Those already with the status – nearly 1,250 – will be able to remain in the U.S. and work until at least March 3, 2020.
Man pleads not guilty to hate crimes in attack on protesters
A man pleaded not guilty to federal hate crime charges Thursday in a deadly car attack on a crowd of protesters opposing a white nationalist rally in Virginia.
James Alex Fields Jr. entered the plea during his initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville, Virginia, after being charged last week with 30 federal crimes in the Aug. 12 violence that killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injured dozens more. Starbucks says an employee in Phila- delphia has been fired after reportedly mocking a customer with a stutter.
A person on Facebook posted Sunday that his friend stuttered when giving his name and that the barista made light of it verbally and then spelled the name with extra letters.
The customer with the stutter emailed Starbucks and was offered $5 as an apology, according to the post. Starbucks said Thursday that was not the ideal response, and that it has since apologized to the person directly.
Newsrooms hold moment of silence for 5 shooting victims
Newsrooms across the country paused Thursday to observe a moment of silence for the five employees of a Maryland newspaper who were killed a week ago in one of the deadliest attacks on journalists in U.S. history.
The Baltimore Sun Media Group observed a moment of silence at 2:33 p.m. at its offices in Annapolis, Baltimore and Carroll County. That’s the same time a gunman attacked the Capital Gazette last week.
Blasts at fireworks workshops kill 19, injure 40 in Mexico
Nineteen people were killed and at least 40 injured Thursday when a series of explosions ripped through a fireworks workshop in a town just north of Mexico City. Video shot from a highway showed a plume of smoke rising from the area in the town of Tultepec.
Hundreds march in silence to protest police killing of driver
Hundreds of people marched silently Thursday in France’s western city of Nantes to protest the fatal police shooting of a driver who was apparently trying to avoid an identity check. Residents laid flowers near where the driver, 22, was killed.