Russia said Monday it plans to hold drills simulating the use of battlefield nuclear weapons amid rising tensions following comments by senior Western officials about the possibility of deeper involvement in the war in Ukraine.

WATKINSVILLE, Ga. — “We were just laymen helping to start a church in Franklin, Tenn., when Gabe Norris and I realized just how hard it is for the church in America to meet new people,” said Ken “KT” Thomas, president and co-founder of Connect Ministries. After having this realization, Thomas and Norris soon quit their jobs at Lifeway Christian Resources and started Connect Ministries, a nonprofit organization based in Watkinsville that helps church members meet new people in their surrounding communities and share the gospel with them.  

Pro-Palestinian student demonstrators abandoned their camp at the University of Southern California early Sunday after being surrounded by police and threatened with arrest, while Northeastern University's commencement ended peacefully at Boston's Fenway Park.

TRUCKEE, Calif. (AP) — A weekend spring storm that drenched the San Francisco Bay area and closed Northern California mountain highways also set a single-day snowfall record for the season on Sunday in the Sierra Nevada.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Relatives have positively identified three bodies found in a well as those of two Australian surfers and one American who went missing last weekend, Mexican authorities said Sunday. Baja California state prosecutors said the relatives had viewed the corpses recovered from a remote well about 50 feet deep and recognized them as their loved ones.

HOUSTON (AP) — Storms in Texas brought additional rain Sunday to the already saturated Houston area where hundreds of people have been rescued from flooded homes and roads, while to the north in the Fort Worth area, a child died after being swept away when the car he was traveling in got stuck in floodwaters.

PANAMA CITY (AP) — José Raúl Mulino, the stand-in for former President Ricardo Martinelli in Panama's presidential election, was set to become the new leader of the Central American nation as authorities unofficially called the race Sunday night after his three nearest rivals conceded.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As Ukraine marked its third Easter at war, Russia on Sunday launched a barrage of drones concentrated in Ukraine’s east, wounding more than a dozen people, and claimed its troops took control of a village they had been targeting.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A driver died after a vehicle crashed into an outer perimeter gate of the White House complex, and the incident late Saturday was being investigated as a traffic crash, police said. President Joe Biden was spending the weekend in Delaware, and the Secret Service said there was no threat to the White House.

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. (AP) — An apartment fire Sunday in metro Atlanta's DeKalb County that forced people to jump from their balconies left at least one person dead and several others injured, news outlets reported.

Just a few months short of a quarter-century as Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin on Tuesday will put his hand on a copy of the constitution and begin another six-year term as president wielding extraordinary power.

PARIS (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping kicked off a three-country trip to Europe on Sunday with the continent divided over how to deal with Beijing's growing power and the U.S.-China rivalry.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Massive floods in Brazil’s southern Rio Grande do Sul state have killed at least 75 people over the last seven days, and another 103 were reported missing, local authorities said Sunday.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Shohei Ohtani went 4 for 4 with two home runs, and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves, 5-1, on Sunday afternoon to sweep the three-game series.

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said Sunday.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — It was a frigid winter morning when authorities found a Native American man dead on a remote gravel road in western New Mexico. He was lying on his side, with only one sock on, his clothes gone and his shoes tossed in the snow.

KIBBUTZ MEFALSIM, Israel (AP) — When Hamas fighters invaded southern Israel on Oct. 7, the militant group that rules the Gaza Strip perpetrated the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust.

HOUSTON (AP) — More storms were moving through the already saturated Houston area on Sunday, where flooding from heavy rains has led to the rescue of hundreds of people from homes, rooftops and roads.

Looking to keep the doctor away? A weekly church visit may do more than an apple a day. A Harvard Public Health article highlights numerous studies demonstrating the overall health benefits of regular church attendance.

Shu Huang said when he moved to Alabama in 1978, he heard the gospel — and immediately rejected it. “Christians would talk to me, and I would say, ‘I don’t want this,’” he said. He and his wife, Lilly, were from Taiwan, and he hadn’t grown up thinking of himself as a sinner. He couldn’t get his head around the concept of being bound for hell because of his actions.

The Rev. Robert Langston Thompson, 92, of Tifton passed away Wednesday, May 1, 2024, at Maple Court in Tifton. His funeral service will be held at 3:00 p.m. Saturday, May 11, 2024, in the Memorial Chapel of Tifton’s First Baptist Church with the Dr. Harris Malcom officiating.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Mystik Dan won the 150th Kentucky Derby in a three-horse photo finish, edging out Sierra Leone by a nose with Forever Young third in the tightest finish since 1996 on Saturday.

HOUSTON (AP) — High waters flooded neighborhoods around Houston on Saturday following heavy rains that have already resulted in crews rescuing more than 400 people from homes, rooftops and roads engulfed in murky water. Others prepared to evacuate their property.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Three bodies recovered in an area of Mexico's Baja California state are likely to be those of the two Australians and an American who went missing last weekend during a camping and surfing trip, the state prosecutor’s office said Saturday.

Boeing has locked out its private force of firefighters who protect its aircraft-manufacturing plants in the Seattle area and brought in replacements after the latest round of negotiations with the firefighters' union failed to deliver an agreement on wages.