Deaths mount in Nepal quake...Islamic State claims attacks on Iraq-Jordan border

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KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — A top Nepalese police official says at least 876 people are confirmed dead in the wake of the massive earthquake that struck outside Kathmandu. And he says that number is expected to rise. The quake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.8 struck before noon and was most severely felt in the capital as well as the densely populated Kathmandu Valley. A magnitude-6.6 aftershock hit about an hour later, and smaller aftershocks continued to ripple through the region for hours.

BAGHDAD (AP) — The Islamic State group is claiming responsibility for three suicide car bombings targeting the remote desert border crossing between Iraq and Jordan. The extremist group says on its Twitter account that today's attacks were carried out by Belgian, French and Senegalese militants. An Iraqi official says three soldiers were killed along with the head of the border post's protection force.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey's president is lashing out at country leaders who have recognized the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a century ago as genocide. Recep Tayyip Erdogan (REH'-jehp TY'-ihp UR'-doh-wahn) accused France, Germany, Russia and Austria of supporting "claims constructed on Armenian lies." Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed in what is widely viewed as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide.

BRENTWOOD, N.H. (AP) — Authorities say a New Hampshire man has died after shooting himself in the courthouse parking lot while awaiting a jury's verdict on charges he sexually assaulted a piano student more than a decade ago. Seventy-five-year-old John Goodwin went on trial this week on six counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault involving a former student. The jury began deliberating the case yesterday morning, about two hours before Goodwin shot himself outside the Rockingham County Superior Courthouse in Brentwood.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Another prisoner on Alabama's death row says he's innocent and is asking a court to order his release. The request by Donnis George Musgrove comes as two other men once sentenced to die in Alabama are enjoying new-found freedom. Musgrove is on death row for the 1986 slaying of a man who was shot to death by intruders in his home. The man's widow picked Musgrove out of a police lineup, but the defense says that identification was flawed.