Trump targets N. Korean ships:

The United States is seeking United Nations authorization to use military force to board and seize North Korean smuggling vessels on the high seas, dramatically escalating the Trump administration’s nuclear standoff with the hermit kingdom, according to a draft resolution obtained by Foreign Policy.

Hamas shuns Red Cross:

JERUSALEM — The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross says Hamas would not allow him access to two Israeli civilians believed to be held by the Islamic militant group in Gaza. Peter Maurer told reporters Thursday that his organization wants access “to all those detained” in conflict zones it visits. Despite raising the issue, he said he was unable to visit the captive Israelis while in Gaza, where he met with leaders to discuss the strip’s blockade, prisoners held by Israel, and other humanitarian issues.

Author of ‘Sexual Politics’ dies:

PARIS — Kate Millett, the activist, artist and educator whose best-selling work “Sexual Politics” was a landmark of cultural criticism and a manifesto for the modern feminist movement, has died at 82.

Israel strikes deep in Syria:

BEIRUT — Israeli warplanes struck a military position near the Mediterranean coast in Syria Thursday, killing two soldiers, the Syrian army said, in a stronghold of President Bashar Assad that is also heavily protected by the Russians and Iranians. The airstrike targeted a facility near the town of Masyaf, in Hama province, described by some as a missile producing factory. The airstrike is the furthest north since Russia joined the war in September 2015 with a major air campaign to aid Assad’s forces.

Building wall prototypes:

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has awarded more contracts to build prototypes for the wall President Donald Trump wants to build on the U.S. border with Mexico. The prototypes announced Thursday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection are for four see-through walls. Last week, it announced contracts for prototypes for four concrete walls. The eight prototypes will cost a total of $3.6 million.

Girl a captive for 29 days:

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota teenager was held captive for 29 days, repeatedly raped, locked in a closet and bound by zip ties before she escaped and swam across a lake to safety, according to criminal charges filed Thursday against three men. At one point, the 15-year-old girl was told to get into a duffel bag and was loaded in the back of a truck after police came knocking on the door of the mobile home where she was being held, the complaint said. She was moved in the bag to another location. She escaped Tuesday from an abandoned home in rural, western Minnesota after the men left her alone for the first time in nearly a month.

42-year murder case nears end:

RICHMOND, Va. — A published report says a man accused in the 1975 murders of two young sisters who disappeared from a Maryland shopping mall plans to plead guilty to a crime that’s haunted the region for more than four decades. Lloyd Lee Welch Jr. was scheduled to stand trial next Tuesday in the killings of 12-year-old Sheila Lyon and 10-year-old Katherine Lyon.

Last Doolittle raider turns 102:

CINCINNATI — The last of the 80 Doolittle Tokyo Raiders of World War II celebrated his 102nd birthday on Thursday. Retired Lt. Col. Richard E. “Dick” Cole has remained active, attending commemorative events in recent years including April ceremonies for the raid’s 75th anniversary at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.

Taco Bell workers kill intruder:

CLEVELAND — Police say three employees of a Cleveland Taco Bell opened fire on two armed robbers, killing one. Police have said two masked robbers entered the restaurant early Wednesday and ordered three employees to lie on the floor. Police say three other employees pulled out handguns and opened fire, shooting one of the suspects six times. The other suspect ran off. The Cuyahoga County medical examiner’s office on Thursday said the man killed was 24-year-old De’Carlo Jackson. Investigators say Jackson was found with a loaded gun in his hand.

SpaceX launches space drone:

WASHINGTON — In the Pentagon’s vast arsenal there is little quite like it: a supersecret space drone that looks like a miniature version of the space shuttle, but orbits the Earth for months, even years, at a time. Doing what? The Air Force won’t say. On Thursday, after a successful morning launch on a SpaceX rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the X-37B headed yet again to the vital real estate known as low Earth orbit.

Judge says girl may be alive:

SAN FRANCISCO — A California judge ruled that a teen girl declared brain dead more than three years ago after a tonsillectomy may still be technically alive, allowing a malpractice lawsuit against the hospital to proceed.