17 dead in Somalia attack:

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Gunmen posing as military forces were holding an unknown number of hostages inside a popular restaurant in Somalia’s capital in an attack that began when a car bomb exploded at the gate, police and a witness said, while the extremist group al-Shabab claimed responsibility. At least 17 people, including foreigners, were dead, police and an ambulance driver said. Two of the gunmen were shot dead and 10 hostages were rescued but five other attackers were thought to remain inside, cutting off electricity to complicate security forces’ efforts to end the siege, Capt. Mohamed Hussein said.

5 killed in Guatemala quake:

GUATEMALA CITY — Five people were killed and seven injured by a magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck Wednesday in western Guatemala near the border with Mexico, Guatemala’s national emergency coordination agency reported. The fatalities included a woman in the city of San Marcos who was killed by a falling wall and a homeless man in the town of San Sebastian Retalhueleu who was struck by the collapse of part of a church. Both locales were close to the epicenter. Three women in different states died from heart attacks attributed to fright.

Boys found in Paris Catacombs:

PARIS — Two teenage boys have been rescued after three days underground in the skeleton-lined labyrinth of the Catacombs of Paris.

Paris police said they alerted firefighters early Wednesday that the boys, aged 16 and 17, were missing. Police said teams of rescuers, including climbers and sniffer dogs, set out to search for the youths and found them beneath southern Paris a few hours later suffering from slight hypothermia.

The nation

No verdict yet in Cosby trial:

NORRISTOWN, Pa. — With fatigue appearing to set in, jurors in Bill Cosby’s sexual assault trial reviewed portions of his accuser’s testimony Wednesday as they deliberated for a third day over whether the 79-year-old star drugged and molested her at his suburban Philadelphia estate. Jurors made the request to have portions of Andrea Constand’s testimony read back to them but ended the day without a verdict in a case that has already helped demolish Cosby’s nice-guy reputation. They will resume deliberations Thursday morning. The panel of seven men and five women worked late for the third night in a row, asking for testimony about a detective’s interview with Cosby in early 2005, about a year after Constand says the comedian assaulted her.

Charges in Flint water crisis:

FLINT, Mich. — Five people, including the head of Michigan’s health department, were charged Wednesday with involuntary manslaughter in an investigation of Flint’s lead-contaminated water, all blamed in the death of an 85-year-old man who had Legionnaires’ disease. Nick Lyon is the highest-ranking member of Republican Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration to be snagged in a criminal investigation of how the city’s water system became poisoned after officials tapped the Flint River in 2014.

Father says son ‘brutalized’:

WYOMING, Ohio — The father of an American college student released by North Korea and now hospitalized in a coma says his son was “brutalized” by his captors. Fred Warmbier told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Wednesday from his Ohio home that his son, Otto, “is not in great shape right now. Otto has been terrorized and brutalized for 18 months by a pariah regime in North Korea.”

Man now charged in 5 deaths:

NORTH ROYALTON, Ohio — Ohio authorities say a suspect in the slayings of five people in two cities has now been charged in all five deaths. Police in the Cleveland suburb of North Royalton say 45-year-old George Brinkman Jr. was charged Wednesday with aggravated murder, kidnapping and tampering with evidence in the deaths of a mother and her two college-age daughters. The bodies of 45-year-old Suzanne Taylor, 21-year-old Taylor Pifer and 18-year-old Kylie Pifer were found Sunday in their home. Police haven’t said how they died. Brinkman was charged Tuesday with murder in the slayings of his employers, 71-year-old Rogell Eugene John and 64-year-old Roberta Ray John.