ISIS

Saturday Night Live's ISIS sketch is making headlines today but not for being funny.

BEIRUT (AP) -- Little known to the wider world 18 months ago, the Islamic State extremist group has muscled its way into the international spotlight by carving out a self-declared caliphate in the heart of the Mideast, beheading its opponents and foreign journalists, and attracting radicalized youth as far afield as Paris, London and New York.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Three men were arrested Wednesday on charges of plotting to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State group and wage war against the United States, and federal officials said one of them spoke of shooting President Barack Obama or planting a bomb on Coney Island.

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) -- Islamic State militants unleashed suicide bombings Friday in eastern Libya, killing at least 40 people in what the group said was retaliation for Egyptian airstrikes against the extremists' aggressive new branch in North Africa.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Kayla Mueller, a 26-year-old American woman held by Islamic State militants, has been confirmed dead, her parents and the Obama administration said Tuesday.

BEIRUT (AP) -- A purported statement by the Islamic State group claimed that an American female hostage was killed in a Jordanian airstrike on Friday on the outskirts of the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, the militant group's main stronghold.

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) -- Jordanian warplanes bombed Islamic State targets on Thursday, state TV said, after the country's king vowed to wage a "harsh" war against the militants who control large areas of neighboring Syria and Iraq.

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) -- A video released online Tuesday purportedly shows a Jordanian pilot captured by the Islamic State extremist group in Syria last month being burned to death by his captors following a weeklong drama over a possible prisoner exchange.

TOKYO (AP) -- An online video released Saturday night purported to show an Islamic State group militant beheading Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, ending days of negotiations to save the man and heightening fears for the life a Jordanian fighter pilot also held hostage.

TOKYO (AP) -- Prime Minister Shinzo Abe angrily demanded Sunday that the extremist Islamic State group release a Japanese journalist it is holding hostage after a new online video purported to show that another hostage had been killed.