nation and world briefs

Arizona ended a decade of resistance to restrictions on using a cellphone while driving when Gov. Doug Ducey signed a law Monday outlawing holding a phone behind the wheel. It is now the 48th state to ban texting and the 18th to ban hand-held phone use while driving, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Bills to restrict phone use while driving have been introduced for years in Arizona but haven't advanced amid concerns by GOP lawmakers about creating a "nanny state" that overregulates behavior.

A man who was part-owner of a twin-engine plane that crashed Monday in Texas, killing all six people aboard, said he and his friend who owned the plane regularly volunteered to fly sick people in remote parts of the state to hospitals in Houston and Dallas. Officials have not yet released the identities of the six aboard the aircraft when it crashed into the rocky hills of a central Texas ranch, according to authorities, while preparing to land. The plane crashed as it approached an airport in Kerrville, a city about 70 miles northwest of San Antonio.

Police arrested two people who climbed and placed Ku Klux Klan hoods on statues at a Confederate monument in Raleigh. Enzo Niebuhr and Jody Anderson were detained Sunday during a protest near the North Carolina Women of the Confederacy monument. Niebuhr and Anderson were charged with defacing a public monument and disorderly conduct. The "Smash Racism Raleigh" group said that its members were holding a peaceful protest.

Police and immigration agents detained hundreds of Central American migrants Monday in the largest single raid on a migrant caravan since the groups started moving through the country last year. Police targeted isolated groups at the tail end of a caravan of about 3,000 migrants who were making their way through the southern state of Chiapas with hopes of reaching the U.S. border. The migrants were driven to buses, presumably for subsequent transportation to an immigration station for deportation processing.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will visit Russia and meet with President Vladimir Putin. The Korean Central News Agency released a statement Tuesday saying Kim would soon pay a visit to the Russian Federation at Putin's invitation. A date was not immediately released. Last week, the Kremlin said that Kim would visit Russia "in the second half of April," but gave no further details. Russia is interested in gaining broader access to North Korea's mineral resources, including rare metals. Pyongyang needs Russia's electricity supplies and wants to attract Russian investment to modernize the Soviet-built industrial plants, railways and other infrastructure.