| Ex-prostitutes drop civil action against DSK in pimping trial Posted: 16 Feb 2015 11:05 AM PST  It's good news for the embattled former IMF chief.
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| Europe scrambles to reassure Jews after Copenhagen attacks Posted: 16 Feb 2015 09:00 AM PST  European nations scrambled on Monday to reassure their Jewish communities after deadly attacks in Copenhagen that heightened fears of a new surge in anti-Semitic violence. Flags were flying at half-mast across Denmark after the weekend shootings on a synagogue and a cultural centre that stunned one of the world's most peaceful nations. Two men were charged on Monday with aiding the gunman, named by the media as Omar El-Hussein, in his lone rampage in the Danish capital that left two people dead and five policemen wounded. France, which was rocked by Islamist attacks last month that killed 17 people including four Jews, appealed for national unity to combat "Islamo-facism".
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| Controversial executions in Indonesia set to continue Posted: 16 Feb 2015 07:13 AM PST  Despite international appeals, two Australians will be transferred to a prison island to be killed.
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| Boko Haram insurgents attack Cameroon army base Posted: 16 Feb 2015 04:51 AM PST  Nigerian Boko Haram insurgents attacked a Cameroon military camp near the town of Waza in the north of the country on Monday, wounding several soldiers, an army spokesman said. Chad, Niger and Cameroon have begun a joint offensive against Boko Haram militants who have killed thousands of people in a bid to carve out an Islamist emirate in northern Nigeria, and have increasingly staged raids across nearby borders.
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| Egypt strikes IS in Libya, pushes for international action Posted: 16 Feb 2015 10:11 AM PST  Warplanes target Islamic State training camps and weapons caches.
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| Heavy shelling as rebels keep pressure on Ukraine's Debaltseve Posted: 16 Feb 2015 01:43 AM PST  A government-held town in east Ukraine sandwiched between two rebel-controlled areas came under heavy shelling on Monday, a day after the start of a ceasefire that Russian-backed separatists say does not apply there. A Reuters correspondent at Vuhlehirsk, about 10 km (6 miles) to the west of Debaltseve, a government-held railway junction town that has been the focus of most of the fighting in recent weeks, heard heavy shelling, with blasts around every 10 seconds. The ceasefire was negotiated at a summit of leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France in Belarus last week in an attempt to end 10 months of conflict in eastern Ukraine in which more than 5,000 people have been killed. Although fighting generally ceased in the first minutes of Sunday after the ceasefire came into force, military spokesman Anatoly Stelmakh told reporters it had continued, or even escalated, around Debaltseve.
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| Source: Slain suspect in Copenhagen attacks just out of jail Posted: 16 Feb 2015 10:25 AM PST  COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The slain gunman behind two deadly shooting attacks in Copenhagen was released from jail just two weeks ago and might have become radicalized there last summer, a source close to the Danish terror investigation told The Associated Press on Monday.
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| Icy storm encases central U.S., heads for nation's capital Posted: 16 Feb 2015 10:05 AM PST  (Reuters) - Record-breaking cold gripped the Eastern United States on Monday as an icy winter storm crippled the nation's central states before it was expected to barrel toward the mid-Atlantic in time to snarl Tuesday's morning commute. Heavy snowfall and ice moving from the Southern Plains eastward pounded Missouri, Arkansas, southern Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio, the National Weather Service said. Freezing rain encased Nashville in ice, cancelling flights and closing Interstate 24, according to the Tennessee Department of Transportation. Sleet in Arkansas shut schools and Governor Asa Hutchinson told nearly all government workers to stay home.
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| Washington Monument shrinks slightly with new measurement Posted: 16 Feb 2015 09:38 AM PST The Washington Monument, one of the landmarks of the U.S. capital, is officially 10 inches shorter under a new measurement announced on Monday's Presidents Day holiday. The obelisk on Washington's National Mall is 554 feet, 7 and 11/32 inches tall, smaller than its historical height of 555 feet, 5 and 1/8 inches, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a statement. The new measurement by NOAA's National Geodetic Survey is based on standards of the international Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats and was completed in December, the statement said. "Today's elevation reflects the international standards for measurement of a building's height as well as considerable technological improvements," said Dru Smith, NOAA's chief geodesist. |
| Freighter backlog worsens outside major West Coast ports Posted: 15 Feb 2015 02:32 PM PST  By Noel Randewich SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Growing numbers of freighters were backed up around the two busiest U.S. cargo hubs on Sunday because of a dispute between shipping companies and dockworkers that has led to a partial shutdown of ports along the West Coast. With cargo delays rippling through the U.S. economy, Japanese carmaker Honda Motor Co Ltd said it planned to slow production at some of its North American plants starting on Monday because of a lack of parts from Asia. Under pressure to address the months-long strife, President Barack Obama on Saturday dispatched U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez to California to help broker an agreement. By Sunday morning, 34 container ships, tankers and other cargo vessels were waiting to dock at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, up from 32 on Saturday, said Lee Peterson, a spokesman for the port of Long Beach.
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| Naht again! Another massive blizzard buries Boston Posted: 15 Feb 2015 12:36 PM PST  In what's becoming a weekly, expletive-inducing experience for millions of New Englanders, a blizzard buried parts of the northeast Sunday, bringing high wind gusts and heavy snow to the winter-weary region.
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| Hackers cause one of history's biggest banking breaches, security co. says Posted: 15 Feb 2015 02:02 PM PST  NEW YORK (AP) — A hacking ring has stolen up to $1 billion from banks around the world in what would be one of the biggest banking breaches known, a cybersecurity firm says in a report scheduled to be delivered Monday.
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| Poet laureate Philip Levine dies at age 87 Posted: 15 Feb 2015 12:36 PM PST  FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — Philip Levine, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose intimate portraits of blue-collar life were grounded in personal experience and political conscience, died Saturday. Levine was 87.
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| Boyfriend of US woman killed by IS tried to free her Posted: 15 Feb 2015 08:56 PM PST  PHOENIX (AP) — Kayla Mueller was in a detention cell in Syria, face to face with her boyfriend who was posing as her husband. Had she told her captors she was married to Omar Alkhani, she might have been freed from the hands of Islamic State militants, he said. Instead, she denied being his wife.
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| Video purports to show IS militants beheading hostages Posted: 15 Feb 2015 07:54 PM PST  The mass killing of Coptic Christian hostages has been released by militants in Libya.
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| Boehner ready to let funding lapse for Homeland Security agency Posted: 15 Feb 2015 08:20 AM PST  John Boehner, the Republican House of Representatives speaker, said he is willing to let funding for the Department of Homeland Security lapse as part of a Republican push to roll back President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration.
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