| Decorated Boston cop in coma after being shot in face Posted: 28 Mar 2015 04:46 PM PDT  BOSTON (AP) — A decorated Boston police officer remained in a medically induced coma Saturday, a night after he was shot in the face during a traffic stop that ended when other officers fatally shot his attacker, the city's police commissioner said.
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| Airport Security Finally Admits There's No Reason to Search a Black Woman's Afro Posted: 28 Mar 2015 04:14 PM PDT Most of us are used to the Transportation Security Administration's rules for modern day air travel. I'd been pulled aside to be wanded, and then, without warning, the TSA agent stuck her gloved hands into my curly locks and felt around. This week the TSA informed two women who had filed a complaint through the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California that the agency would take steps to stop the examination of black women's hair at the nation's airports. "I was going through the screening procedures like we all do, and after I stepped out of the full body scanner, the agent said, 'OK, now I'm going to check your hair,'" Malaika Singleton, a neuroscientist from California who wears her hair in "sisterlocks" told Business Insider, describing her experience going through the security line the Los Angeles International Airport in December 2013. |
| Konate brace gives Senegal coach winning debut Posted: 28 Mar 2015 03:33 PM PDT  Substitute Moussa Konate scored twice as Senegal confirmed their dominance over Ghana with a 2-1 friendly international victory in France on Saturday. Konate replaced recalled Demba Ba just past the hour mark and struck twice within 11 minutes as the Teranga Lions repeated a 2-1 win over the Black Stars at the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations. Senegalese success meant a winning debut for coach and former star Aliou Cisse, who was appointed when French coach Alain Giresse parted with the Lions after a Cup of Nations first-round exit.
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| John Burns' Poetic War Zone Correspondence Posted: 28 Mar 2015 03:09 PM PDT  The article carried the byline of John F. Burns, a longtime Times reporter who, in spite of his British nationality, had spent most of his career elsewhere. As it turned out, it would be Burns' last. Later on Thursday, the Times announced that the 70-year-old Burns would retire after 40 years at the paper, concluding a career that earned him a pair of Pulitzer Prizes for his reporting in Bosnia and Afghanistan. Few contemporary foreign correspondents have worked in as many conflict zones as Burns.
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| Questions and answers about the Arab peacekeeping force Posted: 28 Mar 2015 01:43 PM PDT  CAIRO (AP) — Arab League member states have agreed in principle to form a joint inter-Arab military peacekeeping force. While details of how such a force would actually operate remain thin, the agreement is a telling sign of a new determination among Saudi Arabia, Egypt and their allies to intervene aggressively in regional hotspots, whether against Islamic militants or spreading Iranian power. Here's a look at some of the questions surrounding the plan:
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| Afghan court sentences AP journalist's killer to 20 years Posted: 28 Mar 2015 01:39 PM PDT  KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan's highest court has ruled that the police officer convicted of murdering Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus and wounding AP correspondent Kathy Gannon almost one year ago should serve 20 years in prison, according to documents sent to the country's attorney general on Saturday.
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| Arab leaders meet amid Saudi-led Yemen offensive Posted: 28 Mar 2015 12:12 PM PDT  Arab leaders met in Egypt Saturday for a summit overshadowed by the Saudi-led offensive against Yemeni rebels to discuss a joint-Arab military force to confront "terrorist groups". Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi hailed the intervention aimed at bringing him back to power, calling it a "practical application" of the kind of joint military action touted by Egypt's leader. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who was elected after toppling his Islamist predecessor with Gulf Arab backing, has promoted his powerful army as a cornerstone of a joint Arab force. He told the leaders of the 22-member League meeting in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh that the region faced an "unprecedented" threat, with unspecified powers and militants posing a danger to "its existence".
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| UN vows to step up Iraq heritage protection Posted: 28 Mar 2015 10:55 AM PDT  The head of the United Nations cultural body vowed in Baghdad Saturday to step up measures aimed at protecting Iraq's heritage, which has been systematically targeted by jihadist militants. UNESCO chief Irina Bokova launched a Japanese-funded initiative to preserve Iraq's museum collections and threatened heritage, as well as a social media campaign under the hashtag #Unite4Heritage. "Today our pledge is we will never relent in safeguarding the great cultural heritage and diversity of Iraq," she said, speaking from the recently reopened national museum in Baghdad.
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| Things to know about Nigeria's 2 front-runners in vote Posted: 28 Mar 2015 10:51 AM PDT  ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria's presidential election is a very tight race that many analysts say is too close to call. Here's a look at the two front-runners in the race.
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| Qaeda, allies seize Syria's Idlib city in blow to regime Posted: 28 Mar 2015 10:30 AM PDT  Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate and its allies seized on Saturday the city of Idlib, only the second provincial capital to be lost by the regime in more than four years of war. More than 215,000 people have been killed since anti-government protests, which erupted in March 2011, were brutally repressed by President Bashar al-Assad's regime civil war followed. The coalition that seized Idlib city is made up of Al-Nusra Front, the official Syrian affiliate of Al-Qaeda, and several Islamist factions. "Al-Nusra Front and its allies have captured all of Idlib," the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
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| World's huddled masses use 4 key land, sea routes to Europe Posted: 28 Mar 2015 08:47 AM PDT  DUBLIN (AP) — Most migrants who live illegally in the European Union fly to the 28-nation bloc on valid visas and simply overstay their welcome. But for the poorest and most desperate travelers of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, the journey often takes months by sea or land, with payments to trafficking gangs.
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| For African migrants, trek to Europe brings risk, heartbreak Posted: 28 Mar 2015 08:42 AM PDT  VELES, Macedonia (AP) — This is the moment when Sandrine Koffi's dream of a new life in Europe ended — and her nightmare of an infant lost in the Macedonian night began.
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| 'Major sacrifices' required to retake Tikrit: Iraq officer Posted: 28 Mar 2015 06:54 AM PDT  Retaking the city of Tikrit, where jihadists have rigged streets and buildings with explosives, will require "major sacrifices" on the part of Iraqi forces, a senior intelligence officer said Saturday. Iraqi forces and allied paramilitaries have been fighting to retake the city since March 2, but halted ground operations for more than a week in what officials described as a bid to curb human and material losses before pushing forward again. "The task of liberating Tikrit requires major sacrifices and street fighting, and our forces are ready for these sacrifices," the officer told AFP on condition of anonymity, indicating that the pause in operations only deferred the inevitable cost. IS spearheaded a sweeping offensive last June that overran much of Iraq's Sunni Arab heartland, and the operation to retake Tikrit is Baghdad's largest to date against the militants.
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| Can the US figure out which groups to support in Syria? Not easily Posted: 28 Mar 2015 05:59 AM PDT As the US grapples with whether it should pursue a larger role in the Syrian War – and just how much military aid to give Iraqi troops battling the Islamic State – it is also trying to figure out how to avoid one of the most basic and nettlesome blunders of all: inadvertently creating a Frankenstein's monster in the form of corrupt local power brokers. In Afghanistan, by relying on small units of Special Operations Forces working alongside mujahideen forces, the US "super-empowered" these militias, says Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, widely considered to be one of the Pentagon's premier practitioners of counterinsurgency and now the deputy commanding general of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command. It was one of the key wrong turns in America's war in Afghanistan. Learning to suss out local power brokers was a complex endeavor even during the years of counterinsurgency warfare, as the American military spent a decade trying to get to know a population. |
| Joint military action, Yemen to dominate Arab summit Posted: 27 Mar 2015 10:53 PM PDT  Egypt is hosting a weekend Arab summit at which regional leaders will discuss plans to form a joint military force against the backdrop of Saudi-led strikes on rebels in Yemen. In a post-Arab Spring era of conflict and political turmoil in which jihadists have emerged as a serious threat, Yemen is serving as a test case of joint military intervention by regional players rather than led by Western powers. Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, alarmed by the chaos in neighbouring Libya and violence in its own Sinai Peninsula, has been advocating joint action against Islamists.
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| Nobel's will goes on display for first time Posted: 27 Mar 2015 10:15 PM PDT  Alfred Nobel's last will and testament, which played a pivotal role in Swedish history by creating the now-illustrious Nobel prizes, has gone on display for the first time in Stockholm. Until now, only a handful of people had laid eyes on the original 1895 document that has been stashed away in a safe at the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm. The Nobel Museum has changed all that, putting it on public display as part of its new exhibition "Legacy". "The aim is to show Alfred Nobel's legacy to the public.
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| AP EXPLAINS: Japan's long wait to address US Congress Posted: 27 Mar 2015 09:31 PM PDT  WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington honors America's closest friends by inviting their leaders to address a joint meeting of Congress. But until Thursday, when House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner invited Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, no Japanese leaders had been invited. That's striking considering the tight U.S.-Japan alliance in the 70 years since World War II ended. British, South Korean and German leaders have been invited multiple times. So have two Liberian presidents and a Latvian one - more than 100 invitations overall since the war. So why not Japan? The answers have to do with underlying friction that has been a part of U.S.-Japanese relations and, more recently, frequent changes of Japanese leaders.
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| Police officer wounded, suspect killed in Boston shootout Posted: 27 Mar 2015 08:54 PM PDT BOSTON (AP) — A suspect in a motor vehicle stop opened fire on police on Friday evening and seriously wounded a decorated officer before being killed by other officers at the scene, authorities said. An apparent bystander also was shot. |
