Author: Sunfire

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BAGHDAD (AP) — When Islamic State group militants invaded the Central Library of Mosul earlier this month, they were on a mission to destroy a familiar enemy: other people’s ideas.

Residents say the extremists smashed the locks that had protected the biggest repository of learning in the northern Iraq town, and loaded around 2,000 books — including children’s stories, poetry, philosophy and tomes on sports, health, culture and science — into six pickup trucks. They left only Islamic texts.   Continue reading “Iraqi libraries ransacked by Islamic State group in Mosul”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — After a three-week flirtation with a new campaign for the White House, Mitt Romney announced Friday that he will not seek the presidency in 2016.

“After putting considerable thought into making another run for president, I’ve decided it is best to give other leaders in the party the opportunity to become our next nominee,” Romney told supporters on a conference call.   Continue reading “Former GOP nominee Romney will not run for president in ’16”

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ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — The FBI on Thursday added a former taxi driver from northern Virginia to its list of most-wanted terrorists, saying he was a recruiter for the al-Shabab terror group in Somalia.

An arrest warrant, originally issued in February, was unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria for Liban Haji Mohamed, 29, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Somalia. He is the older brother of Gulet Mohamed, who for the past four years has been challenging his placement on the government’s no-fly list, the attorney representing the younger Mohamed, Gadeir Abbas, told The Associated Press on Thursday. A hearing on Gulet Mohamed’s case is scheduled in federal court in Alexandria on Friday.   Continue reading “Suspected terrorist brother of no-fly-list man”

RT

A gas truck explosion outside a Mexico City maternity hospital has left at least two people dead and 53 others injured, including more than 20 children, according to city authorities.

The initial death toll was put at seven, but Adrian Rubalcava, head of the Cuajimalpa borough in Mexico City where the facility is located, later said that only two people lost their lives in the accident. One of those killed was a child, while another was a woman around 40 years of age.   Continue reading “Gas explosion at Mexico City children’s hospital kills at least 7, including 4 children”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will ask Congress to boost government spending by roughly 7 percent above current limits, the White House said Thursday, setting up a certain clash with Republicans who insist that federal spending must be held in check.

Obama’s budget, to be formally released Monday, will call for $74 billion more than the levels frozen in place by across-the-board cuts agreed to by both Democrats and Republicans and signed by Obama into law. The White House said his new budget proposals will “fully reverse” the so-called sequestration cuts by increasing spending on both the domestic and military sides by similar amounts.   Continue reading “Obama to seek to bust limits on domestic, defense spending by $74 billion”

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FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kansas (AP) — The gunman who killed 13 people at a Texas military base in 2009 appeared in court Thursday without the beard he had fought to keep and said he wanted to keep his lead appeals lawyer. A change of counsel could complicate an already delayed review process.

Nidal Hasan appeared in court at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he is being held on the military death row. He no longer has the beard he wore during his August 2013 trial, where he was convicted and sentenced to death for a November 2009 rampage inside a medical readiness building at Fort Hood in Central Texas.   Continue reading “Now on death row, Fort Hood gunman Hasan to appear in court”

RT

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? It turns out scientists care less about that age-old question than about getting a cooked egg back to the form that a mother hen would recognize. That ability could have dramatic implications for cancer research.

“Yes, we have invented a way to unboil a hen egg,” Gregory Weiss, the study’s lead author, said in a University of California, Irvine (UCI) statement.   Continue reading “Breakthrough in cancer research? Scientists quickly un-boil an egg”

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AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Jordan is willing to swap an Iraqi woman prisoner involved in deadly 2005 hotel bombings for a Jordanian pilot captured in December by extremists from the Islamic State group, a government spokesman said Wednesday.

Such a swap would run counter to Jordan’s hardline approach toward Islamic militants and to the position of its main ally, the United States, of not negotiating with extremists. An exchange also would set a precedent for negotiating with Islamic State militants, who in the past have not publicly demanded prisoner releases.   Continue reading “Jordan ready to swap inmate for pilot held by IS”

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NEW YORK (AP) — They appeared to be scenes from a frozen apocalypse.

Streets across the nation’s largest city were empty, the only movement the changing traffic lights signaling to cars that weren’t there. The subway system was shuttered, the city’s pulse rendered still. Hardy souls who braved the snow were threatened with fines or arrest.   Continue reading “Cuomo, de Blasio, defend strict NYC storm regulations”

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DENVER (AP) — A passenger who was in a car when a 17-year-old girl was shot and killed by Denver police has disputed authorities’ account of her death, saying officers opened fire before one of them was struck by the vehicle.

The passenger, speaking late Tuesday to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because of safety concerns, said her friend, Jessica Hernandez, lost control of the vehicle because she was unconscious after being shot.   Continue reading “Prosecutors promise thorough probe of police killing of teen”

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TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — In the latest sign of Libya’s descent into chaos, gunmen stormed a luxury hotel used by diplomats and businessmen in the capital Tuesday, killing 10 people, including an American, a French citizen and three people from Asia.

Two attackers were killed following an hourslong standoff that included a car bomb that exploded in the parking lot of the seaside Corinthia Hotel. It was unclear if other gunmen were involved in the attack, which also killed five Libyan guards.   Continue reading “Gunmen storm Libya hotel, killing American, 9 others”

RT

Valentine’s Day can be a terrible time for jilted lovers and those dealing with rejection, but now even those simmering in anger can delight in the holiday by adopting a hissing cockroach or hairy scorpion in honor of their former lovers.

Looking to drum up support for some of its less cuddly critters, the San Francisco Zoo is putting a twist on Valentine’s Day. Instead of adopting a penguin, flamingo, or giraffe, people now have a limited-time opportunity to adopt a Madagascar hissing cockroach or a giant hairy scorpion.   Continue reading “Angry with an ex? Adopt a cockroach or scorpion in their honor”

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CHICAGO (AP) — Twin Chicago brothers reviled by Mexican cartels but praised by prosecutors as among the most valuable traffickers-turned-informants in recent history are set to be sentenced in a federal courthouse in their hometown amid tight security.

Tuesday will be the first public appearance by Pedro and Margarito Flores since they agreed to spill secrets to U.S. agents about Mexican drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and a half-dozen of his lieutenants in a nearly $2 billion trafficking franchise that spanned much of North America.   Continue reading “Sentencing day for Chicago twins who turned on cartel”

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A historic New Orleans cemetery that may have started New Orleans’ tradition of above-ground crypts will soon be off-limits to tourists on their own because of repeated vandalism among the tombs, the Roman Catholic archdiocese that owns the property has announced.

Starting in March, entry to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 and its labyrinth of mausoleums will be restricted to the relatives of the dead buried there and to tourists whose guide is registered with the Archdiocese of New Orleans.   Continue reading “Vandalism: No solo tourists in New Orleans’ oldest cemetery”

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McRAE, Ga. (AP) — Three days after Bud Runion posted an ad on the website Craigslist that he was seeking to buy a 1966 Mustang convertible, he and his wife set out for a small farming community in southern Georgia to meet with a potential seller. Then they vanished.

In Telfair County, where cotton and peanut fields meet dense woods a three-hour drive south of the Runions’ suburban Atlanta home, days of searching by authorities and volunteers ended Monday with a grim discovery and an arrest.   Continue reading “Bodies found after Ga. couple lured by Craigslist contact”

RT

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin declined to meet US leader Barack Obama during a visit to New York, says an Israeli newspaper. The White House said the meeting was not possible due to the two officials’ conflicting schedules.

Rivlin arrived in the US last week to speak at the UN headquarters, where International Holocaust Remembrance Day is being held this week. According to Haaretz, the president declined an invitation from the White House to meet Barack Obama.   Continue reading “Israel president ‘declines Obama meeting’, White House cites ‘scheduling conflict’”

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BEIRUT (AP) — Kurdish fighters backed by intense U.S.-led airstrikes pushed the Islamic State group almost entirely out of the Syrian town of Kobani on Monday, marking a major loss for extremists whose hopes for easy victory dissolved into a bloody, costly siege that seems close to ending in defeat.

Fighters raised a Kurdish flag on a hill in the border town near Turkey that once flew the Islamic State group’s black banner. It represents a key conquest both for the embattled Kurds and the U.S.-led coalition, whose American coordinator had predicted that the Islamic State group would “impale itself” on Kobani.   Continue reading “Islamic State group nearly pushed out of Syria’s Kobani”

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Like pilgrims flocking to a holy shrine, they come from all over the world to pay homage, not to a deity but to something similar — the people they see on TV and in the movies.

They are the seekers of the Hollywood Sign, that symbol of the Land of the Rich and Famous. And just like those on pilgrimages to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome or the Acropolis in Greece, they press to get as close as they can to the immortality of fame that it represents.   Continue reading “Seekers of the Hollywood Sign disrupt nearby neighborhood”