| Boehner defends his U.S. House leadership amid conservative unrest Posted: 01 Mar 2015 12:20 PM PST  The House speaker says disagreements with fellow Republicans were merely over strategy.
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| Brrr! February brought record cold, snow to Northeast Posted: 01 Mar 2015 01:05 PM PST  ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Hardy souls who shivered and shoveled their way through February in the Northeast now have evidence of just how brutal the weather was, with record cold in at least eight cities and record snowfall in Boston.
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| 'I am not afraid': Russians march in memory of murdered Putin critic Posted: 01 Mar 2015 08:32 AM PST  By Polina Devitt and Maxim Rodionov MOSCOW (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Russians marched through central Moscow on Sunday, carrying banners declaring "I am not afraid" and chanting "Russia without Putin" in memory of murdered Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov. Families, the old and young walked slowly, with many holding portraits of the opposition politician and former deputy prime minister who was shot dead while walking home from a nearby restaurant on Friday night. His supporters have blamed the authorities. "If we can stop the campaign of hate that's being directed at the opposition, then we have a chance to change Russia.
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| U.S. astronauts speed through spacewalk Posted: 01 Mar 2015 10:29 AM PST  Two US astronauts on Sunday made speedy work of their third spacewalk to get the International Space Station ready for the arrival of more commercial spacecraft in the coming years. Tethered to the outside of the orbiting outpost, space station commander Barry Wilmore and flight engineer Terry Virts reported no problems with their spacesuits during the outing, but Virts discovered a small amount of water building up in his helmet after he re-entered the space station. A similar problem occurred after Wednesday's spacewalk, when about three inches of water collected in Virts' headpiece, but NASA said the problem did not put the astronauts in danger.
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| U.S.-Israel ties fraying over Netanyahu's planned Iran speech Posted: 01 Mar 2015 03:41 PM PST  By Matt Spetalnick and Dan Williams WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The United States and Israel showed signs of seeking to defuse tensions on Sunday ahead of a speech in Washington by Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu when he will warn against a possible nuclear deal with Iran. Policy differences over the negotiations with Iran remained firm, however, as Netanyahu set off for the United States to deliver the speech, which has imperiled ties between the two allies. Israel fears that U.S. President Barack Obama's Iran diplomacy, with an end-of-March deadline for a framework accord, will allow its arch foe to develop atomic weapons -- something Tehran denies seeking.
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| Life and death at the heart of Boston bombing trial Posted: 01 Mar 2015 04:05 AM PST  By Scott Malone BOSTON (Reuters) - From the moment U.S. prosecutors stand up on Wednesday and begin their case against accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, their minds and those of their defense counterparts will be focused on just one thing: The death penalty. Tsarnaev, 21, is accused of killing three people and injuring 264 with a pair of homemade pressure-cooker bombs left at the race's crowded finish line on April 15, 2013, in the largest mass-casualty attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001. "The bottom line is you're not going to get a not guilty in this case," said Jules Epstein, a Widener University School of Law professor who has represented defendants in federal and Pennsylvania death penalty cases. So every move is with an eye on the end game and that is avoiding death." Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty to all charges and his attorneys have offered little detail on their case, with the bulk of both prosecution and defense filings under seal in Boston federal court.
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| Homeland Security funding drama darkens U.S. fiscal outlook Posted: 01 Mar 2015 06:18 AM PST  By Richard Cowan and David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress narrowly averted a partial shutdown of the U.S. domestic security agency late on Friday night, but the forces behind the chaotic episode remain - fractious Republicans and House Speaker John Boehner's lack of control over them. In five to seven months, the federal debt ceiling will again be reached, and by October Congress must pass spending bills to keep the government running in the new fiscal year. Failing to deal effectively with these issues could have much more damaging repercussions - such as a broad government shutdown or a debt default - than a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Some conservatives speak of ousting Boehner, but it is unlikely they can muster enough votes, while others made clear on Friday that they were willing to take big risks to score ideological points. Brinkmanship like this, reminiscent of 2013's 16-day federal government shutdown, was supposed to be over.
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| Funeral set for four Missouri shooting victims as probe continues Posted: 01 Mar 2015 11:26 AM PST By Kevin Murphy KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Reuters) - Funeral services for four of seven people slain last week in a small town in Missouri are scheduled for Thursday as authorities seek a motive in the killings. The four are members of a family killed in the shootings on Thursday in Tyrone, Missouri. Their funeral will take place at the First General Baptist Church in Willow Springs, Missouri, according to the Elliott-Gentry-Carder Funeral Home. |
| 'Jihadi John' part of network linked to failed London bombers - court papers Posted: 01 Mar 2015 11:56 AM PST  By Andrew Osborn LONDON (Reuters) - Islamist militant Mohammed Emwazi, identified as 'Jihadi John', was a member of a network in contact with one of the men convicted of trying to bomb the British capital's underground railway in 2005, according to the government. U.S. security sources last week identified the man, who appeared clad in black and brandishing a knife, as Mohammed Emwazi. The British government's view is set out in court papers, reviewed by Reuters and publicly available on the Internet, which refer to 2011 and 2013 British legal hearings concerning two of Emwazi's London associates, known only as Iranian-born "CE" and Ethiopian-born "J1." The court papers reported in the Observer and Sunday Telegraph newspapers, offer a fleeting glimpse of Emwazi's life in London before he left for Syria. One of the same network's members, "J1", spoke on the phone with Hussain Osman, one of the men convicted in connection with an unsuccessful attempt to blow up the London underground in 2005, on the day of the failed attack itself, the papers show.
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| NYT: U.S. moving to deport Bosnians tied to war crimes Posted: 01 Mar 2015 04:24 PM PST  The United States is moving to deport at least 150 Bosnians suspected of taking part in war crimes and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the New York Times reported Saturday. The report said US immigration officials had identified about 300 immigrants believed to have concealed their involvement in wartime atrocities, but the number could eventually top 600. More than 100,000 people were killed in the 1992-95 Bosnian war which followed the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. "As long as we are alive, war criminals will never be in peace.
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| Who was Boris Nemtsov and why was he murdered? Posted: 28 Feb 2015 10:21 PM PST  The gunning-down of Russian opposition leader Boris Y. Nemtsov has some pundits consumed with the whodunit. "The biggest theory which dumbfounded me is the notion that Nemtsov's own party ordered his murder because that's just absolutely ridiculous and I can't even believe it's being dignified," Knight says. Ms. Knight has a PhD degree in Russian politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
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| Israel's Netanyahu heads to Washington for Congress speech Posted: 01 Mar 2015 05:04 AM PST  In a contentious address, the prime minister will press his case against an emerging deal on Iran's nuclear program.
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| 'Jihadi John' contemplated suicide in 2010: report Posted: 28 Feb 2015 04:19 PM PST  The London man believed to be Islamic State executioner "Jihadi John" told a journalist four years ago that surveillance by British security services had left him contemplating suicide, it emerged Saturday. Mohammed Emwazi, named by media and experts as the militant thought to have beheaded at least five Western hostages held by the IS group, told the Mail on Sunday reporter that he felt like a "dead man walking". Prime Minister David Cameron and a former head of foreign spy agency MI6 strongly rejected the idea, while London mayor Boris Johnson accused Cage of an "apology for terror".
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| Venezuela to shrink U.S. Embassy staff, require tourist visas Posted: 28 Feb 2015 08:15 PM PST  President Nicolas Maduro says "gringo" meddling forced him to adopt new requirements.
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