WorldNews

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A U.S. judge has ordered that a Saudi Arabian man facing rape charges be jailed without bail because authorities believe he's trying to flee the country. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20694[/attach] The Obama administration on Tuesday laid out an agenda under its Quadrennial Energy Review to modernize the country's energy infrastructure and make it more resilient to challenges ranging from extreme weather to the domestic energy boom. Commissioned by President Barack Obama when he announced his Climate Action Plan in June 2013, the QER was more than a year in the making and is the administration's first comprehensive attempt to analyze the country's aging energy systems. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the country's energy infrastructure a nearly failing D+ grade in its 2013 Infrastructure Report Card. The report released on Tuesday recommends over $15 billion in new spending programs or tax credits to carry out a major overhaul of the country's energy infrastructure. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20693[/attach] Nine Kenyan security officials from Garissa have been suspended and could face charges of criminal negligence over the massacre at the town's university earlier this month, the government announced Tuesday. Militants from Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab rebels attacked the university in the northeastern town of Garissa on April 2, lining up non-Muslim students for execution and killing 148 people. Kenya interior minister, Joseph Nkaissery, said a preliminary investigation into the response to the attack signalled that the officials, among them senior police officers, had failed to mobilise ahead of the attack despite intelligence warnings. The Kenyan government and the country's notoriously corrupt security forces have come in for renewed criticism following the massacre, with Kenyan media alleging that warnings were ignored and response times by special forces were slow. Continue reading...

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — A recently elected substitute congressman in El Salvador has been arrested on suspicion of human trafficking. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20692[/attach] Poland said Tuesday it will hold exclusive talks with the US government on a multi-billion-euro Patriot missile contract and test Airbus helicopters in an unprecedented military upgrade amid heightened tensions with neighbouring Russia. President Bronislaw Komorowski said the decision for the massive defence revamp is being made at a time of "deterioration of security due to the Russian-Ukraine conflict". The Eurosam consortium including MBDA France, MBDA Italy and France's Thales Group had been the other party in the running for the deal valued at an estimated 5 billion euros ($5.4 billion). Poland's defence ministry said it wanted to acquire eight missile batteries by 2025, with two of them to be delivered within three years of signing a deal. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20688[/attach] MONACO (AP) — Monaco vice president Vadim Vasilyev says Manchester United will wait until the end of the season to decide whether to use its option to buy loan striker Radamel Falcao. Continue reading...

By Kentaro Hamada and Aaron Sheldrick KAGOSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - A Japanese court will rule on Wednesday on an injunction to block the restart of two more nuclear reactors, a decision that could determine whether a legal drive by citizens to prevent the reopening of the sector on safety grounds will gather steam. A three-judge panel is to rule on the injunction request on the Sendai reactors at 2100 EDT. A court order preventing Kyushu Electric Power Co from operating Sendai would risk tying up the industry in legal battles for months or years. Last week's ruling "certainly sets a precedent and it will cause some of the other governors and other courts to think twice" about nuclear, said Michael Jones, Senior Analyst at consultancy Wood Mackenzie, Local residents who submitted a suit against the restart of the restart of the Sendai reactors argue the utility and regulator has underestimated the risk of nearby volcanoes and operational plans lack credible evacuation measures. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20687[/attach] LONDON (AP) — Some people get a cake. Queen Elizabeth II has received gun salutes from mounted artillery to mark her 89th birthday. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20686[/attach] BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq security forces have recaptured areas lost earlier to the Islamic State group in and around the battleground city of Ramadi, security officials said Tuesday. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20685[/attach] Power was evident from every vantage point at the year-end charity event hosted by Tiger Woods. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20679[/attach] A co-pilot who spilt coffee on the instrument panel of the Serbian president's plane and then hit an emergency button while trying to mop it up, caused the jet to plunge, an investigation showed Tuesday. President Tomislav Nikolic was forced to abort an official visit to the Vatican on Friday after one of the engines of the plane carrying him to Rome shut down. A report by Serbia's civil aviation authority blamed the incident on the co-pilot's brush with a coffee cup. "Co-pilot Bojan Zoric accidentally knocked over coffee onto the instrument panel and, in trying to mop up the coffee, activated the 'emergency slot extension' which caused the plane to lose altitude," the report said. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20678[/attach] Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso said Tuesday Europe and Africa must work together to solve the chaos in Libya if they want to curb the migrant flow that has seen thousands drown in the Mediterranean. "The fundamental question that must be addressed is Libya," he said, adding the crisis in that country must be "seriously taken in hand. The latest sinking of a migrant ship, in which 800 are feared to have drowned, left from Libya on Saturday. Libya has been riven by conflict since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with rival governments and parliaments and armed groups now battling to control its cities and oil wealth. Continue reading...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Hard Rock Cafe on Tuesday withdrew a promotional campaign in Malaysia after public anger at the photoshopped depiction of an orangutan baring its teeth and playing an electric guitar. Continue reading...

Five wolf hunters were sentenced to jail in Norway on Tuesday in an unprecedented environmental crackdown to protect a tiny stock of about 35 of the predators living in eastern pine forests despite widespread local opposition. The men, given terms of between six to 20 months, were the first to be convicted for shooting wolves since a few dozen animals were re-introduced in a joint environmental project with Sweden in the 1990s. Hunting almost wiped out all wolves in Norway in the 1960s. "Illegal hunting is the single largest cause of death for wolves in Norway," she said, urging Norwegians to tolerate packs, perhaps even as a tourist attraction in remote areas. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20677[/attach] LUENEBURG, Germany (AP) — A former Auschwitz guard acknowledged Tuesday that he bears a share of the moral guilt for atrocities at the camp, but told judges at the opening of his trial that it is up to them to decide whether he deserves to be convicted as an accessory to murder. Continue reading...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan officials say an explosion near a southern police station has killed three people and wounded 17. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20676[/attach] A former Nazi death camp officer dubbed the "bookkeeper of Auschwitz" goes on trial in Germany Tuesday, with almost 70 Holocaust survivors and victims' relatives expected in the courtroom. Oskar Groening, 93, will be tried on "accessory to murder" charges in 300,000 cases of deported Hungarian Jews who were sent to the gas chambers, and faces up to 15 years jail. Given the advanced age of most German war crimes suspects, Groening is expected to be among the last to face justice, 70 years after the liberation of the concentration camps at the end of World War II. Media interest is set to be intense in the trial of the frail widower in Lueneburg near the northern city of Hamburg, where Auschwitz survivors will appear as witnesses or co-plaintiffs. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20675[/attach] BOSTON (AP) — Jurors in the trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are getting ready to hear evidence on what his punishment should be — life in prison or the death penalty — as survivors and victims' families weigh in with their views. Continue reading...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Afghan officials say an explosion near a southern police station has killed three people and wounded 17. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20674[/attach] By Colin Packham SYDNEY (Reuters) - A cyclonic storm battered Australia's east coast on Tuesday killing three people, washing away houses, cutting power to more than 200,000 homes and stranding a cruise ship off the coast in mountainous seas. Rail links to the north and south of Sydney were cut and many roads in Australia's largest city were flooded. New South Wales (NSW) state premier Mike Baird said conditions were forecast to become even worse and asked workers to head home as soon as possible. A woman and two men were found dead on Tuesday in the town of Dungog, one of the worst-hit areas about 200 kms (125 miles) north of Sydney, police said. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20661[/attach] (Reuters) - Former British Prime Minister John Major will urge voters on Tuesday to reject a "weak and unstable" Labour government subjected to a "daily dose of political blackmail" by the Scottish National Party (SNP), the Times reported. Opposition leader Ed Miliband would be dragged to the left and sacrifice the interests of the rest of the United Kingdom to keep SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon's support, Major will say, the newspaper reported. Polls indicate that a hung parliament is the most likely outcome of the May 7 election, with neither Cameron's Conservatives nor the opposition Labour Party likely to win an outright majority. A post-election deal between the Labour Party and Scottish nationalists to rule Britain could break up the country, Major had warned last month. Continue reading...

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (AP) — A spokesman for a Muslim couple in Alabama says their 20-year-old daughter fled a Birmingham suburb to join the Islamic State group in Syria after being recruited on the Internet. Continue reading...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States will supply Ukraine with nearly $18 million in aid to provide shelter, food vouchers, potable water and health and sanitation in regions affected by fighting between government forces and pro-Russia fighters. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20660[/attach] By Saliou Samb CONAKRY (Reuters) - At least five people were wounded by gunfire in Guinea's capital Conakry on Monday during violent opposition protests against the timing of elections, an opposition leader and a witness said. As early as 10.00 p.m. ET on Monday, some opposition supporters erected barricades and burned tyres on the streets of the seaside capital while youths fought street battles with the police and gendarmes. Guinea's electoral commission announced last month that a presidential election would be held on Oct. 11, a decision the opposition said broke a 2013 agreement to stage long-delayed local elections first. A Reuters witness met a young opposition supporter named Oumar Bah, who was being carried to hospital by friends after being struck in the buttock by a bullet. Continue reading...

[attach=full]20659[/attach] BUENOS AIRES (AP) — An Argentine prosecutor on Monday dismissed accusations against President Cristina Fernandez that she helped shield Iranian officials allegedly behind the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center, effectively putting an end to a case that had exposed deep divisions in the South American nation. Continue reading...