WORLD WATCH: GLOBAL AND NATIONAL NEWS

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April 17, 2013 (San Diego's East County) -- ECM World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

U.S.

WORLD

SCIENCE AND HEALTH

Scroll down for excerpts and links to full stories.

U.S.

 

Midwest sees record floods, road closures, runaway barges, and evacuations (Christian Science Monitor)

Dangerously high waters dotted at least six Midwestern states following torrential rains this past week that dumped up to 7 inches in some locations. Record flooding was possible in some places as dozens of rivers overflowed their banks.  The water levels forced evacuations, closed roads, swamped hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland and shut down much of the  upper Mississippi River to barge traffic.

 

Honda recalls over 225,000 SUVs and minivans in U.S., Canada

(Reuters) - Honda Motor Co is recalling about 225,300 SUVs and minivans in the United States and Canada to replace a part that if not operating could allow the driver to shift out of park without depressing the brake pedal.

 

Police: Bombing suspects planned more attacks (U-T San Diego)

Sunday, the city's police commissioner said the two suspects had such a large cache of weapons that they were probably planning other attacks.  After the two brothers engaged in a gun battle with police early Friday, authorities surveying the scene of the shootout found it was loaded with unexploded homemade bombs. They also found more than 250 rounds of ammunition

 

ACLU eyes Boston bombing suspect's Miranda rights (U-T San Diego)

The American Civil Liberties Union says it's concerned the surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect will be questioned by investigators without being read his Miranda rights.  U.S. officials say a special interrogation team for high-value suspects will question Tsarnaev without reading him his Miranda rights, invoking a rare public safety exception triggered by the need to protect the public from immediate danger.  ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero says the exception applies only when there's a continued threat to public safety and is "not an open-ended exception" to the Miranda rule.

 

Suburb becomes war zone in days after bombings (U-T San Diego)

Hundreds of rounds were exchanged in a deadly gun battle, a suspected terrorist's body was dragged under a stolen SUV and a bomb blast rattled residents.

 

Editorial: Feds need to probe Nevada's busing of mentally ill patients (Sacramento Bee)

Nevada's practice of busing patients with mental illness to all corners of the country is reprehensible. The response is not much better

 

Texas fertilizer company didn't heed disclosure rules before blast (Reuters)

 The fertilizer plant that exploded on Wednesday, obliterating part of a small Texas town and killing at least 14 people, had last year been storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)…Filings this year with the Texas Department of State Health Services, which weren't shared with DHS, show the plant had 270 tons of it on hand last year…More than 4,000 sites nationwide are subject to the DHS program.

 

Volunteer firefighting force decimated in Texas fertilizer plant explosion (Christian Science Monitor)

At least 11 firefighters – most of them volunteers – appear to have died in a huge explosion and fire at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, reports signal...  So far, 12 people are confirmed dead and more than 200 injured, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.... For a small town, such a loss can be devastating.

 

Charges dropped against man in ricin letters case  (Sacramento Bee)

Charges of sending ricin-laced letters to President Barack Obama and others were dropped Tuesday against an Elvis impersonator from Mississippi who has said since his arrest last week that he had nothing to do with the case.

 

Hackers compromise Associated Press Twitter account, tweet false report of White House attack (Christian Science Monitor)

Hackers compromised Twitter accounts of The Associated Press on Tuesday, sending out a false tweet about an attack at the White House. / The false tweet said there had been two explosions at the White House and that President Barack Obama was injured.

 

WORLD

 

Senate Immigration Bill Calls For A Drone-Patrolled Border (KPBS)

The major immigration reform bill introduced last week by a bipartisan group of senators would earmark $6.5 billion to beef up border security. And it specifically calls for more drones to keep a watch on the southern border. But the border drones have yet to prove their worth. Up until now, 36-foot-long Predator drones have been used on the southern border to patrol remote areas of Texas and Arizona..../ After more than 5,700 hours of flying time last year — at a total operating cost of at least $18 million — drones helped agents confiscate just three percent of all drugs seized along the border last year. / And illegal border crossers? The drones helped agents apprehend just 143 people out of 365,000 apprehensions last year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

 

US finalizing arms sales to Israel, Arab nations (U-T San Diego)

The Defense Department is working out final details of a $10 billion sale of warplanes, transport aircraft and advanced missiles to Israel and Arab nations amid concerns about the growing threat from Iran and its disputed nuclear weapons program, Pentagon and congressional officials said Friday

 

China quake toll rises; rescue squads face setbacks (Jerusalem Post)

Number of dead tops 200, 11,000 injured in China's deadly quake; rescuers are frustrated they cannot reach the quake zone.

 

Magnitude 6.9 quake strikes Sichuan region of China: USGS  (Reuters)

A magnitude 6.9 quake struck the western Chinese region of Sichuan on Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

 

France legalizes gay marriage after harsh debate (U-T San Diego)

France legalized gay marriage on Tuesday after a wrenching national debate and protests that flooded the streets of Paris. Legions of officers and water cannon stood ready near France's National Assembly ahead of the final vote, bracing for possible violence on an issue that galvanized the country's faltering conservative movement.  

 

Police Arrest Former Pakistani Ruler Musharraf (NPR)

Police arrested former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf overnight at his home in the capital, where he had holed up following a dramatic escape from court to avoid being detained, officials said Friday.

 

Afghan girls' school feared hit by poison gas  (Reuters)

As many as 74 schoolgirls in Afghanistan's far north fell sick after smelling gas and were being examined for possible poisoning, local officials said on Sunday. The apparent poisoning came three days after more than a dozen students fell ill in another girls' high school in Taluqan. No-one has claimed responsibility for either incident. ' Between May and June last year there were four poisoning attacks on a girls' school in Takhar…

 

Officials: At least 185 killed in Nigeria attack (U-T San Diego)

 Fighting between Nigeria's military and Islamic extremists killed at least 185 people in a fishing community in the nation's far northeast, officials said Sunday, an attack that saw insurgents fire rocket-propelled grenades and soldiers spray machine-gun fire into neighborhoods filled with civilians.

 

SCIENCE AND HEALTH

 

Trees On Top Of Skyscrapers? Yes! Yes, Say I. No! No, Says Tim (NPR)

Two residential towers, dense with trees, will have their official opening later this year in downtown Milan. Blogger and critic Tim De Chant thinks it's high-time we stop planting trees on skyscrapers. Krulwich disagrees. Fascinating

 

CDC: U.S. Hospitals Should Be Vigilant For Bird Flu (NPR)

While there is still conflicting reports about how easily the new strain can be transmitted between humans, the CDC says early intervention is key.

 

 


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