WORLD WATCH: GLOBAL AND NATIONAL NEWS HEADLINES

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.

• Miss. Man arrested in ricin scare (CNN)
• After blast horror, many Bostonions extend kindness to runners (Reuters)
• Supreme Court to consider adoption case of American Indian girl (Reuters)
• Japanese Car Makers Recall Millions Of Vehicles Over Faulty Airbags (NPR)
• AP source: Immigration bill could exclude many  (Sacramento Bee)
• Postal Service backs down on cutting Saturday mail (Sacramento Bee)
• Pentagon study: N. Korea can launch nuke missile (Jerusalem Post)
• U.S. offers to help Iran after deadly quake (Reuters)
• Poverty plagues Obama’s America; press based in booming cities shrugs (Daily Beast)
• FOIA documents suggest IRS may have ignored court ruling on email privacy (Raw Story)
• Even 'Highly Motivated' Students Aren't Ready For College (NPR)
• Bailed-Out Banks Used Billions Meant For Small Business Aid To Repay TARP Funds (Huff Post)
• A Legal Twist In The Effort To Ban Cameras From Livestock Plants
• Idaho restricts drone use by police agencies amid privacy concerns
• Checks Threaten Gun Rights  (Reason)
• Internet-based attacks hit emergency call centers. What's the damage? (Christian Science Monitor)
• Secret Service investigating hack of director's information (Reuters)

WORLD

• Anonymous 'hacks' North Korea pages (BBC)
• Volcano spews ash in central Mexico (U-T San Diego)
• Palestinian Prime Minister Fayyad resigns (U-T San Diego)
• Some 50,000 flee Sudan into Chad after Darfur clashes (Reuters)
• New leak found at Fukushima plant water storage pool: regulator (Reuters)
•  Report: Soil sample confirms WMD use in Syria (Jerusalem Post)
• Hungary promises changes after EU threat in amendment row (Reuters)
• 23,085 soldiers have fallen protecting Israel (Jerusalem Post)
• Palestinian funerals draw thousands in tense West Bank  (Reuters).  
• Turkish police uncover plot to bomb synagogue (Jerusalem Post)

Click "read more" and scroll down for excerpts and links to full stories.

U.S.

Miss. Man arrested in ricin scare (CNN)

An arrest has been made in connection with possibly contaminated letters sent to President Obama and Sen. Roger Wicker, the Department of Justice said Wednesday.

After blast horror, many Bostonions extend kindness to runners (Reuters)

 As smoke cleared from the deadly explosions at the Boston Marathon finish line, horrified runners were comforted by acts of kindness carried out by city residents offering aid. Gestures as small as offering a drink of orange juice and use of a home bathroom were recounted on Twitter in an ongoing online recollection of the fellowship that emerged in the wake of Monday's devastation

Supreme Court to consider adoption case of American Indian girl (Reuters) - The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Tuesday in an adoption fight between a South Carolina couple who raised a girl for more than two years after her birth and the child's biological father who won custody of her due to his American Indian heritage

Japanese Car Makers Recall Millions Of Vehicles Over Faulty Airbags (NPR)

About 3.4 million vehicles built between 2000 and 2004 are subject to the recall due to faulty airbag inflators. The inflators were installed in some of Toyota's top-selling Camry and Corolla models produced since 2000. Certain Honda Civics and Mazdas are also subject to recall, which also reportedly includes the Maxima and Cube .

AP source: Immigration bill could exclude many  (Sacramento Bee)

A bipartisan immigration bill soon to be introduced in the Senate could exclude hundreds of thousands of immigrants here illegally from ever becoming U.S. citizens, according to a Senate aide with knowledge of the proposals

Postal Service backs down on cutting Saturday mail (Sacramento Bee)

The financially beleaguered Postal Service backpedaled on its plan to end Saturday mail delivery, conceding Wednesday that its gamble to compel congressional approval had failed. With limited options for saving money, the governing board said the agency should reopen negotiations with unions to lower labor costs and consider raising mail prices.

Pentagon study: N. Korea can launch nuke missile (Jerusalem Post)

Spy agency report expresses "moderate confidence" that N. Korea has nuclear weapons that can be fitted onto ballistic missiles.

U.S. offers to help Iran after deadly quake (Reuters)

The White House, at odds with Iran over its nuclear program, offered on Wednesday to help Tehran grapple with a deadly earthquake in southern Iran.  The powerful 6.3 magnitude quake struck close to Iran's only nuclear power station on Tuesday, killing 37 people and injuring 850 as it destroyed homes and devastated two small villages, Iranian media reported.

Poverty plagues Obama’s America; press based in booming cities shrugs (Daily Beast)

Today, 21 and a half million Americans are unemployed or underemployed—about twice as many as six years ago, according to NPR. Work-force participation, a fancy term for the number of Americans either working or looking for work, has dropped to “the lowest level since the malaise of the late 1970’s,” an era when far fewer women were working, according to MSNBC. 

FOIA documents suggest IRS may have ignored court ruling on email privacy (Raw Story)

 A bundle of documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request suggests that the nation’s tax collector may have ignored a court ruling in 2010 that ordered it to always obtain a warrant before spying on emails stored on cloud servers, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said Wednesday.

Even 'Highly Motivated' Students Aren't Ready For College (NPR)

Low-performing high school students are often unprepared for college. But some analysts say even gifted students are falling behind. Host Michel Martin discusses why many students, across the board, aren't hitting the mark.

Bailed-Out Banks Used Billions Meant For Small Business Aid To Repay TARP Funds (Huff Post)

 A government watchdog says that 137 community banks used $2.1 billion from a special fund aimed at boosting lending to small businesses to repay their bailouts from the financial crisis.

A Legal Twist In The Effort To Ban Cameras From Livestock Plants

Legislation introduced in several states would require anyone who records evidence of animal abuse to turn it over to authorities within a set period of time. But animal rights activists aren't welcoming these measures: They see the bills as veiled attempts to stifle long-term undercover investigations that can prove a pattern of abuse.

Idaho restricts drone use by police agencies amid privacy concerns

(Reuters) - Idaho's Republican governor signed a law on Thursday that restricts use of drone aircraft by police and other public agencies as the use of pilotless aircraft inside U.S. borders is increasing. The measure aims to protect privacy rights. / In approving the law, which requires law enforcement to obtain warrants to collect evidence using drones in most cases, Idaho becomes the second U.S. state after Virginia to restrict uses of pilotless aircraft over privacy concerns.

Checks Threaten Gun Rights  (Reason)

 ....to make sure that every gun buyer undergoes a background check, the government would need to know where all the guns are. Although Obama did not mention that little detail, The Washington Post reported that the administration was “seriously considering” creating a system that would “track the movement and sale of weapons through a national database.” 

Internet-based attacks hit emergency call centers. What's the damage? (Christian Science Monitor)

Since January, more than 200 public-safety answering points (PSAPs) – administrative call centers where 911 calls are routed after having been received – have been bombarded with “telephony denial of service” (TDoS) attacks that last several hours, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s Emergency Management and Response – Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EMR-ISAC).

Secret Service investigating hack of director's information (Reuters)

(Reuters) - The Secret Service said on Thursday it was investigating the claim that new Director Julia Pierson's personal information had been hacked and published on a website, another in a string of such incidents against top officials including first lady Michelle Obama and CIA Director John Brennan.

WORLD

Anonymous 'hacks' North Korea pages (BBC)

Websites and social networking profiles linked to North Korea have been hacked and vandalised, hacktivist group Anonymous claims..../ As part of action which the loosely organised collective has called "Operation Free Korea", the hackers have called for leader Kim Jong-un to step down, a democratic government to be put in place - and for North Koreans to get uncensored internet access.

Volcano spews ash in central Mexico (U-T San Diego)

The Popocatepetl volcano has spewed a dense cloud of ash over the central Mexico state of Puebla, with ash falling to the ground in several towns.

Palestinian Prime Minister Fayyad resigns (U-T San Diego)

Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad resigned on Saturday, leaving the Palestinians without one of their most moderate and well-respected voices just as the U.S. is launching a new push for Mideast peace....

Some 50,000 flee Sudan into Chad after Darfur clashes (Reuters)

(Reuters) - Some 50,000 Sudanese have fled into southeastern Chad in the past week following fresh tribal conflict in the restive Darfur region, U.N. and Chadian officials said on Friday.  Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, said the fighting had spread as each side received reinforcements from tribal allies and had become more violent, with entire villages being razed.

New leak found at Fukushima plant water storage pool: regulator (Reuters)

The company that runs a Japanese nuclear power plant destroyed by a tsunami two years ago said on Tuesday it was losing faith in temporary storage pits for radioactive water - but it doesn't have anywhere else to put it. / Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) said it had found a new leak at one of the pits at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Three out of seven storage pits are now leaking, compounding clean-up difficulties after the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years.

Report: Soil sample confirms WMD use in Syria (Jerusalem Post)

'Times of London' reports soil samples Britain smuggled out of Syria establish use of chemical weapons, unclear by whom.... / The finding was established by the British Ministry of Defense's chemical and biological research establishment at Porton Down in in Wiltshire.

Hungary promises changes after EU threat in amendment row (Reuters)

(Reuters) - Hungary promised on Friday to make changes after the EU executive threatened action to overturn constitutional amendments it said may be incompatible with European Union law.  The EU, the United States and human rights organizations have accused Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government of using constitutional amendments to limit the powers of Hungary's top court and undermine democracy in the former Soviet satellite.

23,085 soldiers have fallen protecting Israel (Jerusalem Post)

The Defense Ministry released its annual figures of fallen soldiers on Friday morning ahead of Remembrance Day, stating that 92 soldiers had fallen this year and a total of 23,085 have fallen in Israel's wars...According to the Ministry, there are currently over 17,000 families who have lost a family member serving in the IDF. Included in that number are nearly 5,000 widows and more than 2,000 orphans.

Palestinian funerals draw thousands in tense West Bank  (Reuters) - Thousands of mourners turned out on Thursday for the funerals of three Palestinians, including two teenagers killed by Israeli army gunfire in some of the worst violence in the occupied West Bank in years.  The upsurge in unrest was triggered on Tuesday by the death of Maysara Abu Hamdeya, a 64-year-old prisoner serving a life term in an Israeli jail and suffering from cancer.  

Turkish police uncover plot to bomb synagogue (Jerusalem Post)

Turkish police uncovered a plot linked to al-Qaida to bomb a synagogue in Istanbul, the US embassy in Ankara and other targets, The New York Times reported on Thursday.