IRAQ
Attacks kill 16 as violence escalates
A string of attacks killed at least 16 people in Iraq on Saturday, while gunmen abducted eight policemen guarding a post on the country’s main highway to Jordan and Syria, the latest in a wave of violence to grip the country. The shootings and bombings follow three days of attacks that killed 130 people in both Shiite and Sunni areas in scenes reminiscent of retaliatory attacks between the two groups that pushed the country to the brink of civil war in 2006-2007.
WASHINGTON
FBI searches apartment in ricin case
Authorities in hazardous materials suits searched a downtown Spokane apartment Saturday, investigating the recent discovery of a pair of letters containing the deadly poison ricin. Few details have been released in the case, and no arrests have been made. Federal investigators have been searching for the person who sent the letters, which were postmarked Tuesday in Spokane. The letters were addressed to the downtown post office and the adjacent federal building.
NEW JERSEY
Plane makes belly landing in Newark
A US Airways Express flight with 34 people aboard was forced to make a belly landing at Newark International Airport after experiencing landing gear trouble, an airline official said Saturday. No injuries were reported. US Airways spokesman Davien Anderson said a turboprop plane that left Philadelphia shortly before 11 p.m. Friday landed safely at Newark with its landing gear retracted about 1 a.m. Saturday. The Piedmont Airlines-operated flight was carrying 31 passengers and three crew members.
YEMEN
Suspected U.S. drone strike kills 4
A suspected U.S. drone strike killed four al-Qaida militants Saturday in a southern Yemeni province once overrun by the group, security officials say. The attack took place around dawn in an area called Deyqa in Abyan province. There has been a dramatic rise in such drone strikes in Yemen since the country’s new U.S.-backed president assumed power early last year, officials say.
ALASKA
Volcano shoots lava up hundreds of feet
Alaska’s remote Pavlof Volcano was shooting lava hundreds of feet into the air, but its ash plume was thinning Saturday and no longer making it dangerous for airplanes to fly nearby. A narrow ash plume extends a couple of hundred miles southeast from the volcano, which is 625 miles southwest of Anchorage, said Geologist Chris Waythomas of the Alaska Volcano Observatory. The eruption that began Monday seemed to be slowing on Saturday, but Waythomas said that could change at any time.
INDIANA
Report looks at inmate sex abuse
Inmates at jails in Indianapolis, Baltimore, St. Louis and Philadelphia face the nation’s highest levels of sexual abuse at the hands of guards, according to a new federal report based on surveys of inmates at U.S. jails and prisons. The report by the U.S. Department of Justice found that the Marion County Jail’s inmate-intake center in Indianapolis had a 7.7 percent rate of staff sexual misconduct involving inmates — the nation’s highest for jails — and well above the average 1.8 percent sex abuse rate among all jails surveyed. The report was based on interviews with inmates between February 2011 and May 2012.
NEPAL
64 climbers reach Everest peak
Mountaineering officials said 64 climbers, including a Saudi Arabian woman, have successfully scaled Mount Everest on Saturday from Nepal’s side of the mountain. Tilak Padney of Nepal’s Mountaineering Department said 35 foreigners accompanied by 29 Nepalese Sherpa guides reached the 29,035-foot peak Saturday morning after climbing all night from the highest camp on South Col. All were reported safe.
CALIFORNIA
Fires persist after long fire week
Persistent wildfires continued to burn in the hills and mountains around Interstate 5 north of Los Angeles on Saturday, although authorities were slowly getting the upper hand. A new fire that broke out Friday, the third major blaze in the area in a week, quickly surged to 712 acres and briefly threatened an elementary school and about 20 homes. About 350 firefighters were able to hold the line against it Saturday morning. It was 75 percent contained.
VATICAN CITY
Pope leads Vatican rally, meets Merkel
Pope Francis lamented that investment losses by banks trigger more alarm in the economic crisis than the struggle of people to feed their families, as he led a huge rally Saturday to invigorate the church’s moral conscience, hours after he held talks at the Vatican about the economic crisis with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. About 200,000 people, from Europe, Asia and the pope’s native South America, filled St. Peter’s Square and nearby streets to join Francis in hours of prayer, music and speeches.
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