Authorities in Fiji are still having trouble communicating with some islands following a powerful and deadly cyclone that smashed the Pacific island chain. Officials say at least 18 people died and thousands remain in shelters. Aid is just starting to flow to hard-hit outer islands.
An Afghan official says a suicide bomber targeting a police commander has killed at least 13 people, including nine civilians, in the northern Parwan province. The attack happened near a clinic and a bazaar. A police commander who was targeted in the attack was among those wounded. The Taliban claimed responsibility in an email sent to media.
Suicide bombings killed at least 129 people in Syria on the same day that Secretary of State John Kerry announced a deal brokered by the U.S. and Russia for a provisional cease-fire in the country’s civil war. The truce, in theory, would apply to all combatants except for terrorist groups such as the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the Sunday bombings.
An official in Bangladesh says a weekend crackdown on radical groups hit pay dirt. Police seized at least 20 bombs and bomb-making materials and arrested two suspected members of a banned radical Islamist group in a series of raids. Information from one raid led to discovery of the explosives.
Several victims of the deadly San Bernardino attack are filing a legal brief backing the Justice Department’s effort to force Apple to help unlock the iPhone of one of the shooters. A lawyer for the victims, Stephen Larson said, “They were targeted by terrorists, and they need to know why.” Apple says providing a backdoor into the iPhone would damage security. FBI Director James Comey said in an open letter that the FBI just wants a way to “guess the terrorist’s pass code without the phone essentially self-destructing.” Meanwhile Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has jumped back into the fray. In an early morning email to Apple employees, Cook says the government should withdraw its demand. The emerging legal fight has sparked a debate on government power, privacy, digital rights, public safety and security.
Iraqi forces may have taken back the western city of Ramadi, but the extremists they ousted left behind some nasty surprises. The U.N. mission in Iraq says bombs planted by the Islamic State group are hindering the return of displaced families nearly two months after the recapture. A U.N. official says unexploded bombs have killed eight people in the past two weeks.
Iraqi officials said they have found a missing industrial device containing radioactive materials. The device was recovered, undamaged, inside its laptop-sized case. It had been dumped near a gas station in southern Iraq. The government had been searching for the device since it was stolen in November, fearing it might fall into the hands of the Islamic State or another terrorist group, and be used to make a radioactive “dirty” bomb.
The head of the U.N. nuclear agency says another 11 nations need to step up to make the world a little safer from the threat of nuclear material falling into the hands of terrorists. That’s the number of countries needed to sign on to the Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material before it can be enforced. Yukiya Amano of the International Atomic Energy Agency says there are nearly 2,800 incidents of missing radioactive material since 1995.
Cuban President Raul Castro says he is assigning 9,000 military personnel to try to keep the Zika virus out of Cuba. Castro is calling on the entire country to help kill the mosquito that carries the disease. He says Cuba has yet to report a case of Zika, which is suspected of causing birth defects in Brazil. Meanwhile a 16-member team of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is starting work on a “case-control” study aimed at determining whether the Zika virus really does cause babies to be born with the devastating birth defect microcephaly, as Brazilian researchers strongly suspect. The study kicked off on Monday with a training session in a city in Brazil’s northeastern region that is the epicenter of the South American nation’s Zika outbreak. Blood samples will help determine whether the mothers had Zika.
The shooting deaths of six people in the Kalamazoo, Michigan, area over the weekend could also shine a spotlight on the Uber ride-sharing service. Some have expressed concerns about how Uber vets its drivers. Suspect Jason Dalton had been working as an Uber driver and authorities are investigating unconfirmed reports he may have picked up passengers on the day of the shootings.
Carbon monoxide poisoning may have led to the death of six members of Michigan family. Four children and two adults were found by a relative Sunday afternoon in their bedrooms at a home in Fenton Township, near Flint. The Genesee County sheriff says a generator was being run in the basement of the house, likely due to a Friday night power outage.
Preliminary results in Bolivia are pointing toward a slim defeat for an effort to amend the constitution so that President Evo Morales can run for another term. Morales has governed for a decade. A “yes” vote in Sunday’s referendum would have let him seek a fourth consecutive term in 2019.
One seat will be empty Monday as the U.S. Supreme Court meets for the first time since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. The void will be visible as eight justices take the bench and resume the court’s work. Scalia’s empty chair, draped in black wool crepe, will be in its usual place until March when the justices will shuffle seating based on seniority.
A Russian request to overfly the United States using surveillance planes under the Open Skies Treaty is coming at one of the most tension-filled periods since the Cold War. The treaty allows unarmed observation flights over all 34 member nations, and Russia will make its formal request Monday in Vienna. U.S. Defense officials are warning it will help Moscow collect intelligence on the U.S.
A service to commemorate the fifth anniversary of a deadly earthquake in the New Zealand city of Christchurch turned ugly Monday. Someone threw some kind of goop over a government minister who was criticized for the way he’s handled earthquake recovery efforts. A suspect was charged with assault.
A new battle for Britain has erupted. London Mayor Boris Johnson says he will join a campaign to encourage Britain to leave the European Union. The move poses a direct challenge to Prime Minister David Cameron, a fellow Conservative who has launched a major push to keep his country within the 28-nation bloc.
One of Britain’s greatest war heroes has died. Eric “Winkle” Brown, the Royal Navy’s most decorated pilot and the first person to land a jet on an aircraft carrier, passed away Sunday at the age of 97. Brown’s family says he died at a hospital in southern England after a short illness. Often dubbed Britain’s greatest pilot, Brown holds world records for the most types of airplane flown – 487 – and for the most carrier deck landings, at 2,407. He flew fighter planes with the Fleet Air Arm during World War II and was present at the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He spoke fluent German and after the war interrogated senior Nazis including Hermann Goring and Heinrich Himmler. First Sea Lord George Zambellas said Brown was “the most accomplished test pilot of his generation, and perhaps of all time.”
In one of the most exhaustive and damning reports on diversity in Hollywood, a new study finds the films and TV produced by major media companies are “whitewashed,” and that an “epidemic of invisibility” runs top to bottom through the industry for women, minorities and LGBT people. The study will be released Monday by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg could shed light Monday on the future of his 3-year-old effort to bring the developing world online. Regulators in India, a key market, recently banned one of the pillars of the campaign, a service known as Free Basics, because it provided access only to certain pre-approved services – including Facebook – rather than the full Internet. Zuckerberg speaks at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Also at that Barcelona meeting, Samsung unveiled its new Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge smartphones. The South Korean tech giant’s high-end competitors for Apple’s iPhone look nearly identical to its S6 line, but Samsung brought back a memory-card slot and removable batteries with extended life. The S7 has a 5.1-inch screen while the S7 Edge has a 5.5-inch screen, the same size as the iPhone 6s Plus. Samsung also showed off the Gear 360, a new 360-degree camera designed to work with the S7 and boost sales in a slowing smartphone market.
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