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NEW HAVEN — Police officers swarmed onto Yale University, asked nearby shops to shut down and warned students not to go outside after a gunman was reported on campus Monday morning.
In report, 63 percent favor path to citizenship
A consistent and solid majority of Americans — 63 percent — crossing party and religious lines, favors legislation to create a pathway to citizenship for immigrants living in the United States illegally, while only 14 percent support legal residency with no option for citizenship, according to a report published Monday by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute.
Close vote raises tensions in Honduras
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Honduras appeared headed toward days of political tension Sunday as the two leading candidates each declared they had won the presidency. With 43 percent of the votes counted, Juan Orlando Hernández, the conservative candidate of the National Party, led with 35 percent to 28.4 percent for Xiomara Castro, the candidate of the left-wing Libre party.
Syrian peace talks to begin on Jan. 22
GENEVA — After months of delay, the United Nations said Monday that Syria’s government and the opposition would hold their first negotiations aimed at ending that country’s civil war in Geneva on Jan. 22. But the precise agenda for the negotiations, as well as a complete list of participants, remained unresolved.
Windy Wednesday could cause travel trouble
A strong cyclonic storm will have a big impact on this week’s weather in the Northeast. The storm, which as of last night was currently forming in the Gulf of Mexico, will bring high winds and heavy rains into New England beginning tonight. Although earlier forecasts had included the possibility of a travel-crippling snowstorm for this system, it is now apparent that there will be enough warm air advected ahead of the Nor’easter to keep the precipitation in the form of rain for each of the major cities in the Northeast Corridor. Still, the storm could pose problems for those traveling home for the Thanksgiving holiday, as winds on Wednesday are expected to exceed 30 mph, with gusts upwards of 50 mph possible in the afternoon. These potentially dangerous conditions had prompted the National Weather Service to issue a High Wind Watch for much of Southern New England at the time of this publication.
Oil prices dip after nuclear deal with Iran
LONDON — Oil prices dipped Monday on the heels of an interim agreement between Iran and the United States and other world powers to temporarily freeze Tehran’s nuclear program.
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PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Missiles believed to have been fired by a U.S. drone struck an Islamic seminary in northern Pakistan on Thursday, in a rare strike outside the country’s volatile tribal regions.
Karzai says security pact with US should be signed next year
KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai stood before thousands of Afghan leaders on Thursday in a watershed moment for his tumultuous rule. Having just come to agreement with U.S. leaders on a security deal that would commit the two countries to a lasting military alliance — and would surely define his legacy — he convened the assembly that would decide the deal’s fate.
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Frederick Sanger, a British biochemist whose discoveries about the chemistry of life led to the decoding of the human genome and to the development of new drugs like human growth hormone, earning him two Nobel Prizes, a distinction held by only three other scientists, died Tuesday in Cambridge, England. He was 95.
Landmark Senate vote weakens the filibuster
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Thursday to eliminate the use of the filibuster against most presidential nominees, a move that will break the Republican blockade of President Barack Obama’s picks to Cabinet posts and the federal judiciary. The change is the most fundamental shift in the way the Senate functions in more than a generation.
France may be returning to recession, new data shows
FRANKFURT, Germany — Hopes that the eurozone could be emerging from years of torpor suffered another setback Thursday when an indicator of economic activity in the region slipped unexpectedly and suggested that France could be sliding back into recession.
Chilly weather ahead
Temperatures cooled down this week, with highs in the 40s°F and lows near 30°F, thanks to a high pressure system influencing the region over the last few days. Although it’s been dry for most of the week, that will likely change today — as a low pressure moves into Quebec, its associated warm front will likely bring us some light rain this morning. Otherwise, temperatures should be mild today, with a high of around 47°F (8°C).
China’s highest court seeks to curtail abuses of justice
HONG KONG — China’s highest court issued demands Thursday that judges bar confessions obtained through torture and avoid applying the death penalty when the evidence is shaky. The directive was unlikely on its own to curb such abuses but reflected a growing official recognition of the need to stop gross injustices, experts said.
German chancellor makes plea on behalf of former Soviet republics
BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded on Monday that Russia allow its onetime subjects — particularly in Ukraine — to exercise the sovereign right to make alliances as they choose.
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A bill that would give the Food and Drug Administration more power to police compounding pharmacies passed its final hurdle in Congress on Monday, in what experts said was an important step to a safer drug supply in the United States.
Republicans block another Obama nominee for judgeship
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Monday denied President Barack Obama his third nominee in as many weeks to the nation’s most powerful and prestigious appeals court and insisted they would not back down, inflaming a bitter debate over a president’s right to shape the judiciary.
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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday turned away an unusual challenge to a National Security Agency program that collects the telephone records of millions of Americans, as congressional critics of the data collection stepped up efforts to force more disclosure about the scope of the surveillance.
China details new policy; investors seem to like it
HONG KONG — If the initial summary of China’s highly anticipated economic policy plan disappointed analysts last week, the far more detailed plan that was released by the Chinese authorities late Friday more than made up for it. The reaction among investors and analysts to the document of more than 21,000 characters — roughly the equivalent of 17,000 words in English — that laid out the Communist Party’s decisions on how to overhaul the Chinese economy was overwhelmingly positive.
Slowdown in carbon emissions worldwide
Global emissions of carbon dioxide are slowing somewhat from the rapid pace of the last decade, new figures show, but growth in coal burning continues to outstrip the growth in other forms of energy, and experts said the world remains far from meeting international goals on climate change.