Shorts (right)
WASHINGTON — After back-to-back terms ending in historic rulings that riveted the nation, the Supreme Court might have been expected to return to its usual diet of routine cases that rarely engage the public.
Netanyahu ridiculed after an appeal to Iranian youths
TEHRAN, Iran — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel tried to take his campaign against the Iranian leadership to Iran’s young population last week, saying that if they were truly free, they would be able to wear jeans, listen to Western music and participate in free elections.
Greek ex-minister convicted in bribery case
ATHENS, Greece — In a landmark verdict Monday, a former Greek defense minister and co-founder of the country’s once-mighty Socialist Party, Akis Tsochatzopoulos, was found guilty of setting up a complex money-laundering network to cover the trail of millions of dollars in bribes he is said to have pocketed from government weapons purchases.
Rebel feuding in Syria affects northern border town
BEIRUT — A group of powerful rebel brigades in northern Syria is struggling to defuse an armed standoff pitting insurgents against an al-Qaida affiliate for control of a strategic town near the Turkish border. The conflict over the town, Azaz, has shuttered a Turkish border crossing long used to supply the rebel movement and heightened tensions between rebels who seek the ouster of President Bashar Assad and extremists who want to erase Syria’s borders and found a transnational Islamic state.
The end of a sunny week brings possibility of rain
We enjoyed beautiful weather in Cambridge this week thanks to a high pressure system that brought sunny skies and daily high temperatures ranging from the mid 70s°F (low 20s°C) to low 80s°F (mid 20s°C). Looking forward, a warm front is expected to stall south of New England today. Showers associated with this front should steer clear of Cambridge during the day, but expect to see cloudier skies today than what we’ve been used to lately. As for the weekend, the chance of showers increases tomorrow. Even if we don’t see any rain, we should see cloudy skies and cooler temperatures, with a high of around 72°F (22°C). The warm front should lift through the region on Sunday, with muggy weather and an increased chance of showers close behind.
Shorts (right)
ROME — Having floated for at least two days in the choppy Mediterranean to reach Europe, a rickety trawler overstuffed with African migrants fleeing war and poverty was nearing a Sicilian island, not even a quarter-mile away. But it was still dark and no one had yet spotted them. So to signal their position, someone set a match to a blanket.
Shorts (left)
WASHINGTON — Speaker John A. Boehner has privately told Republican lawmakers anxious about fallout from the ongoing government shutdown that he would not allow a potentially more crippling federal default as the atmosphere on Capitol Hill turned increasingly tense Thursday.
Wall Street seeks to soothe, while preparing for trouble
Wall Street is preparing for the government to bounce its first check.
Majority disapprove of shutdown over health law
A wide majority of Americans disapprove of shutting down the federal government over differences about the 2010 health care law, including a majority of those who oppose the law, according to the latest CBS News poll.
Turkey announces proposals aimed at mending relations with Kurds
ISTANBUL — Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a package of measures Monday that appeared intended to revive the stalled peace process with the country’s ethnic Kurds, who have fought a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.
Shorts (left)
Gov. Chris Christie moved Monday to block same-sex marriages that are supposed to begin in late October after a judge’s ruling last week that the New Jersey Constitution requires the state to allow them.
US government is shutting down in fiscal impasse
WASHINGTON — A flurry of last-minute moves by the House, Senate and White House late Monday failed to break a bitter budget standoff over President Barack Obama’s health care law, setting in motion the first government shutdown in nearly two decades.
Al-Qaida plot leak has undermined US intelligence
WASHINGTON — As the nation’s spy agencies assess the fallout from disclosures about their surveillance programs, some government analysts and senior officials have made a startling finding: The impact of a leaked terrorist plot by al-Qaida in August has caused more immediate damage to U.S. counterterrorism efforts than the thousands of classified documents disclosed by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor.
Shorts (right)
Backed by near-unanimous critical praise, insistent social media conversation and intense coverage on every form of talk show, “Breaking Bad” soared to its highest ratings ever — and one of the top ratings all time for a drama on cable television — in its finale Sunday night on AMC.
Another sunny week
High pressure remains over Cambridge, bringing with it another week of pleasant weather. High temperatures this week will be around 10 degrees higher than average for early October. Sunny skies will prevail, with no precipitation likely through Saturday.
North Carolina governor assails suit on new voting laws
Gov. Pat McCrory of North Carolina pushed back hard against the Obama administration Monday, saying that a lawsuit by the Justice Department over the state’s restrictive voter identification laws was a politically influenced overreach.
Russian court orders Greenpeace activists held
MOSCOW — A Russian court ordered Thursday that 10 Greenpeace activists, including a U.S. ship captain and a photographer who was accompanying the group, be held in custody for two months while the authorities investigate whether a demonstration at an offshore oil rig in the Arctic was an act of piracy.
Detroit manager seeks to freeze pension plan
On Thursday, the emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, issued the preliminary results of a three-month investigation that identified diversions of shared money into individual accounts, real estate investments that lost millions of dollars and “disconcerting administrative protocols” for handling health care and other benefits.