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BEIRUT — Syrian security forces raided a restive Damascus suburb on Thursday, going house to house and arresting scores of men in a broad campaign that activists and U.S. officials say represents a new chapter in the crackdown on the country’s uprising against four decades of authoritarian rule.
Historic flooding along the Mississippi
To add to the torrent of tragic and destructive weather that has afflicted the southern half of the country over the past few weeks, the Mississippi River now is flooding. Affecting thousands of people spanning the corridor from Illinois to Louisiana, the river continues to swell due to unceasing rain and upstream snowmelt. In order to protect populated areas, Army engineers already destroyed some levees downstream to release excess water, immersing vast expanses of farmland.
Republicans revise plan to limit consumer protection agency
WASHINGTON — After losing a contentious battle last year over creating an agency to protect consumers against deceptive financial products, Republicans are fighting the battle again, determined to rein in the independence and financing of the agency.
Obama finds praise for risky operation, even from Republicans
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama drew praise from unlikely quarters on Monday for pursuing a risky and clandestine mission to kill Osama bin Laden, a successful operation that interrupted the withering Republican criticism about his foreign policy, world view, and his grasp of the office.
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While federal officials said that analysis of DNA from several relatives helped confirm that it was Osama bin Laden who was killed in the military raid on Sunday, they have not yet disclosed the relationships of the family members whose DNA was used.
Emblem of evil in the US, icon to the cause of terror
Osama bin Laden, who was killed in Pakistan on Sunday, was a son of the Saudi elite whose radical, violent campaign to re-create a seventh-century Muslim empire redefined the threat of terrorism for the 21st century.
In Arab world, Osama bin Laden’s confused legacy
BEIRUT — The words were not uncommon in angry Arab capitals a decade ago: Osama bin Laden was hero, sheik, even leader to some. But after his death, a man who once vowed to liberate the Arab world was reduced to a footnote in the revolutions and uprisings remaking a region that he and his followers had struggled to understand.
Osama bin Laden’s burial at sea aimed to prevent a shrine on land
White House officials decided before Sunday night’s firefight in northern Pakistan that if U.S. troops killed Osama bin Laden, they would bury him at sea in order to prevent his grave from becoming a shrine for his followers, a White House official said Monday. They planned to include all rites associated with Muslim burials, the official added.
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ISTANBUL — Turkey closed its embassy in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, on Monday, becoming the latest country to do so amid increasing violence there. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry also said it would maintain its consulate in rebel-controlled Benghazi.
Last week’s tornado outbreak breaks record
As reviewed in last Friday’s weather discussion, the tornado outbreak in the southern part of the country was a historic event. Yesterday, NOAA released a preliminary estimate on the total number of tornadoes associated with that storm. Between 8 a.m. April 25 and 8 a.m. April 28, there were 362 tornadoes. The bulk of those tornadoes (312) occurred between 8 a.m. April 27 to 8 a.m. April 28. This shattered the previous record for largest number of tornadoes in one event, which had been 148 from April 3–4, 1974.
Bin Laden’s sprawling compound stood out in neighborhood
ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan — The sprawling compound where Osama bin Laden sheltered before his death stood out in its middle-class neighborhood on the edges of this scenic city, home to a large Pakistani military base and a military academy.
Bomb strikes Moroccan cafe, killing mostly foreigners
A powerful bomb blast in a crowded Moroccan cafe killed at least 14 people, wounded dozens of others, and shattered the relative calm in a corner of the Arab world overwhelmed by uprisings and deadly government crackdowns.
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LONDON — As last-minute preparations drew to a close, London braced Friday for a royal wedding that promises to be one of the largest and most widely watched events here in recent memory.
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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — A day after enduring a terrifying bombardment of storms that killed hundreds across the South and spawned tornadoes that razed neighborhoods and even entire towns, people from Texas to Virginia to Georgia searched through rubble for survivors Thursday and tried to reclaim their own lives.
US envoy says rights in China ‘backslide’
BEIJING — The chief U.S. representative to human rights discussions with China offered a cheerless portrait of those talks after their conclusion Thursday, saying the United States was worried by “a serious backsliding” of freedoms in China and at loggerheads with Beijing officials over many aspects of the issue.
Carter criticizes US for withholding N. Korea aid
SEOUL, South Korea — Former President Jimmy Carter, after a 48-hour visit to North Korea, sharply criticized the United States and South Korea on Thursday for their refusal to send humanitarian assistance to the impoverished North, saying their deliberate withholding of food aid amounted to “a human rights violation.”
More than 270 killed in tornado outbreak
Wednesday, April 27, 2011, now marks the date of the second-deadliest tornado outbreak in U.S. history, with over 270 confirmed deaths. Two days ago, more than 165 tornadoes were reported across the southeastern U.S. stretching from Alabama to Virginia. The strongest storms impacted Alabama — the death toll in that state alone may soon top 200. This devastating act of nature ranks only second to the “Super Outbreak” of April 3, 1974, in which 310 people lost their lives from 148 tornadoes stretching from Michigan to Alabama.
Florida Republican congressman Allen West gaining star power
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Often, the most interesting thing about a person is the characteristic that lies beneath, that hidden thing that bobs up along the waves of time.
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Egyptians are looking forward with extraordinary confidence and enthusiasm to their first free and fair elections this fall after the defining revolution of the Arab spring, according to the first major poll since the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak. But they remain deeply divided over the role of Islam in their public life.
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When an arbitrator ruled this month that Detroit could reduce the pensions being earned by its police sergeants and lieutenants, it put the struggling city at the forefront of a growing national debate over whether the pensions of current public workers can or should be reduced.