WATERTOWN – Black Hawk helicopters and heavily armed police
descended on a Boston suburb in a massive search for an ethnic
Chechen suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings, hours after
his brother was killed by police in a late-night shootout.
– – – –
WEST, Texas – Investigators searched for clues to
the cause of an explosion and inferno after an apparent
industrial accident at a Texas fertilizer plant flattened
sections of a small town and killed at least 12 people.
– – – –
CARACAS – Nicolas Maduro was sworn in as Venezuela’s
president at a ceremony attended by leaders from Iran
to Brazil after a decision to widen an electronic audit of the
vote took some of the heat out of a dispute over his election.
– – – –
ROME – Former Prime Minister Romano Prodi withdrew from the
race for the Italian presidency, deepening the chaos
in the centre-left after party rebels helped his old enemy
Silvio Berlusconi scupper his candidacy.
– – – –
ISLAMABAD – Pakistani police arrested former president
Pervez Musharraf to face allegations he overstepped
his powers while in office, marking a dramatic break with a
political culture in which military rulers have remained
untouchable.
– – – –
NEW YORK – The Boy Scouts of America proposed to
lift a ban on gay scouts but to continue prohibiting gay adults
from participating in the hundred-year-old American institution.
– – – –
BEIJING/LONDON – Health officials raised further questions
about the source of a new strain of bird flu infecting
humans in China after data indicated that more than half of
patients had had no contact with poultry.
– – – –
PARIS – France has opened a judicial investigation into
allegations that former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007
election bid won illicit funds from late Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi, the public prosecutor’s office said.
– – – –
BEIJING – China will send its special envoy on North Korea
to the United States next week for talks on maintaining peace
and stability on the Korean Peninsula, the foreign ministry
said.
– – – –
BAGHDAD – Mortar rounds hit an Iraqi Sunni Muslim mosque and
a bomb exploded in a Shi’ite mosque in attacks that
killed eight and fuelled tensions a day before provincial
elections.
