News Briefs

Obama gets sec­ond swearing-in for sec­ond term

WASHINGTON (AP) — His sec­ond term already under way, Pres­i­dent Barack Obama aims to set an opti­mistic tone when he takes the oath again to lead a divided nation seek­ing solu­tions to eco­nomic woes at home and con­flict over­seas. Hun­dreds of thou­sands are expected to gather on the National Mall to wit­ness Obama’s swear­ing in and inau­gural address Mon­day. The cel­e­bra­tions will extend across the nation’s cap­i­tal, includ­ing the tra­di­tional inau­gural parade and a pair of glitzy for­mal balls.

Desert siege toll passes 80; bomb squads search

ALGIERS, Alge­ria (AP) — Alger­ian bomb squads searched a gas refin­ery laced with mines on Mon­day, look­ing for more explo­sive traps a day after the dis­cov­ery of more bod­ies through­out the site raised the toll from the ter­ror­ist siege well past 80. Spe­cial forces from the Alger­ian mil­i­tary stormed the plant on Sat­ur­day to end the four-day siege, then the gov­ern­ment began the painstak­ing work of find­ing and defus­ing the explo­sives planted in what gov­ern­ment offi­cials said was a plot by the Islamic extrem­ists to blow up the com­plex and kill all their captives.

10 Things to Know for Today

1. OBAMA TAKES OATH TO LEAD DEEPLY DIVIDED NATION

NM teen accused of killings of par­ents, 3 children

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A hor­rific scene awaited offi­cers respond­ing to an emer­gency call at a New Mex­ico home — five fam­ily mem­bers dead, all with mul­ti­ple gun­shot wounds. The vic­tims were later iden­ti­fied as par­ents and their three young chil­dren and the sus­pected attacker as their 15-year-old son. Inves­ti­ga­tors try­ing to piece together what led to the vio­lence late Sat­ur­day night found sev­eral guns believed used in the shoot­ings, includ­ing one assault rifle, Bernalillo County Sher­iff Dan Hous­ton said Sun­day. The owner of the weapons hasn’t been determined.

Boe­ing inves­ti­ga­tion turns to bat­tery maker

TOKYO (AP) — Japan­ese and U.S. inves­ti­ga­tors began a probe Mon­day into the maker of the lithium ion bat­ter­ies used in Boeing’s grounded 787 jets. Tsu­tomu Nishi­jima, a spokesman for GS Yuasa, the bat­tery man­u­fac­turer, said inves­ti­ga­tors vis­ited the company’s head­quar­ters in Kyoto, Japan and that Yuasa was coop­er­at­ing with the probe.

New Delhi gang-rape trial to begin Thursday

NEW DELHI (AP) — The trial of five men accused of the rape and mur­der of a stu­dent aboard a bus in New Delhi will begin Thurs­day and should have none of the long delays com­monly asso­ci­ated with India’s jus­tice sys­tem, a defense lawyer said after a brief hear­ing Mon­day. Judge Yogesh Khanna denied a defense motion to make the pro­ceed­ings pub­lic, rul­ing that the court­room must remain closed because of the sen­si­tive nature of the crime, said V.K. Anand, the lawyer for one of the defen­dants, Ram Singh.

Rus­sia moves to enact anti-gay law nationwide

MOSCOW (AP) — Kiss­ing his boyfriend dur­ing a protest in front of Russia’s par­lia­ment earned Pavel Sam­burov 30 hours of deten­tion and the equiv­a­lent of a $16 fine on a charge of “hooli­gan­ism.” But if a bill that comes up for a first vote later this month becomes law, such a pub­lic kiss could be defined as ille­gal “homo­sex­ual pro­pa­ganda” and bring a fine of up to $16,000. The leg­is­la­tion being pushed by the Krem­lin and the Russ­ian Ortho­dox Church would make it ille­gal nation­wide to pro­vide minors with infor­ma­tion that is defined as “pro­pa­ganda of sodomy, les­bian­ism, bisex­u­al­ity and trans­gen­derism.” It includes a ban on hold­ing pub­lic events that pro­mote gay rights. St. Peters­burg and a num­ber of other Russ­ian cities already have sim­i­lar laws on their books.

Min­is­ter: Somber New­town needs MLK’s words of hope

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — A for­mer leader of one of the nation’s most promi­nent lib­eral Protes­tant churches told res­i­dents still griev­ing one of the dead­liest school shoot­ings in U.S. his­tory that Mar­tin Luther King Jr.‘s words of heal­ing and non­vi­o­lence “are needed now more than ever.” The Rev. James A. Forbes Jr., the first black min­is­ter to lead New York’s his­toric River­side Church, spoke Sun­day night at the New­town Con­gre­ga­tional Church in a ser­vice hon­or­ing King and the ele­men­tary school shoot­ing victims.

NASA’s older Mars rover notches another milestone

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Oppor­tu­nity, NASA’s other Mars rover, has tooled around the red planet for so long it’s easy to for­get it’s still alive. Some 5,000 miles away from the lime­light sur­round­ing Curiosity’s every move, Oppor­tu­nity this week qui­etly embarks on its tenth year of explo­ration — a sweet mile­stone since it was only tasked to work for three months.

Har­baugh broth­ers take 49ers, Ravens to Super Bowl

This Super Bowl will be filled with firsts — and one sig­nif­i­cant last. The Har­baughs, San Francisco’s Jim and Baltimore’s John, will be the first pair of broth­ers to coach against each other in the NFL title game.

Posted by AP News on Jan 21 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.