UN resolution aims to restrain Iran

UN resolution aims to restrain Iran

UNITED NATIONS

The United States introduced a United Nations resolution aimed at Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program Tuesday, having won long-sought and pivotal support from China and Russia for new sanctions against its powerful Revolutionary Guard and new measures to try to curtail Iran’s military, financial and shipping activities.

The draft resolution, obtained by The Associated Press, would ban Iran from pursuing “any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons,” freeze assets of nuclear-related companies linked to the Revolutionary Guard, bar Iranian investment in activities such as uranium mining and prohibit Iran from buying several categories of heavy weapons.

Quake hits Calif.

EL CENTRO, Calif.

A magnitude-5.1 earthquake struck the seismically active California-Mexico border region Tuesday, shaking a wide area of Southern California. There were no immediate reports of damage.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck at 5:38 p.m. and was centered 18 miles west-southwest of El Centro, the Imperial County seat in the state’s southeastern corner.

Library digitizing 40M news pages

LONDON

The British Library said today it was digitizing up to 40 million pages of newspapers, including fragile dailies dating back more than 300 years.

Once digitized, the British newspapers documenting local, regional and national life spanning to the 1700s will be fully searchable and accessible online, the national library said.

Report: Va. Tech at fault in shootings

RICHMOND, Va.

The U.S. Department of Education found that Virginia Tech broke federal campus-security laws by waiting too long to notify students during the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, a report released Tuesday said.

Tech disputed the department’s findings, saying university officials met standards in effect at the time of the shootings three years ago.

The report is the latest to criticize the school’s response to the killings of 33 people, including the student gunman, on April 16, 2007.

Panel: US repeated 9/11 failures in Dec.

WASHINGTON

Despite a top-to-bottom overhaul of the intelligence community after the 2001 terrorist attacks, the nation’s security system showed some of the same failures when it allowed a would-be bomber to slip aboard an airliner, congressional investigators said Tuesday.

The Senate Intelligence Committee report at times contradicted the Obama administration’s assertion that the nearly catastrophic Christmas Day bombing attempt was unlike Sept. 11 because it represented a failure to understand intelligence, not a failure to collect and understand it.

Candidate denies lying about service

WEST HARTFORD, Conn.

Trying to defuse a crisis that could give the GOP a powerful opening, Democratic Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal said Tuesday that he “misspoke” in claiming more than once that he served in Vietnam, and he dismissed the furor as a matter of “a few misplaced words.”

At a news conference where he surrounded himself with veterans, the Connecticut attorney general and far-and-away front-runner to replace retiring Democrat Christopher Dodd said he meant to say he served “during” Vietnam instead of “in” Vietnam. He said the statements were “totally unintentional” errors that occurred only a few times out of hundreds of public appearances.

Associated Press