Basque group ends armed campaign

Basque group ends armed campaign

BILBAO, Spain

After killing more than 800 people across Spain over the past four decades in its drive for an independent state, the Basque separatist group ETA on Thursday said it would lay down its arms — but stopped short of declaring it was defeated.

The historic announcement was made via video by three ETA members wearing trademark Basque berets and masks with slits for their eyes. At the end of the clip, they defiantly raised their fists in the air demanding a separate Basque nation.

Few Americans take immigrants’ jobs

ONEONTA, Ala.

Potato farmer Keith Smith saw most of his immigrant workers leave after Alabama’s tough immigration law took effect, so he hired Americans. It hasn’t worked out: Most show up late, work slower than seasoned farmhands and are ready to call it a day after lunch or by midafternoon. Some quit after a single day. In Alabama and other parts of the country, farmers must look beyond the nation’s borders for labor because many Americans simply don’t want the backbreaking, low-paying jobs immigrants are willing to take. Politicians who support the law say over time more unemployed Americans will fill these jobs. They insist it’s too early to consider the law a failure, yet numbers from the governor’s office show only nominal interest.

Bangkok residents prepare for flooding

BANGKOK

The threat has loomed large over this giant metropolis for weeks: Floodwaters could rapidly swamp glitzy downtown Bangkok, ruining treasured ancient palaces and chic boutiques on skyscraper-lined avenues in the heart of the Thai economy.

The floods haven’t come, but the sense of imminent doom is growing by the day, seeping in through worried conversations, school closings and emptied store shelves.

A long season of monsoon rains and storms has wasted a vast swath of Asia this year, killing 745 people — a quarter of them children — in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines, according to the United Nations.

Book: Jobs was skeptic all his life

SAN FRANCISCO

A new biography portrays Steve Jobs as a skeptic all his life — giving up religion because he was troubled by starving children, calling executives who took over Apple “corrupt” and delaying cancer surgery in favor of cleansings and herbal medicine. “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson, to be published Monday, also says Jobs came up with the company’s name while he was on a diet of fruits and vegetables, and as a teenager perfected staring at people without blinking.

The book delves into Jobs’ decision to delay surgery for nine months after learning in October 2003 that he had a neuroendocrine tumor — a relatively rare type of pancreatic cancer that normally grows more slowly and is therefore more treatable.

Jobs died Oct. 5, at age 56.

Associated Press