Army seeks death penalty in killings

Army seeks death penalty in killings

seattle

The U.S. Army said Wednesday it will seek the death penalty against the soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan villagers in a predawn rampage in March, a decision his lawyer called “totally irresponsible.”

The announcement followed a pretrial hearing last month for Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, 39, who faces premeditated murder and other charges in the attack on two villages in southern Afghanistan.

South Korea elects 1st female president

seoul, south korea

Park Geun-hye, daughter of a divisive military strongman from South Korea’s authoritarian era, has been elected the country’s first female president, a landmark win that could mean a new drive to start talks with rival North Korea.

After five years of tension under unpopular incumbent Lee Myung-bak, Park has vowed to step up aid to North Korea, despite the latter’s widely condemned long-range rocket launch last week.

UN suspends polio drive in Pakistan

peshawar, pakistan

The United Nations suspended its polio vaccination drive in Pakistan on Wednesday after eight people involved in the effort were shot dead in the past two days, a U.N. official said.

The suspension was a grave blow to the drive to bring an end to the scourge of polio in Pakistan, one of only three countries where the crippling disease still survives.

On Wednesday, gunmen shot at a woman working on the campaign in northwest Pakistan, killing her and her driver, one of five attacks during the day on polio workers. A male polio immunization worker was critically wounded in one of the shootings.

FBI: Escapees took cab near Chicago jail

chicago

Two convicted bank robbers who pulled off a daring overnight escape from a high-rise Chicago jail had changed from their prison garb by the time they hopped into a cab near the lock-up, investigators said Wednesday as they expanded their manhunt for the men.

Authorities were raiding houses and combing through records looking for anybody with ties to the inmates who climbed out a jail window and descended 20 stories using a makeshift rope.

The FBI said surveillance footage from a camera near the Metropolitan Correctional Center shows Kenneth Conley and Joseph Banks getting into a cab around 2:45 a.m. Tuesday — about four hours before workers spotted the rope dangling from the federal jail.

The FBI was offering a $50,000 reward for i nformation leading to the apprehension of Conley and Banks, with the manhunt focused mainly on Chicago and its suburbs.

Bork dies at 85

mclean, va.

Robert H. Bork, who stepped in to fire the Watergate prosecutor at Richard Nixon’s behest and whose failed 1987 nomination to the Supreme Court helped draw the modern boundaries of cultural fights over abortion, civil rights and other issues, has died. He was 85.

Robert H. Bork Jr. confirmed his father died Wednesday at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va. The son said Bork died from complications of heart ailments.

He was nominated July 1, 1987, to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by Justice Lewis F. Powell. Nearly four months later, the Senate voted 58-42 to defeat him.

Associated Press