Clinton blasts Russia, China

Clinton blasts Russia, China

TUNIS, Tunisia

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton blasted Russia and China as “despicable” for opposing U.N. action aimed at stopping the bloodshed in Syria, and more than 60 nations began planning a civilian peacekeeping mission to deploy after the Damascus regime halts its crackdown on the opposition.

In his most forceful words to date on the Syrian crisis, President Barack Obama said the U.S. and its allies would use “every tool available” to end the bloodshed by the government of President Bashar Assad.

Feds seek records from Penn State

HARRISBURG

A federal subpoena related to the child-sex-abuse scandal involving a former Penn State assistant football coach, sent to the university’s top lawyer earlier this month, sought records of payments made by trustees to the school, or to third parties on the school’s behalf, the university said Friday.

A copy of the Feb. 2 subpoena for general counsel Cynthia Baldwin, posted on the school’s website Friday evening, listed eight categories of records, including “reporting requirements on the part of employers and staff relating to misconduct” by staff and others associated with Penn State.

It directed Baldwin, a former state Supreme Court justice, to bring the documents with her to a federal grand jury meeting in Harrisburg on Wednesday, but the school said that deadline had been extended by U.S. Attorney Peter J. Smith because of the volume of records.

Penn State said it was fully cooperating with the request.

Planes take off carrying silver

TAMPA, Fla.

A 17-ton haul of silver coins, lost for two centuries in the wreck of a sunken Spanish galleon, began its journey back to its home country Friday after the deep-sea explorers who lifted it to the surface lost their claim to ownership.

Two Spanish military C-130 cargo planes took off after noon from a Florida Air Force base with 594,000 silver coins and other artifacts aboard. They were packed into the same white plastic buckets in which they were brought to the U.S. by Tampa, Fla.-based Odyssey Marine Exploration in May 2007.

“These are emotional and moving moments for me and all my colleagues behind me,” Spain’s ambassador to the United States, Jorge Dezcallar de Mazar, said Friday. He stood on the windy tarmac at MacDill Air Force base, flanked by an entourage of more than two dozen Spanish officials and others.

Associated Press