US, allies to work on Syria transition plan

US, allies to work on Syria transition plan

ISTANBUL

The United States and its allies in Europe, Turkey and the Arab world have agreed to work on a political transition plan for Syria, hoping to persuade President Bashar Assad’s powerful ally Russia to join a broadened diplomatic effort to ease the embattled leader out of power, a senior U.S. official said.

The push for a structured end to the four-decade Assad regime came late Wednesday at a closed-door meeting of foreign ministers and other top officials in Istanbul, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. It also coincided with fresh reports of a surge in bloodshed in Syria’s central Hama province. At least 23 people were killed, with one activist group reporting as many as 86 dead.

Japanese pier floats onto Oregon beach

SEATTLE

Authorities confirmed Wednesday that a 66-foot-long dock that floated onto a beach near Newport, Ore., this week came from Japan — the latest in a growing wave of debris from the earthquake and tsunami that ripped through the Japanese coast in March 2011.

The Japanese Consulate in Portland said the large, floating pier originated at the port of Misawa in northern Japan, and from there appeared to have drifted across the Pacific to where it was first spotted Monday on Agate Beach, about a mile north of Newport.

Mubarak’s health deteriorates

CAIRO

Hosni Mubarak’s health sharply deteriorated Wednesday, days after he was sentenced to life in prison, and specialists were evaluating whether to transfer him to a better-equipped hospital outside the penal system, security officials said.

The deposed leader’s health scare added to the uncertainty engulfing Egypt, where powerful political groups are seeking to bar Mubarak’s former prime minister from the presidential runoff and derail the election.

Officials at Cairo’s Torah prison said the 84-year-old Mubarak’s condition had moved to a “dangerous” phase and that doctors administered oxygen five times to help him breathe.

Up to 78 USAF cadets cheated on exam

DENVER

Up to 78 Air Force Academy cadets cheated on an online calculus test by getting help during the exam from a website, the academy said Wednesday.

Most of the cadets took responsibility for their actions and have begun a six-month remediation program, a type of academic probation, said Lt. Col. John Bryan, an academy spokesman.

Bryan did not know how many cadets have been ordered to take the remediation program. Some are still awaiting their turn before an honor board.

Enterprise lands at air, space museum

NEW YORK

As hundreds of spectators clapped, whistled and cheered, the space shuttle Enterprise completed its final journey Wednesday afternoon.

A crane slowly lifted the Enterprise above the Hudson River, then gently lowered the spacecraft to the flight deck of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum — its new Manhattan home — shortly after 4 p.m.

The Enterprise never went into space, but in 1977, it served as the prototype for the country’s celebrated space-shuttle program. Since the early 1990s, it had been on display at the National Air and Space Museum annex near Washington.

Combined dispatches