Syria launches assault on opposition

Syria launches assault on opposition

BEIRUT

Syria launched a long- anticipated assault to crush the opposition in the rebellious north Saturday, bombarding its main city with tank shells from all sides and clashing with rebel fighters struggling to hold back an invasion.

President Bashar Assad rejected any immediate negotiations with the opposition, striking a further blow to already staggering international efforts for talks to end to the conflict. Assad told U.N. envoy Kofi Annan that a political solution is impossible as long as “terrorist groups” threaten the country.

Woman charged with threat to school

MILTON, Del.

A Delaware woman has been charged with threatening to blow up an elementary school.

Police say Lisa Thomas, 48, was arrested Friday morning after saying that she would blow up Brittingham Elementary School in Milton.

She was charged with disorderly conduct and felony terroristic threatening.

Police say Thomas entered the school and started cursing and shouting at the staff, and then went outside and threatened to blow up the school.

Suspect arrested in courthouse attack

SEATTLE

Police in Washington state on Saturday arrested a 34-year-old man accused of stabbing a judge and shooting a deputy sheriff in a courthouse struggle, one day after he fled the small town of Montesano.

Law-enforcement officers in neighboring Thurston County took Steven Daniel Kravetz into custody Saturday afternoon at his mother’s home in the state capital of Olympia, Grays Harbor County Undersheriff Rick Scott said.

Israeli strikes kill 15 Gaza militants

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip

Israel pounded Gaza for the second day in a row Saturday, trading airstrikes and rocket fire with Palestinian militants and killing 15 of them as the deadliest Gaza violence in more than a year showed no signs of abating.

Despite Egyptian efforts to mediate a cease-fire, Palestinians fired more than 100 rockets, some striking major cities in southern Israel and seriously wounding an Israeli civilian. The military responded with more than a dozen airstrikes and the targeted killings of Palestinian militants from various Gaza organizations.

Pentagon to resume programs in Yemen

WASHINGTON

The Pentagon plans to resume programs that would pay for military training and equipment in Yemen, nearly a year after halting aid to the key counterterrorism partner because of escalating internal chaos.

Though no agreements have been cemented, U.S. defense officials said as much as $75 million in military assistance could begin to flow this year. The officials said the Pentagon and State Department are putting together a letter to send to Congress to request restarting the aid.

Storied carrier makes final voyage

NORFOLK, Va.

When the makers of “Top Gun” were filming on board the USS Enterprise, they donated a set of black fuzzy dice to liven up the ship’s otherwise drab interior.

A quarter-century later, the dice still will be dangling inside the tower of “the Big E” as the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier sets sail on its final voyage today.

The trinket is a reminder of the ship’s storied 50-year history that includes action in several wars, a prominent role in the Cuban missile crisis and serving as a spotter ship for John Glenn’s historic orbit of the Earth.

The Enterprise is the longest aircraft carrier in the U.S. fleet. It also is the oldest.

Associated Press