12 students die when bus falls off cliff

12 students die when bus falls off cliff

TIRANA, Albania

A bus carrying university students on a pre-graduation trip toppled off a mountain cliff in southern Albania, killing 12 people and injuring 21, authorities said.

University officials said two buses had been taking 75 third-year language and literature students and three professors from Aleksander Xhuvani University in the city of Elbasan on a trip to the southern city of Saranda.

The cause of the Monday crash was unclear.

Court: Twins can’t get dad’s benefits

WASHINGTON

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a man’s children who were conceived through artificial insemination after his death cannot get Social Security survivor benefits.

Justices unanimously ruled that twins born to Robert Capato’s surviving wife, Karen, did not qualify for survivor benefits because of a requirement that the federal government use state inheritance laws.

The Capato twins, conceived using Robert Capato’s frozen sperm, were born 18 months after their father died of esophageal cancer.

NRC chief resigns

ATLANTA

The head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Monday that he will resign as soon as a successor is confirmed to lead the country’s nuclear- safety agency, a decision that comes after fellow commissioners publicly rebuked Jaczko and accused him of acting like a bully.

Jaczko said in a written statement that he will continue efforts to protect public safety “in a different forum.” He did not offer any additional details on his future plans.

His resignation comes after fellow NRC commissioners criticized Jaczko, revealing dissension among the top leaders of the safety agency. Those commissioners — two Democrats and two Republicans — said Jaczko, a Democrat, was responsible for a tense and unsettled work environment at the NRC. The four commissioners sent a letter to the White House in October expressing “grave concern” about Jaczko’ s actions.

Airline exec guilty in child-porn case

BROWNSVILLE, Texas

Jurors convicted the founder of a Texas cargo airline on child pornography charges Monday, siding with prosecutors who said he had explicit online chats with undercover officers posing as young teenage girls and collected numerous illegal images.

Robert L. Hedrick, who founded Pan American Airways, was found guilty on five counts related to child pornography and sexual exploitation of children.

He could get up to 20 years in prison on just one count of distributing child pornography when sentenced in August.

96 soldiers die in suicide bombing

SAN‘A, Yemen

A Yemeni soldier detonated a bomb hidden in his military uniform during a rehearsal for a military parade, killing 96 fellow soldiers and wounding at least 200 on Monday in one of the deadliest attacks in the capital in years.

Al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen claimed responsibility, saying in an emailed statement that the suicide attack was intended to avenge a U.S.-backed offensive against al-Qaida in a swath of southern Yemen seized by the militant movement last year.

Associated Press