3 Gitmo defendants no-shows in court

3 Gitmo defendants no-shows in court

guantanamo bay naval base, cuba

Three Sept. 11 defendants took a judge up on his offer to let them skip their military tribunal Tuesday, and the proceedings went on without them. The Guantanamo detainees won a new request to return to court in camouflage clothing if they wanted.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed 9/11 mastermind, was not in the courtroom while attorneys delved into a dense debate on legal motions, including rules for handling classified evidence at trial and what kind of clothing would be allowed.

Only two of the five defendants made it to court for the second day of the weeklong hearing. Mohammed, Saudi defendant Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi and Pakistani national Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali — Mohammed’s nephew — all stayed away.

Meningitis outbreak: What was cause?

new york

Was it some moldy ceiling tiles? The dusty shoes of a careless employee? Or did the contamination ride in on one of the ingredients?

There are lots of ways fungus could have gotten inside the Massachusetts compounding pharmacy whose steroid medication has been linked to a lethal outbreak of a rare fungal form of meningitis.

The outbreak has killed at least 15 people and sickened more than 200 others in 15 states. Nearly all the victims had received steroid injections for back pain.

Federal and state investigators have been tightlipped about any problems they may have seen at the New England Compounding Center or whether they have pinpointed the source of the contamination.

They did disclose last week that they found fungus in more than 50 vials from the pharmacy.

Company spokesman Andrew Paven said by email that criminal investigators from the Food and Drug Administration were at the pharmacy in Framingham, Mass., on Tuesday. The visit was part of a broad federal and state investigation of the outbreak, FDA spokesman Steven Immergut said in an email.

UK charges Briton with taking hostages

london

A British man has been charged in the kidnapping of two Western journalists in Syria, police said Tuesday, adding to growing concerns about foreign extremists traveling to the civil war-stricken Arab state and posing a future threat to the West.

Shajul Islam, 26, was arrested on suspicion of terror offenses Oct. 9 at London’s Heathrow Airport after arriving on a flight from Egypt alongside a 26-year-old British woman. The woman, who has not been named, was released without charge earlier Tuesday.

90 die in attacks

beirut

The Syrian military unleashed heavy airstrikes and artillery bombardments targeting rebel strongholds in the north Tuesday, killing at least 90 people according to activists.

The barrage came as the U.N. food agency warned that more and more Syrians are depending on assistance from the World Food Program to stay alive with the civil war worsening.

The airstrikes hit northern Idlib and Aleppo provinces, both bordering Turkey. Activists described them as some of the worst since rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad took over the key city of Maaret al-Numan in Idlib on Oct. 10.

Associated Press