Court sentences al-Qaida militants

Court sentences al-Qaida militants

SANAA, Yemen

A Yemeni court on Tuesday sentenced 11 convicted al-Qaida militants to up to 10 years in prison for forming armed gangs to destabilize the country and planning attacks on foreign embassies and security forces.

The sentencing came as militants attacked a military camp in the central town of Radda, about 100 miles south of Sanaa, setting off clashes that killed three soldiers and eight militants. Radda was seized briefly by al-Qaida militants last year before the Yemeni government waged an offensive to drive them out.

The militants, who took refuge in other areas in the central province where Radda is located, have been trying to return to the town.

Pumps fail; raw sewage enters river

ST. LOUIS

Raw sewage is running directly into the Mississippi River from a treatment plant because two large lift pumps have failed.

The untreated runoff is from the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District treatment plant at Bissell Point in north St. Louis, where three large pumps are intended to discharge treated sewage when the Mississippi River gets high. But two pumps failed Sunday, forcing the district to let untreated water flow directly into the river, a spokesman said.

Lance LeComb, district spokesman, said the remaining pump and a backup pump allowed the district to treat 145 million gallons per day before discharge. But an additional 105 million gallons daily is going untreated into the Mississippi, he said.

Obama salutes Teacher of the Year

WASHINGTON

President Barack Obama honored finalists Tuesday for the 2013 National Teacher of the Year award and saluted the winner, a Washington state teacher credited with improving science enrollment at his high school.

The winner is Jeff Charbonneau, a science teacher at Zillah High School in Washington state’s Yakima Valley.

Obama also made special mention of the six educators who died last December in Newtown, Conn., during a shooting spree where a lone gunman also killed 20 elementary-school children.

Kerry: Prepare for chemical threat

BRUSSELS

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged NATO on Tuesday to prepare for the possible use of chemical weapons by Syria on the same day that a senior Israeli military intelligence official said Syrian President Bashar Assad had used such weapons last month in his battle against insurgents.

The assessment, based on visual evidence, could raise pressure on the U.S. and other Western countries to intervene in Syria. Britain and France recently announced that they had evidence that Assad’s government had used chemical weapons.

Boy, 15, fatally shot in Chicago

CHICAGO

A 15-year-old boy was shot and killed in a backyard about four blocks from President Barack Obama’s Chicago home, police said Tuesday.

Cornelius German of Chicago was found unresponsive about 9:40 p.m. Monday. He had been shot in the back and was pronounced dead at the scene on the city’s South Side, police told The Associated Press.

No arrests had been made as of late Tuesday afternoon, they said.

Combined dispatches