Putin offers pardons

Putin offers pardons

MOSCOW

In a surprise decision, President Vladimir Putin announced Thursday that jailed former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky will be pardoned, a move that will see his top foe and Russia’s onetime richest man freed after more than a decade in prison.

The development, along with an amnesty for two jailed members of the Pussy Riot punk band and the 30-member crew of a Greenpeace protest ship, appeared aimed at easing international criticism of Russia’s human-rights record ahead of February’s Winter Olympics in Sochi, Putin’s pet project.

1 dead, dozens hurt in Calif. bus crashes

FALLBROOK, Calif.

Three bus crashes on rain-slick Southern California freeways killed one person and injured dozens more Thursday, authorities said.

A tour bus heading from the Los Angeles area to the Valley View Casino & Hotel in San Diego County overturned about 2:30 p.m. on southbound Interstate 15 near Fallbrook, authorities said.

One person was partially flung through a window and died at the scene, said California Highway Patrol Officer Jim Bettancourt. Six people suffered serious injuries, and 13 more had minor injuries, he said.

America’s UN envoy in African nation

BANGUI, Central African Republic

The American ambassador to the United Nations delivered a stern message Thursday to the leaders of the strife-torn Central African Republic to stop the cycle of violence.

On her first official overseas trip, Samantha Power finds herself in an uncomfortable position: Before becoming a diplomat, she made her name as a vocal critic of Washington’s response to past atrocities. Now, she is trying to spotlight the horror here, at the same time that she represents a government that has declined to join France in sending troops to quell the conflict.

Instead, the U.S. will spend $100 million to equip and train the African troops sent in to stabilize the country, including providing trucks to get them into villages in the countryside where rival Christian and Muslim militias have been attacking civilians and each other.

Saudi Arabia again is Sept. 11 defendant

NEW YORK

A federal appeals court on Thursday reinstated Saudi Arabia as a defendant in lawsuits claiming it provided support to al-Qaida before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said restoring Saudi Arabia was necessary to be consistent with a ruling by a different 2nd Circuit panel that allowed another lawsuit to go forward in which a man sued Afghanistan and other defendants for the death of his wife in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Fla. rejects display by Satanic Temple

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.

Officials overseeing holiday displays at the Florida Capitol have allowed a Nativity scene, a Festivus pole and even a chair holding fake pasta with eyeballs and an accompanying “provHerb” from the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

But they are drawing the line with Satan.

The Department of Management Services emailed The Satanic Temple on Wednesday, telling the group its proposed display of an angel falling from heaven into an open fire was “grossly offensive.”

Co-founder Lucien Greaves says the group asked what was offensive, acknowledging they might be willing to alter the display, but they didn’t get a response Thursday.

Several groups have been allowed to put up displays in the Statehouse rotunda because the area is considered to be a public forum.

Associated Press