Sunday, December 22, 2013
Chase restricts cards affected by breach
ATLANTA
Chase is putting some temporary restrictions on debit cards affected by Target’s security breach.
The bank contacted about 2 million affected debit-card members Saturday and said they would be limited to a maximum of $100 cash withdrawals and $300 in purchases per day. Less than 10 percent of Chase customers are affected, said spokeswoman Kristin Lemkau. The limits will be in place until Chase replaces the cards. Chase credit cards are not restricted.
Spacesuit issue leads to spacewalk delay
CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA.
Astronauts removed an old space-station pump Saturday, sailing through the first of a series of urgent repair spacewalks to revive a crippled cooling line.
The two Americans on the crew, Rick Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins, successfully pulled out the ammonia pump with a bad valve — well ahead of schedule. That task had been planned for the next spacewalk, originally scheduled for Monday but now delayed until Tuesday, Christmas Eve, because of the need for a suit swap.
Mastracchio’s original suit was compromised when he inadvertently turned on a water switch in the air lock at the end of Saturday’s excursion.
Attacks in Iraq kill 17, including leader
BAGHDAD
A string of attacks across Iraq killed 17 people Saturday, including a senior military commander, a colonel and five soldiers who all died during a raid on an al-Qaida hideout, officials said.
Police officials said army Maj. Gen Mohammed al-Karawi, the colonel and the five troops were killed when they stormed the booby-trapped hideout in Rutba in Iraq’s volatile Anbar province.
Al-Karawi, who commanded the Iraqi army’s 7th Division, was leading a search operation hunting for al-Qaida fighters in the area. Four soldiers were wounded in the operation, police said.
Pact for transit, union
san francisco
The threat of another commute-crippling transportation strike in the San Francisco Bay area receded Saturday when officials for the region’s transit rail system and negotiators for its two largest labor unions said they had resolved the latest sticking point in their months-long negotiations and reached a new contract.
Bay Area Rapid Transit district and union leaders said the four-year deal reached early Saturday settles a dispute over paid medical leave for employees that arose last month after the two sides had approved an October agreement that ended the second of two strikes BART workers staged this year.
Gay marriage catches many off guard
SALT LAKE CITY
A day after a judge’s surprise ruling overturned Utah’s same-sex marriage ban, at least one county clerk intended to open early Saturday to issue licenses.
About 40 minutes north of Salt Lake City, about 300 hundred people showed up at the Weber County Clerk’s Office on Saturday afternoon but were later turned away without marriage licenses.
Clerk Ricky Hatch apologized and said that county officials had told him that opening for special circumstances may violate constitutional guarantees of equal protection. Hatch told The Associated Press he was also told that the county’s standard security requirements were not in place for a Saturday opening.
The confusion Saturday and reports of other crowds scrambling to find an open office illustrated how gay marriage caught many in Utah off guard.
Associated Press