Gov. Inslee: 6 tanks leaking at nuke site

Gov. Inslee: 6 tanks leaking at nuke site

yakima, wash.

Six underground tanks that hold a brew of radio-active and toxic waste at the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site are leaking, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced Friday.

The leaks raise new concerns about delays for emptying the tanks at south-central Washington’s Hanford nuclear reservation, and they strike another blow to federal efforts to clean up the site, where successes often are overshadowed by delays, budget overruns and technological challenges.

Pentagon grounds F-35 fighter fleet

washington

The Pentagon on Friday grounded its fleet of F-35 fighter jets after discovering a cracked engine blade in one plane.

The problem was found during what the Pentagon called a routine inspection at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., of an F-35A, the Air Force version of the sleek new plane. The Navy and the Marine Corps are buying other versions of the F-35, which is intended to replace older fighters such as the Air Force F-16 and the Navy F/A-18.

All versions — 51 total planes — were grounded pending a more in-depth evaluation of the problem discovered at Edwards.

Protest in Egypt

cairo

Egypt’s president set parliamentary elections to begin in April — a decision that an opposition leader denounced Friday as “a recipe for disaster” because of the ongoing political turmoil in the country.

About 15,000 people took to the streets in the Suez Canal city of Port Said to demonstrate against President Mohammed Morsi, who scheduled the staggered, four-stage voting process to begin April 27 and end in June. The newly elected parliament would convene July 6, according to a decree issued Thursday.

200+ villagers freed

beirut

Gunmen from rival Sunni and Shiite Muslim villages in northern Syria have freed more than 200 people taken in tit-for-tat kidnappings this month, easing tensions that threatened to touch off more sectarian violence, activists said Friday.

In Syria’s largest city of Aleppo, three explosions that appeared to be caused by missiles killed at least 14 people, activists said, adding that dozens of others were feared to be trapped under damaged buildings.

The wave of abductions in a rural part of Idlib province highlighted how much the civil war between the regime of President Bashar Assad and the hundreds of rebel groups seeking his ouster has enflamed tensions between Syria’s myriad religious groups.

Rape, killing of 3 sisters shocks India

new delhi

Police searched villages in western India on Friday for suspects in the rape and killing of three young sisters, as Indians still angry over the fatal gang rape of a woman on a New Delhi bus in December face another heinous sexual attack.

The bodies of the sisters — aged 7, 9 and 11 — were found Feb. 16 in a village well in Bhandara district in Maharashtra after they had gone missing from school two days earlier, said police officer Abhinav Deshmukh.

Official: No evidence of drug lord’s death

san valentine, guatemala

Guatemalan Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla said Friday there was no evidence that Mexico’s most-wanted drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, had been killed in a shootout in the rural north, calling such reports a misunderstanding.

Associated Press