Princes help protect homes in flooding

Princes help protect homes in flooding

LONDON

Prince William and Prince Harry helped flood-hit British villagers protect their homes Friday, unloading sandbags alongside soldiers in a River Thames village.

The princes, who both have served in the armed forces, joined a work crew In Datchet, west of London, from about 6 a.m. on what aides said was a private visit.

The princes were not the only royals helping out. Their grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, has sent feed and bedding from the royal farms at Windsor to farmers whose land has been inundated.

England, which has been lashed by wind and rain since December, had its wettest January since records began in 1766, and the rain has continued this month. Storms this week have brought wind gusts of more than 100 mph.

VW workers in Tenn. reject union

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.

Workers at a Volkswagen factory in Tennessee have voted against union representation, a devastating loss that derails the United Auto Workers union’s effort to organize Southern factories.

The 712-626 vote released late Friday stunned many labor experts who expected a UAW win because Volkswagen tacitly endorsed the union and even allowed organizers into the Chattanooga factory to make sales pitches.

The UAW for decades has tried without success to organize a foreign-owned plant in a region that’s wary of organized labor. The loss now makes it even harder for the union to recruit members at another Southern factory.

Bomb kills dozens outside mosque

BEIRUT

A car bomb blew up outside a mosque in a rebel-held village in southern Syria as worshippers were leaving after Friday prayers, killing dozens of people and filling clinics and hospitals with the wounded, anti-government activists said.

The explosion in Yadouda charred vehicles parked nearby and damaged the mosque, which has a white dome, according to video images posted by activists who are fighting to oust President Bashar Assad.

Mammoth tusk lifted from pit

SEATTLE

A fossilized mammoth tusk discovered in a Seattle construction site was retrieved Friday evening from a 30-foot-deep pit to the sound of cheers and clicking from people taking pictures.

Scientists and construction crews used a crane to retrieve and hoist the tusk, which was placed on a pallet, encased in plaster and covered in blankets, to a waiting flat-bed truck. The tusk headed to its new home a few miles away at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture on the University of Washington’s Seattle campus, where it will be preserved, studied and eventually put on display.

The tusk, believed to be of a Columbian mammoth, was measured at 8.5-feet long after it was fully exposed overnight. It’s between 20,000 and 60,000 years old.

Uganda’s leader to sign anti-gay law

KAMPALA, Uganda

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni plans to sign a bill into law that prescribes life imprisonment for some homosexual acts, officials said Friday, alarming rights activists who have condemned the bill as draconian in a country where homosexuality already has been criminalized.

Museveni announced his decision to governing party lawmakers, said government spokesman Ofwono Opondo. In Twitter posts on Friday, Opondo said the legislators, who are on a retreat chaired by Museveni, “welcomed the development as a measure to protect Ugandans from social deviants.”

Associated Press