UN: 5.5M children affected by Syria war

UN: 5.5M children affected by Syria war

BEIRUT

The number of Syrian children affected by the civil war in their homeland has doubled in the past year to at least 5.5 million — more than half the country’s children — with devastating effects on the health, education and psychological well-being of an entire generation, the United Nations children’s agency said Tuesday.

The conflict, which enters its fourth year this month, has unleashed massive suffering across all segments of Syrian society, but the impact on children has been especially acute, according to a new report by UNICEF. Malnutrition and illness have stunted their growth; a lack of learning opportunities has derailed their education; and the bloody trauma of war has left deep psychological scars.

Judge’s decision is latest twist in trial

FORT BRAGG, N.C.

The trial of an Army general accused of sexual assault moved into uncharted legal territory Tuesday when the judge dismissed the jury to allow the defense time to hammer out a new plea deal with the military.

Though the highly unusual decision gives Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair a second chance to negotiate the dismissal of the most-serious charges, he appears certain to face an inglorious end to a nearly 30-year career spanning service in three wars. His lawyers said it could take weeks to finalize an agreement.

NTSB head leaving

WASHINGTON

Deborah Hersman, the chairwoman of the nation’s transportation-accident investigations board, is leaving to become the president and CEO of the National Safety Council.

Her nearly 10 years at the National Transportation Safety Board have been “a great ride,” but she is moving on to the second “dream job” of her career, Hersman said in a blog posted Tuesday.

In her tenure as chairwoman, the 43-year-old Hersman earned a reputation for being willing to back safety measures that sometimes were unpopular with industry and other government agencies.

Italian court upholds Americans’ verdicts

MILAN

Italy’s highest court upheld guilty verdicts Tuesday against the final three U.S. defendants in the 2003 extraordinary-rendition kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect.

The decision, after a series of trials spanning 61/2 years, brought to a close the only prosecution to date against the Bush administration’s practice of abducting terror suspects and moving them to third countries that permitted torture.

The court upheld guilty verdicts and confirmed the seven-year sentence against the CIA’s former Rome station chief Jeff Castelli and six-year sentence against two others identified as CIA agents. All three had been acquitted in the original trial due to diplomatic immunity.

Roseanne Barr sued over Twitter post

ORLANDO, Fla.

The parents of George Zimmerman have sued comedian Roseanne Barr, saying they fled their Lake Mary, Fla., home in the middle of the night and have been unable to return because she posted their address on Twitter two years ago.

Robert Zimmerman Sr. and Gladys Zimmerman filed suit Monday in state circuit court, accusing Barr of trying to incite “a lynch mob to descend” and carry out “vigilante justice.”

According to the suit, Barr published their address on Twitter on March 29, 2012, a month after their son George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager in Sanford, but before his arrest. Their son did not live with them, nor did they have anything to do with the shooting, they point out.

Combined dispatches