US Steel, USW reach tentative pact

US Steel, USW reach tentative pact

PITTSBURGH

United States Steel Corp. on Saturday announced a tentative agreement with the United Steelworkers on a successor three-year collective-bargaining agreement covering approximately 18,000 USW-represented employees at U. S. Steel’s domestic flat-rolled and iron ore mining facilities as well as tubular operations in Fairfield, Ala.; Lorain, Ohio; and Lone Star, Texas. The tentative agreement remains subject to ratification.

Details about the tentative agreement will be made available after the completion of the ratification process.

Fighting in Yemen kills at least 75

SANAA, YEMEN

Fierce fighting and airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition pounded northern Yemen on Saturday, as the two main parties in the country’s conflict continued to violate a cease-fire agreement and undermine already tenuous peace talks in Switzerland.

The clashes in Hajjah Province near the Saudi border between rebel-allied units and pro-government Yemeni forces have killed more than 75 over the past three days, Yemeni security officials and witnesses said. The dead included more than 40 rebels and 35 government troops, with 50 wounded on the rebel side and dozens wounded on the government side.

Man to be sentenced; loaned gun to bomber

BOSTON

A man who loaned a gun used by the Boston Marathon bombers to kill a police officer is set to be sentenced on drug and gun charges.

Stephen Silva will be sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court.

Silva testified during the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev he let Tsarnaev borrow a Ruger 9 mm handgun two months before the bombings. He said Tsarnaev told him he wanted it to rob University of Rhode Island students. He also said Tsarnaev “kept coming up with excuses” for why he didn’t return the gun.

Prosecutors have said the gun was used by Tsarnaev and his brother to kill MIT police Officer Sean Collier days after the bombings.

Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured in the 2013 bombings.

US: Bombers didn’t mean to fly over isle

BEIJING

The U.S. said its two B-52 bombers had no intention of flying over a Chinese-controlled man-made island in the South China Sea, after Beijing accused Washington of “a serious military provocation” in the strategic waters with overlapping claims.

China’s Defense Ministry on Saturday accused the U.S. of deliberately raising tensions in the region, where China has been aggressively asserting its claims to virtually all islands, reefs and their surrounding seas. It reiterated that it would do whatever is necessary to protect China’s sovereignty.

Pentagon spokesman Mark Wright said that the Dec. 10 mission was not a “freedom of navigation” operation and that there was “no intention of flying within 12 nautical miles of any feature,” indicating the mission may have strayed off course.

1 dead, 9 hospitalized after avalanche

COPENHAGEN, Denmark

Rescue workers used shovels, excavators, search dogs and powerful lamps to dig through tons of snow in total darkness Saturday after an avalanche smashed into houses on the remote Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, killing one man and sending nine other people to the hospital.

The avalanche tumbled down Saturday about 11 a.m. from Sukkertoppen Mountain into Longyearbyen, the main settlement on Svalbard, shoving houses off their foundations, flipping cars and burying people under yards of snow.

Combined dispatches