Tuesday, December 29, 2015
S. Korea, Japan reach deal on WWII sex slaves
SEOUL, South Korea
An apology from Japan’s prime minister and a pledge of more than $8 million sealed a breakthrough deal Monday in a decades-long impasse with South Korea over Korean women forced into Japanese military-run brothels during World War II.
The accord, which aims to resolve the emotional core of South Korea’s grievances with its former colonial overlord, could begin to reverse decades of animosity and mistrust between the two thriving democracies, trade partners and staunch U.S. allies.
PR cop fatally shoots 3 officers after fight
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico
A Puerto Rico policeman fatally shot two high-ranking officers and a policewoman Monday after an argument and hostage-taking at work that temporarily shut down the station in the U.S. territory’s second-largest city, authorities said. The suspect immediately was placed under arrest.
The suspect, Guarionex Candelario Rivera, held a female lieutenant, a male commander and a policewoman hostage in an office before he killed them, police spokeswoman Mayra Ayala told The Associated Press. She said authorities were about to start negotiations with the 50-year-old suspect when the victims were killed.
Charges filed in fatal street-race crash
EUTAW, Ala.
Authorities say charges have been filed against two men in an illegal street race that killed three people and left nine others injured in western Alabama.
Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Senior Trooper Reginal King said in an emailed statement Monday night that Maurice Wedgeworth,22, and Clyde Lawson, 27, of Harvest have been charged with three counts of manslaughter and leaving the scene of an accident with injuries.
The men are both in the Greene County jail.
Officials have said 30-year-old Rodney Hutton, 22-year-old Jalesa Kiara Merritt and 3-year-old Jhayden Pippen died after being hit by an Oldsmobile Cutlass that Wedgeworth was driving. Investigators say three children age 6, 7 and 9 were injured.
Boko Haram attacks kill 80
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria
Boko Haram Islamic extremists struck a city and a town in northeastern Nigeria with rocket-propelled grenades and multiple suicide bombers Monday, killing at least 80 people, witnesses said.
In Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, at least 30 were killed and more than 90 wounded in overnight blasts and shootouts, and 20 more died in a bombing outside a mosque at dawn Monday, said Muhammed Kanar, area coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency.
A twin suicide bombing also killed at least 30 people in Madagali, a town 95 miles southeast of Maiduguri, witnesses said.
Trump targets NH newspaper
NASHUA, N.H.
New Hampshire’s largest newspaper, the Union Leader, is the latest target of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s attacks against the news media.
Its offense? A front-page editorial Monday by publisher Joseph McQuaid declaring, “Trump campaign insults NH voters’ intelligence.”
“You have a very dishonest newspaper; it’s also a failing newspaper,” Trump told a New Hampshire crowd Monday before going on a freewheeling tirade against the paper, McQuaid and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, whom the paper endorsed in November.
In the editorial, McQuaid said New Hampshire voters will be smarter than to elect Trump in the state’s Feb. 9 primary.
Associated Press