Avalanche survivors await rescue on roofs

Avalanche survivors await rescue on roofs

PANJSHIR VALLEY, Afghanistan

In an endless sea of white, Afghan villagers waited on rooftops Friday, waving in desperation as helicopters swooped low over the avalanche-struck region. All around them, homes, people and livestock had vanished under the snow.

The avalanche in this impoverished corner of Afghanistan killed at least 168 people this week, with dozens succumbing to plummeting temperatures elsewhere. The depth of despair was captured by an Associated Press team traveling on one of the first aid flights to the area.

Najibullah Haidery, head of the Afghan Red Crescent Society, said the scale of the disaster was staggering.

Attackers hack blogger to death

DHAKA, Bangladesh

A prominent Bangladeshi-American blogger known for speaking out against religious extremism was hacked to death as he walked through Bangladesh’s capital with his wife, police said Friday.

The attack Thursday night on Avijit Roy, a Bangladesh-born U.S. citizen, occurred on a crowded sidewalk as he and his wife, Rafida Ahmed, were returning from a book fair at Dhaka University. Ahmed, also a blogger, was seriously injured. It was the latest in a series of attacks on secular writers in Bangladesh in recent years.

A previously unknown militant group, Ansar Bangla 7, claimed responsibility for the attack, Assistant Police Commissioner S.M. Shibly Noman said.

O’Reilly’s critics stepping up attack

NEW YORK

After several stories questioning Bill O’Reilly’s past reporting, a liberal media watchdog has ordered its researchers to comb through years of the Fox News Channel host’s writings, radio and television shows and public appearances to find examples of inconsistencies.

O’Reilly is squarely in the crosshairs of Media Matters for America, an illustration of how the media is subject to the same political campaigns as politicians. Fox is standing behind O’Reilly, but the extent to which cable news’ most-popular personality is damaged may depend on how many more stories come out.

The effort began a week ago, after Mother Jones magazine reported that O’Reilly claimed to be in a “war zone” while reporting on the Falklands War in Argentina more than 30 years ago for CBS News, when instead he covered an anti-government demonstration more than 1,000 miles away from the front. Other reports soon followed.

No federal water

SACRAMENTO, Calif.

For a second-straight year, the federal government said Friday it won’t send any of its reservoir water to the Central Valley, forcing farmers in California’s agricultural heartland to again scramble for other sources or leave fields unplanted.

Many farmers had been bracing for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s announcement as California’s drought enters its fourth year.

Stolen Picasso found

U.S. officials inspected a FedEx package shipped from Belgium to New York in December with its happy holiday greeting, “Joyeux Noel.” They opened it and instead of a $37 “art craft toy” promised on the box found a stolen Picasso painting worth millions.

Loretta Lynch, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York and likely next attorney general of the United States, filed a civil forfeiture complaint seeking to seize the painting, “La Coiffeuse” (“The Hairdresser”), reported stolen from a Paris museum storeroom in 2001. The painting will eventually be returned to France. No arrests have been made.

Combined dispatches