US, Cuba to announce plan to open embassies

US, Cuba to announce plan to open embassies

WASHINGTON

President Barack Obama will announce today that the U.S. and Cuba have finalized an agreement to reopen embassies in each other’s capitals, a major step in ending hostilities between the Cold War foes, a senior administration official said.

The U.S. and Cuba have been negotiating the re-establishment of embassies after the historic December announcement that they would move to restore ties after a half-century of animosity.

For Obama, ending the U.S. freeze with Cuba is central to his foreign-policy legacy as he nears the end of his presidency. Obama has long touted the value of direct engagement with global foes and has argued that the U.S. embargo on the communist island just 90 miles south of Florida was ineffective.

Iran nuclear talks extended; Iranians meet key obligation

VIENNA

Pushing past a Tuesday deadline, world powers and Iran extended negotiations for a comprehensive nuclear agreement by a week as the U.N. nuclear agency prepared to announce Tehran had met a key condition: significantly reducing its stocks of enriched uranium that could be used for atomic weapons.

Iran’s failure to comply would have severely undermined the negotiations, which are aimed at curbing the Iranians’ nuclear program for a decade in exchange for tens of billions of dollars in relief from international economic sanctions.

Military plane crashes, killing more than 140

MEDAN, Indonesia

An Indonesian police official says more than 140 bodies have been recovered from the crash of a military plane in Medan.

Rescue teams searched rubble in the residential neighborhood where the plane crashed Tuesday but had little hope of finding survivors.

The C-130 Hercules, carrying military personnel and their families, went down in Indonesia’s third-largest city of Medan, striking a building. Witness accounts suggested the plane suffered an engine fire before crashing.

Air force chief Air Marshal Agus Supriatna said there were 122 people on the plane.

Liberia quarantines 2 households in new Ebola case

MONROVIA, Liberia

Liberian authorities on Tuesday quarantined two households after the corpse of a 17-year-old boy was found with Ebola, sparking fears the West African country could face another outbreak of the disease nearly two months after being declared Ebola-free.

“Liberia has got a re-infection of Ebola,” Tolbert Nyenswah, deputy health minister and head of Liberia’s Ebola response team, told The Associated Press.

Authorities: Gay slur carved into man’s arm was staged

SALT LAKE CITY

A man who reported that someone beat him and carved a homophobic slur into his arm staged the attacks, authorities in rural Utah said Tuesday.

Millard County Sheriff Robert Dekker said Rick Jones, 21, could face charges after officers investigating the series of reported attacks found inconsistencies in the evidence. The Delta man eventually acknowledged faking the harassment, Dekker said.

Brett Tolman, an attorney for Jones, said the reports were a cry for help initially directed toward people close to him, and Jones didn’t realize how much attention they would get.

Combined dispatches