Pipeline developers seek access to W.Va.

Pipeline developers seek access to W.Va.

ROANOKE, Va.

Developers of a proposed pipeline have warned landowners in West Virginia that they risk legal action if they don’t allow surveying of their properties.

Mountain Valley Pipeline spokeswoman Natalie Cox told The Roanoke Times that the company sent certified letters last week to landowners in West Virginia who have refused to allow their properties to be surveyed. Cox says the letters reminded the landowners that surveying is needed to help design the pipeline’s best route.

The proposed 300-mile natural gas pipeline would run from Wetzel County, W.Va., to another pipeline in Pittsylvania County, Va.

Birthday party for couple wed 82 years

SPRING VALLEY, N.Y.

A husband and wife thought to be one of the oldest married couples in New York have celebrated their birthdays — and their combined ages will be 212.

The Journal News reports Duranord Veillard turned 108 on Saturday. His wife, Jeanne Veillard, won’t turn 105 until May. The Veillards have been married 82 years.

The couple celebrated Saturday at the Spring Valley home they share with their daughter.

Astronauts finish tricky cable job

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

Spacewalking astronauts successfully completed a three-day cable job outside the International Space Station on Sunday, routing several-hundred feet of power and data lines for new crew capsules commissioned by NASA.

It was the third spacewalk in just over a week for Americans Terry Virts and Butch Wilmore, and the quickest succession of spacewalks since NASA’s former shuttle days. The advance work was needed for the manned spacecraft under development by Boeing and SpaceX.

Crowd kills teen girl

BAUCHI, Nigeria

A crowd beat to death a teenage girl accused of planning to be a suicide bomber and then set her body ablaze Sunday, according to police and witnesses at a northeastern Nigerian market. A second suspect, also a teenage girl, was arrested at Muda Lawal, the biggest market in Bauchi city.

A spate of suicide bombings has been blamed on Nigeria’s home-grown Boko Haram Islamic extremist group, which wants to enforce strict Islamic law across Nigeria.

In Bauchi, the two girls aroused suspicion by refusing to be searched when they arrived at the gate to the vegetable market, said yam vendor Mohd Adamu. People overpowered one girl and discovered she had two bottles strapped to her body, he said. They clubbed her to death, put a tire doused in fuel over her head and set it on fire, he said. It seems doubtful the girl was actually a bomber as she did not detonate any explosives when she was attacked, said Police Deputy Superintendent Mohammad Haruna.

Iraqi premier gives ultimatum to Sunnis

BAGHDAD

Iraq’s prime minister called on Sunni tribal fighters to abandon the Islamic State group Sunday, ahead of a promised offensive to retake Saddam Hussein’s hometown from the extremists.

Haider al-Abadi offered no timeline for an attack on Tikrit, the hometown of the late Iraqi dictator some 80 miles north of Baghdad that fell into the hands of the Islamic State group last summer. However, Shiite militias and Iraqi security forces have stationed themselves around Tikrit as state-run media has warned that the city “will soon return to its people.”

Associated Press