NATION & WORLD || Storm damage

Storm damage

JACKSON, Miss.

A trail of damage was left at an Army post, schools and businesses were closed for a second day and a damaged women’s prison was running partly on backup power Wednesday after two days of storms unleashed tornadoes and flooding in the South and dumped heavy snow in the Midwest.

The most-recent apparent twister knocked down some trees and damaged vehicles and buildings at Fort Stewart in southeast Georgia on Wednesday evening, spokesman Kevin Larson said. He said the extent of the damage was not immediately known, but there were no reports of injuries. Fort Stewart is the largest Army post east of the Mississippi River. Much of its land area is uninhabited forestland.

Cause of jet blast thought to be bomb

MOGADISHU, Somalia

An explosion that blew a hole in a jetliner shortly after takeoff and left one man missing was believed to have been caused by a bomb, the pilot said Wednesday, describing how the crew calmed frightened passengers as smoke enveloped the cabin before he brought the plane back to Mogadishu’s airport for an emergency landing.

Residents of Balad, a town about 18 miles north of Mogadishu, found the body of a man who might have been blown out of the Airbus 321 in Tuesday’s blast, said police officer Mohamed Hassan.

Real-estate heir pleads guilty

NEW ORLEANS

A New York real-estate heir pleaded guilty in New Orleans on Wednesday to a weapons charge and agreed to an 85-month prison sentence, a move that could usher in his extradition to California to face murder charges.

U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt told Robert Durst that he will not make the plea final before he reviews a pre-sentencing report due in two weeks.

Durst, 72, appeared frail. He said mostly “Yes, your honor” and occasionally “I’m sorry; I couldn’t hear that.” Defense attorney Richard DeGuerin occasionally repeated questions into Durst’s right ear; he told the judge that Durst’s left ear is completely deaf.

Break in peace talks

GENEVA

The peace talks in the Syrian civil war are taking a break. The fighting is not.

U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura announced Wednesday there would be a “temporary pause” in the indirect peace talks between the government and opposition, saying the process will resume Feb. 25.

In a statement later in the day, de Mistura’s office said the talks would take a “recess” by the end of Friday and would resume “no later than 25 February, and possibly much earlier.”

The delay reflects the rocky start of the talks Monday in which neither the government nor the opposition even acknowledged that the negotiations had officially begun.

Moment of silence replaces prayer

PHOENIX

The Phoenix City Council voted Wednesday to replace a longstanding tradition of prayer before meetings with a moment of silence, preventing a scheduled prayer by a group with “Satan” in its name and averting a lawsuit.

The moment of silence was offered as an alternate motion to a measure that would have allowed the mayor and councilors to take turns in selecting who gives the invocation. That measure would not have blocked The Satanic Temple’s prayer scheduled for Feb. 17, city attorney Brad Holm said.

Associated Press