US

United States

Texas

12/10/13

A Texas woman pleaded guilty Tuesday to sending ricin-laced letters to President Barack Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, under a deal that her attorney has said would cap prison time at 18 years. (Dec. 10)

Missouri

7/17/14

BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court was asked to halt the execution Wednesday of a convicted killer in Missouri after a federal appeals court ruled the lethal injection could move forward.
John Middleton was originally scheduled to die one minute after midnight Wednesday for killing three people in rural northern Missouri in 1995. But less than two hours earlier, a federal judge ruled there was enough evidence of mental illness that a new hearing should take place.

Detroit

7/14/14

Jack Tocco, believed to be the longest-serving mob boss in the United States and the last living person with first-hand knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the death of Jimmy Hoffa, has died aged 87.

Tocco, who died on Monday, was the godfather in Detroit for 35 years, longer than any current godfather in the country, according to Scott Burnstein, an author and expert on organized crime in the city.

"He is one of the last, if not the last, link to the golden era of the American Mafia," he said.

Since the 1930s, when Jack Tocco's father and uncle founded the Mafia in Detroit, a Tocco has led the mob in the city, Burnstein said.

Tocco, known as "Black Jack," owned a race track and a business that provided linen to local hotels. He was convicted of federal racketeering in 1998 and sentenced to two years in prison, according to Burnstein.

California

7/17/14

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A blast of gunfire killed an automobile mechanic and wounded a cousin who was driving him home from work as their teenage sons sat behind the two men in a Southern California freeway shooting that has left police searching for suspects and a motive.

Agustin Villegas, 32, was riding in the front passenger seat of the family pickup truck through Anaheim on Monday night when the front passenger and driver-side windows exploded in shards of glass, Anaheim Police Lieutenant Bob Dunn said.

The driver, a 42-year-old cousin visiting from Arizona, managed to pull the truck to the side of the road and with the help of his son called emergency-911 for help.

Florida

7/17/14

FRUITLAND PARK, Fla. (AP) — The ex-wife of a police officer who left the department after a report tied him to the Ku Klux Klan told investigators that the couple joined the group as part of an undercover operation, according to a report released Tuesday by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Ann Hunnewell said she and her ex-husband, George Hunnewell, joined the KKK in 2008 at the request of then-Police Chief Mark Isom. She said they were trying to find out if another officer was a KKK member.

No one answered the phone at numbers listed for Isom. The officer Hunnewell said she and her ex-husband were investigating later resigned.

Ann Hunnewell was a secretary for the police department before leaving in 2010.

Her statements were contained in a Florida Department of Law Enforcement report tying officer Hunnewell and Deputy Chief David Borst to the KKK. Borst resigned and Hunnewell was fired last week.

A phone number listed for Borst was disconnected. Hunnewell's number was not listed.

The information about the former officers was given to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement by the FBI. Parts of the Florida report were redacted and it's not clear what the FBI was investigating when it discovered the officers link to the KKK.

An FBI spokesman in Jacksonville hasn't responded to a voicemail.

Ann Hunnewell told investigators that she and her former husband never paid dues, attended meetings or witnessed any criminal activity. She also said there was no documentation of their undercover operation.

Fruitland Park Police Chief Terry Isaacs wasn't in his office Tuesday and City Manager Gary La Venia wouldn't comment. La Venia said the police chief would issue a statement on Wednesday.

The police department has 13 officers for the city has about 5,000 residents. It is located about 40 miles northwest of Orlando.

Fruitland Park was once known for its citrus groves and is in Lake County, where KKK violence in the 1940s and 1950s was rampant.

The State Attorney's Office told city officials that pending cases from the officers will be reviewed, although Borst's job was primarily administrative and didn't involve much patrolling, La Venia said.

Ukraine

Ukraine

7/16/14

KIEV (Reuters) - Fighting raged in Ukraine's east on Wednesday when separatists tried to break through the lines of government forces near the border with Russia and a tentative step towards agreeing conditions for a ceasefire failed.

Eleven more Ukrainian soldiers were killed in the space of 24 hours while hundreds of bodies of rebels were found in shallow graves in a former separatist stronghold, the army said.

Fighting has escalated sharply since Friday with the downing of a Ukrainian military transport plane and the deaths of civilians in air and artillery attacks on residential areas on both sides of the border, which Russia and Ukraine have blamed on each other.

Accusations of direct Russian involvement in the three and a half month conflict, in which hundreds have died, is being pushed hard by Ukraine to persuade the United States and its European allies to impose tougher sanctions on Russia.

In telephone conversations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, late on Tuesday, President Petro Poroshenko again set out evidence of fighters crossing into Ukraine from Russia with heavy military equipment, his website said.

Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk leveled harsh criticism at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Everything which is happening in Ukraine has been planned by Russia since 2004. Putin has a clear plan and that is to destroy Ukraine and establish his influence over post-Soviet space," he said in a public speech carried by his website.

Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's defense and security council, told journalists that separatists had kept up attacks overnight on government positions along the border.

Government troops had been ambushed by separatists at Izvarino on the border and there had been early morning clashes near the border settlement of Stepanivka when separatists tried to break out of encirclement by the army.

Lysenko said that in Slaviansk, a former rebel stronghold re-taken by government forces, "hundreds of bodies of...(rebel) fighters" had been found under a light covering of earth.

Eleven people were said by local health authorities to have been killed in an air strike at the Ukrainian town of Snizhne, 20 km (12 miles) from the border.

{whose airstrike?}

Since losing Slaviansk, rebels has been pushed back to the main industrial city of Donetsk though they also remain in control of the border town of Luhansk.

Donetsk, which had a pre-conflict population of about 900,000 people, has been steadily emptying as thousands, fearing a government offensive, have fled.

Lyudmila, 35, who was leaving Donetsk, said: "I have been forced to gather up my things and get away from this lawless, genocide, which is happening. I am simply saving my children. My husband is staying behind. I have left my home and my work. I am leaving to save my children."

People:

Ukraine

Ukraine President – Petro Poroshenko

Ukraine Prime Minister - Arseny Yatseniuk

Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's defense and security council,

Ukraine Defense Minister Valery Heletey

Rebels

Aleksandr Borodai – Separatist Leader

Alexander Khodakovsky – rebel leader

Nikolay Kozitsyn – rebel leader

Sergei Kavtaradze, a spokesman for separatists in Donetsk

The insurgency's military leader, Igor Girkin

Swiss Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Didier Burkhalter

Towns –

Rebel control – Slaviansk (former) – hundreds of bodies found in shallow grave, Donetsk, Luhansk

Snizhne – 11 people dead in airstrike –

Rebel attacks in the towns of Izvarino and Luhansk

Zelenopillya,

Marinivka – rebel owned?

Places;

Luhansk airport

Organizations:

the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)

Countries

Russia versus Ukraine

France + Russia

US + Ukraine

Others – Germany,

EU – is on Ukraine’s side – is this conflict about Ukraine joining the European Union?

07/14/14

President Petro Poroshenko held an emergency meeting of his security chiefs after a weekend of Ukrainian air strikes on rebel positions near the border with Russia

Diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis have so far made little progress. However, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said a "Contact Group" - which includes Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) - aimed to talk to the rebels by video link on Tuesday and meet them in person soon afterwards.

the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)

(look this organization up ) – who are they? What do they do?

Lysenko added that three Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and 12 more injured in the fighting in the past 24 hours.

The Ukrainian army said it had broken a rebel encirclement of Luhansk airport on Sunday night. A spokesman for the so-called Luhansk People's Republic said 30 volunteer fighters had been killed in Ukrainian fire on Oleksandrivka, a village to the east of the town, Russia's Interfax news agency said.

As military action continued on Monday near the rebel-controlled border town of Luhansk, Ukraine's defence minister said a Ukrainian AN-26 transport plane, taking part in the military campaign against the rebels, had been shot down by a rocket which was "probably" fired from Russian territory.

Lysenko said separatists, backed by what he described as Russian "mercenaries", had fired on Ukrainian border guards in an attempt to give cover as armored vehicles and equipment were being brought into the country.

Russia said it had invited monitors from the OSCE, a European security and rights body, to visit two of its border crossings with Ukraine as a sign of goodwill.

(Does Russia have an undue influence on this organization?)

A few hundred Ukrainians protested against France's sale of two Mistral helicopter carrier vessels to Russia outside a museum in Kiev on Monday where the French national day was being celebrated.

Russian seamen are training in France on the amphibious assault ships which will be delivered by the end of the year under a 1.2 billion euro ($1.6 billion) deal signed in 2011.

(France sold Russia amphibious assault ships - $1.6 billion)

The EU - Ukraine's strategic partner with which it signed a landmark political and trade agreement last month - targeted a group of separatist leaders with travel bans and asset freezes on Saturday but avoided fresh sanctions on Russian business.

(who are these individuals?)

US Ambassador Anthony Gardner told Brussels journalists that his country had have maintained a high degree of collaboration with the EU.

July 12, 2014

The European Union targeted Ukrainian separatist leader Aleksandr Borodai and 10 other rebels with travel bans and asset freezes on Saturday, avoiding fresh sanctions on Russian business to avoid antagonizing its main energy supplier.

EU governments widened their blacklist

(there is a blacklist – who is on the blacklist?)

Borodai, a 41-year-old Russian citizen, told a news conference in May that he was a political advisor who helped Russia's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula Crimea in March and then moved to eastern Ukraine to help separatists there.

He denies any links to Moscow.

Others on the EU list include Alexander Khodakovsky, a defector from the Ukrainian state security service who now commands rebels, and Nikolay Kozitsyn, identified by the EU as another rebel commander.

Poroshenko had pledged to "find and destroy" the pro-Russian rebels responsible for the missile attack at Zelenopillya, which also injured nearly 100.

OSCE

From their website

http://www.osce.org

The OSCE has a comprehensive approach to security that encompasses politico-military, economic and environmental, and human aspects. It therefore addresses a wide range of security-related concerns, including arms control, confidence- and security-building measures, human rights, national minorities, democratization, policing strategies, counter-terrorism and economic and environmental activities. All 57 participating States enjoy equal status, and decisions are taken by consensus on a politically, but not legally binding basis.

Swiss Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Didier Burkhalter, at a press conference on the sidelines of the 2014 Annual Security Review Conference, Vienna, 24 June 2014. (OSCE/Isabella Zaratsyan)

2014 Annual Security Review Conference, Vienna, 24 June 2014

7/17/14

Sergei Kavtaradze, a spokesman for separatists in Donetsk, said one rebel militiaman was killed and 15 others injured in fighting in the village of Marinivka. The insurgency's military leader, Igor Girkin, told the Russian television station LifeNews that his men destroyed two Ukrainian armored vehicles and captured another.

In the rebel-held city of Donetsk, a stronghold for insurgent forces

Russia

Russia

July 16

Flowers are left in memory of victims of Tuesday's accident, in which three carriages derailed on a train during morning rush hour, at the entrance to a metro station in Moscow July 16, 2014. Russian state investigators said on Wednesday they had detained two Moscow metro workers suspected of safety breaches that may have caused an accident that killed at least 21 people

Nigeria

Nigeria
MAIDUGURI Nigeria (Reuters) - At least 26 people were killed when suspected Islamist Boko Haram militants stormed a village in northeast Nigeria and a government warplane opened fire to repel the attackers, local residents and a security source said on Tuesday.

The warplane strafed Boko Haram fighters fleeing in pick-up trucks after raiding Dille, near Lassa in the south of Borno State, for several hours on Monday. The attackers fired on inhabitants and burned homes and churches.

"I counted 26 corpses yesterday evening," one of the residents, Dauda Illiya, told Reuters.

Most of the deaths occurred during the raid but cannon fire from the government jet also killed at least six civilians - four women and two children, residents said.

"The pilot was just spraying bullets anywhere ... People were running here and there. Many people were injured from the bullets," said a local man, Suleiman Haruna.

Nigeria's defense headquarters in Abuja did not respond to a request for comment on the incident, but a security source in Borno State confirmed the deployment of the military plane.

The residents and the security source said 20 militants were killed by local vigilantes who fought back, but this could not be confirmed as witnesses said the raiders carried off their dead in their trucks.

Nigeria's armed forces are facing a fierce offensive in the northeast by the Islamist group Boko Haram, whose marauding bands of fighters have stepped up attacks against towns and villages after kidnapping more than 200 schoolgirls in April.

That abduction triggered an international outcry and increased support from Western governments for President Goodluck Jonathan's fight against Boko Haram, which has killed thousands and abducted hundreds since launching an uprising in 2009.

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sinful", says it wants to set up an Islamic state in Nigeria, whose population is split between Christians and Muslims.

With the abducted schoolgirls still missing three months after their kidnap, Jonathan faces criticism at home and abroad over the deteriorating security situation in Africa's leading oil producer and biggest economy. [ID:nL2N0PJ0CP]

Authorities and military experts fear Boko Haram, which has claimed bomb attacks in recent months in the capital Abuja and in the coastal commercial hub Lagos, is seeking to push its insurgency into the more prosperous south. [ID:nL6N0PN09G]

BOMBING SUSPECT EXTRADITED

Nigeria's state security services said on Tuesday that a Boko Haram suspect and national army deserter, Aminu Sadiq Ogwuche, who was sought for alleged involvement in April 14 and May 1 bomb attacks in the Abuja area that killed 94 people, had been extradited to Nigeria from Sudan.

"Yes, he's with us", State Security spokewoman Marilyn Ogar told Reuters. She said Ogwuche was arrested by the international police agency Interpol in Sudan on a warrant from Nigeria.
The suspected militants who on Monday attacked Dille, which is not far from the Cameroon border, were believed to have come from Boko Haram's Sambisa forest stronghold where at least some of the kidnapped girls are thought to be held.
On Monday, Jonathan promised that the missing 219 girls, snatched on April 14 from Chibok, also in Borno State, would soon return home, teenage Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai said after meeting him. [ID:nL6N0PP439]
Malala, who became a global celebrity after surviving being shot in the head by the Taliban for campaigning for girls' education, was visiting Nigeria to support the international campaign for the release of the abducted Nigerian students.