A balancing act in Ukraine

April 15, 2014 - Daily News Briefing

Great care is needed right now in managing an explosive situation.

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Ukraine’s acting president urged the UN Monday to send peacekeeping troops to eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian gunmen kept up their rampage of storming and occupying local government offices, police stations, and a small airport. Meanwhile, the White House said there was “overwhelming evidence” that Russia is fomenting unrest in eastern Ukraine, but suggested that President Obama has not yet concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions warrant broader economic sanctions.

US retail sales in March rose by the largest amount in 18 months, led by strong gains in sales of autos, furniture, and a number of other products. The Commerce Department said Monday that retail sales rose 1.1 percent in March, the best showing since September 2012.

The Washington Post and The Guardian won the Pulitzer Prize in public service Monday for revealing the US government’s sweeping surveillance efforts in stories based on thousands of secret documents handed over by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden. The Pulitzer for breaking news was awarded to The Boston Globe for its “exhaustive and empathetic” coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing and the manhunt that followed.

US stocks mounted a modest rally on Monday, helping investors recover some of the ground lost after a rough finish last week. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index gained 14.92 points, or 0.8 percent, to close at 1830.61. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 146.49 points, or 0.9 percent, to 16173.24. The Nasdaq composite rose 22.96 points, or 0.6 percent, to 4022.69.

With just over an hour remaining, the Space X company called off Monday’s planned launch of a space-station cargo ship because of a rocket leak. A new launch date was not set. The next opportunity would be Friday. The launch already had been delayed a full month for various reasons.

Oscar Pistorius came under intense pressure Monday at his murder trial in Pretoria, South Africa. The chief prosecutor dismissed his account of how he killed girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp as a flimsy web of lies and accused the Olympian of staging emotional outbursts to mask difficulty in answering a barrage of probing questions.

Federal transportation authorities are investigating ways to minimize death and injuries in bus crashes following the fiery April 10 wreck that left 10 dead when a FedEx truck slammed into a bus carrying high school students in northern California. The state’s Highway Patrol is cooperating with federal authorities to find out why the truck driver veered into oncoming traffic and never applied brakes.

French investigators began taking DNA samples Monday from 527 male students and staff at Fenelon-Notre Dame high school in western France – including boys as young as 14 – as they searched for the assailant who raped a teenage girl on the closed campus.

Compiled from wire service reports

“The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” – Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily News Briefing is published Monday through Friday by The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

Compiled from wire service reports

“The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.” – Mary Baker Eddy

The Daily News Briefing is published Monday through Friday by The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

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