A 'caliphate' of fear cannot rule

July 01, 2014 - Daily News Briefing

The hearts of everyone -- of any religion or no religion -- know that brutality and fear cannot build a nation.

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Israeli security forces on Monday found the bodies of three teenagers who went missing in the West Bank earlier this month and confirmed them as the Israeli seminary students sought since June 12.

Israel has accused the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which has its power base in the Gaza Strip, of being behind the abduction of the teenagers. Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

The fragile, 10-day cease-fire in eastern Ukraine expired Monday night with no immediate word from the country's president on whether he would extend it, and no sign that the pro-Moscow separatists had met his demands to ease the violence.

As the truce entered its final hours, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko discussed the situation in a phone call with the leaders of Russia, Germany and France, saying the rebels had not "fulfilled the conditions."

A panel of mental health experts has concluded that Oscar Pistorius was not suffering from a mental illness when he killed girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in his home in South Africa last year, the chief prosecutor at the athlete's murder trial said Monday.

Pistorius' trial resumed after a break of one month during which a psychologist and three psychiatrists also assessed whether the double-amputee runner was capable of understanding the wrongfulness of his act when he shot Steenkamp through a closed toilet door.

An evacuation slide inflated inside a United Airlines plane as it flew from Chicago to California, filling part of the cabin and forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing in Kansas, the airline and passengers said.

Mike Schroeder said he was flying to Orange County, California, late Sunday when he heard a hiss and pop. Schroeder said he turned around and saw the plane's evacuation slide – which would normally go outside the plane during an emergency – inflating inside the cabin.

United Airlines officials said in a statement Monday that no one aboard Flight 1463 was injured.

A businessman looking to invest more time in his traveling concession business is seeking a buyer for his rural, southwestern South Dakota town – for the price of $400,000.

Lance Benson is the sole owner of Swett, an unincorporated hamlet in Bennett County about two hours southeast of Rapid City. Benson – who bought the town in 1998, gave it to his ex-wife in their divorce and reclaimed it in 2012 – put the town on the market last week, according to the Rapid City Journal.

California Governor Jerry Brown on Saturday signed into law a bill that clears away possible state-level obstacles to alternative currencies such as bitcoin.

The legislation repeals what backers said was an outdated California law prohibiting commerce using anything but US currency.

The first prosecution arising from the Benghazi attacks that killed four Americans, including an ambassador, is playing out in the federal courthouse blocks from both the White House and Congress, an appropriate setting for a case that has drawn stark lines between President Barack Obama and Republicans in Congress.

The criminal proceedings could provide new insights into the 2012 attacks and will serve as the latest test of the US legal system's ability to handle terrorism suspects captured overseas. Unfolding during an election year, the case against alleged mastermind Ahmed Abu Khattala could also help shape the legacies of Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, and spill over into the potential 2016 presidential candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“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.