Civilians need protection

August 01, 2014 - Daily News Briefing

No matter what precautions are taken in combat, innocent people always are caught in the crossfire

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As fighting raged in eastern Ukraine, an international team of investigators on Thursday reached the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and got a first look at where it was brought down by a missile two weeks ago. Clashes along routes to the wreckage site between government troops and pro-Russian separatist rebels had kept the delegation from reaching the area to retrieve bodies that have been lying in open fields where midsummer temperatures have hovered around 90 degrees for the last several weeks. But the investigators were allowed early Thursday afternoon through a checkpoint leading to the crash site at the village of Rozsypne by a rifle-toting militiaman who then fired a warning shot to prevent reporters from accompanying the convoy. - AP

The president of Sierra Leone declared a public health emergency as the Ebola crisis blamed for nearly 700 deaths deepened across West Africa, vowing to quarantine sick patients at home and conduct house-to-house searches for others who may have been exposed. The announcement from President Ernest Bai Koroma late Wednesday came as neighboring Liberia also ramped up its efforts to slow the virulent disease's spread, shutting down schools and ordering most public servants to stay home from work. The US Peace Corps also was evacuating hundreds of its volunteers in the affected countries. Two Peace Corps workers are under isolation outside the US after having contact with a person who later died of the Ebola virus, a State Department official said. - AP

Congressional investigators say this is why they want all of Lois Lerner's emails. Newly released emails show the former IRS official referring to some right-wing Republicans as "crazies" and more, a revelation that is fueling GOP claims of a political conspiracy at the tax agency to target conservative groups. Lerner headed the IRS division that handles applications for tax-exempt status. In a series of emails with an associate in November 2012, Lerner made two disparaging remarks about some members of the GOP, including one remark that was vulgar. - AP

The fight over Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's signature policy achievement, a law effectively ending collective bargaining for most public employees, ended Thursday with the state Supreme Court declaring it to be constitutional. Passage of the law in 2011 put Wisconsin at the center of a nationwide battle over union rights and fueled Walker's rise to national prominence as he entered the mix of possible 2016 presidential candidates. Anger over the law led to Walker being forced to stand for recall in 2012; he won, making him the first governor in US history to withstand such a vote. Walker is up for re-election this November, the third time he will be on the ballot in four years. - AP

Target is bringing in an outsider as its CEO for the first time as the retailer fights to redefine itself to American shoppers. The Minneapolis-based company said Thursday that it named PepsiCo executive Brian Cornell to the top spot, replacing John Mulligan, who had been acting as interim chief executive since May. Mulligan had stepped into the temporary post after former CEO Gregg Steinhafel resigned following a large data breach in the runup to the holiday shopping season. - AP

A fisherman has caught a rare lobster that's bright orange with dark blue spots. Josiah Beringer found the calico lobster in a trap on July 23 in the mouth of New Hampshire's Hampton Harbor. He donated the 1.5-pound, 5-year-old male lobster to the Explore the Ocean World Oceanarium in Hampton. The aquarium's Ellen Goethel says calico lobsters are the second rarest in the world, after albino lobsters. She says the spots are the result of a genetic pigmentation mutation occurring in 1 in every 30 million to 50 million lobsters. - AP

A series of gas explosions on the streets of a southern Taiwanese city killed 15 people and injured 228 others late Thursday night, authorities said. Taiwan's Premier Jiang Yi-huah said at least five explosions shook Kaohsiung. The National Fire Agency said five firefighters were among the dead. - AP

“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.

“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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