Not taking an ally for granted

July 11, 2014 - Daily News Briefing

Germany and the US have deep ties and extensive common interests. Why strain them by spying?

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A gunman charged Thursday in the killing of four children and their parents was dressed as a FedEx delivery man when he arrived at the suburban Houston home where the family was shot to death, officials said. Ronald Lee Haskell, 33, is charged with multiple counts of capital murder in the killings Wednesday evening in Spring, Texas, Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Ron Hickman said early Thursday. He also is accused of critically wounding a 15-year-old girl in the shooting rampage.

Germany asked the top US intelligence official at the Berlin embassy on Thursday to leave the country, a highly unusual step reflecting the deep anger within Angela Merkel's government at the discovery of two suspected US spies within a week. The scandal has plunged ties between Germany and one of its closest allies to a new low following last year's revelations from former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden about widespread surveillance of Germans, including Merkel.

An intense fire ravaged a three-story apartment building in Lowell, Mass., before dawn Thursday, killing four adults and three children, forcing tenants to jump or hand their children to safety, and leading to dramatic rescues from upper floors. The victims in this former mill city about 25 miles northwest of Boston were all found in units on the top floor of the building, which had a liquor store on the ground floor and apartments on the upper floors, fire officials said. Nine people were hospitalized with injuries not considered life threatening.

Chinese hackers broke into the computer networks of the US Office of Personnel Management earlier this year with the intention of accessing the files of tens of thousands of federal employees who had applied for top-secret security clearances, according to The New York Times. Senior US officials say the hackers gained access to some of the agency's databases in March before the threat was detected and blocked, the Times reported in an article posted on its website Wednesday night. How far the hackers penetrated the agency's systems was not yet clear, the newspaper said.

A county clerk who has been issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in defiance of Colorado's gay-marriage ban can continue, a judge ruled Thursday. The judge said Boulder County clerk Hillary Hall can ignore a federal stay on a ruling from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver that states cannot set gender requirements for marriage. The judge said gay marriage is still technically illegal in Colorado but that Hall's behavior was not harming anyone.

American Apparel Inc. announced late Wednesday it had reached a deal with investment firm Standard General to receive an investment of up to $25 million to bolster the clothing chain's finances. It will also mean a shake-up in the board. The deal will help pay off a $10 million loan from investment firm Lion Capital, which made a formal demand for payment Monday. Lion Capital claimed that the chain defaulted under its credit agreement because the Los Angeles-based clothing chain ousted its founder and CEO Dov Charney.

The price of oil continued to fall Thursday, trading below $102 a barrel as the outlook for supply remained robust. By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark US crude for August delivery was down 34 cents to $101.95 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, a benchmark for international oils, was down 12 cents to $108.16 on the ICE Futures exchange in London. Oil has been falling steadily for more than a week partly because worries about disruptions of the oil supply from Iraq have subsided and Libyan oil is returning to the global market.

“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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