The clock is ticking with Iran

February 09, 2015 - Daily News Briefing

As nuclear negotiations with Iran enter their final months, any deal, if there is to be one, must be credible.

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The leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine aim to hold a summit in Minsk this week as they try to stem fighting in eastern Ukraine, officials said Sunday. The plan for a meeting Wednesday in the Belarusian capital emerged from a phone call between German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, described the call as "intensive."

Sen. Ted Cruz, a potential presidential candidate is 2016, isn't ruling out sending American ground troops to fight Islamic State militants. The Texas Republican tells ABC's "This Week" that "if need be, we should go that step. But it should be driven by the mission." Cruz says Iraqi Kurds have a good fighting force but need to receive arms more effectively from the United States, rather than through the central government in Baghdad.

Greece's new leftist prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, said on Sunday he would not accept an extension to Greece's current bailout, setting up a clash with EU leaders – who want him to do just that – at a summit on Thursday. Tsipras also pledged his government would heal the "wounds" of austerity, sticking to campaign pledges of giving free food and electricity to those who had suffered, and reinstating civil servants who had been fired as part of bailout austerity conditions. In his first major speech to parliament as premier, the prime minister said he was still optimistic he could reach agreement with Greece's EU partners on a new debt pact and transitional agreement.

Dean Smith, the coaching innovator who won two national championships at North Carolina, an Olympic gold medal in 1976 and induction into basketball's Hall of Fame more than a decade before he left the bench, has died. The retired coach died "peacefully" at his North Carolina home Saturday night, the school said in a statement Sunday from Smith's family. Roy Williams, the current North Carolina coach who spent 10 years as Smith's assistant, said Smith "was the greatest there ever was on the court but far, far better off the court with people." In a career that spanned more than 40 years, Smith coached the likes of Michael Jordan and James Worthy and influenced the game and how it is played in ways that are unrivaled.

A quiet, suburban neighborhood outside Atlanta was left reeling after a man shot six people – killing four of them, including his ex-wife and several children – before ending the rampage by fatally turning the gun on himself, police said. The shooting happened Saturday around 3 p.m. in a subdivision about 20 miles west of Atlanta, Douglas County Sheriff's Lt. Glenn Daniel said.

A teenager who police say opened fire at a Pittsburgh-area mall, shooting his intended target as well as two bystanders, was arrested early Sunday. Gunfire erupted inside the Macy's department store at the Monroeville Mall about 7:30 p.m. Saturday, sending panicked shoppers running. The gunman fled but police say they were able to identify him by matching surveillance video with images on social media.

“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.

To send a comment to the Editor, email editor@csmonitor.com.

“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.

To send a comment to the Editor, email editor@csmonitor.com.

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