A cat-and-mouse fight for free speech

April 23, 2014 - Daily News Briefing

Even secure messaging may not stay secure forever.

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A state’s voters are free to outlaw the use of race as a factor in college admissions, the US Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a blow to affirmative action that also laid bare tensions among the justices about a continuing need for programs that address racial inequality in America. The 6-to-2 decision upheld a voter-approved change to the Michigan Constitution that forbids the state’s public colleges to take race into account. The ruling bolsters similar voter-approved initiatives banning affirmative action in education in California and Washington State.

Ukraine’s acting president ordered security forces to resume “antiterror” operations in the country’s east Tuesday after the bodies of two people allegedly abducted by pro-Russia insurgents were found and a military aircraft was reported to be hit by gunfire. The twin developments – which came just hours after US Vice President Joe Biden left Kiev, the Ukrainian capital – raised fears that last week’s international agreement on easing Ukraine’s crisis was failing.

The UN’s top humanitarian official in South Sudan says he saw “piles and piles” of bodies after rebels belonging to one ethnic group slaughtered members of other groups in a remote town. UN human rights investigators said Monday that hundreds of civilians were killed last week because of their ethnicity after rebel forces seized Bentiu, the capital of oil-producing Unity state.

Weakened Syrian rebels are making their last desperate stand in Homs as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad launch their harshest assault yet to expel them from the central city, once known as the capital of the revolution. Some among the hundreds of rebels remaining in the city talk of surrender, according to opposition activists there. Others have lashed back against the siege with suicide car bombings in districts under government control. Some fighters are turning on comrades they suspect want to desert, pushing them into battle.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned Tuesday that if peace talks with Israel fail he may dismantle the Palestinian Authority and hand over responsibility for 2.5 million of his people to Israel. Abbas told a group of visiting Israeli reporters that their country’s policies have left his West Bank government powerless.

Leaders of Roots of Hope, the largest nonprofit organization for young Cuban-Americans, quietly provided strategic support for the US government’s secret “Cuban Twitter” program, connecting contractors with potential investors and even serving as paid consultants, The Associated Press has learned. The disclosure could have wide repercussions for what has become one of the most visible and influential Cuban-American organizations.

The fertilizer plant explosion that killed 15 people last year in a tiny Texas town could have been prevented, even if it’s still not clear what started an initial fire that triggered the blast, federal officials said Tuesday. The US Chemical Safety Board announced its findings after a year of investigating the blast in West, Texas, that also injured 200 and decimated parts of the town.

General Motors Co. has filed suit in a US bankruptcy court asking a judge to protect the company from legal claims for actions that took place before it emerged from bankruptcy in 2009. The suit was filed Monday evening in the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. A hearing has not yet been set. The filing asserts that the “numerous lawsuits” recently filed throughout the US dealing with GM’s recall of cars with possible ignition-switch problems are “retained liabilities” of the old GM, not the new company.

Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny was found guilty in a libel case Tuesday and fined $8,400, a ruling that leaves the door open for his subsequent jailing. The Babushkinsky Court upheld the claim of municipal deputy Alexei Lisovenko, who sued Navalny for calling him a drug addict earlier this month after Lisovenko claimed that Navalny was violating his parole.

A court has ordered eight Philippine Coast Guard personnel to be arrested on a homicide charge in the fatal shooting of a Taiwanese fisherman last year. Government prosecutors filed the charges last month after rejecting allegations by the Coast Guard crew members that they fired at the Taiwanese fishing boat in self-defense.

A leader of ethnic Kachin rebels battling government forces in Myanmar (Burma) has urged the US to play a role in peace talks to quell decades of conflict in the country’s lawless border regions. Clashes in northern Myanmar intensified this month despite efforts to forge a nationwide cease-fire agreement between the government and all armed ethnic groups.

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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