On 'Bin Laden's Bookshelf'

May 21, 2015 - Daily News Briefing

Newly released documents indicate the Al Qaeda leader was smart -- but not beyond being outsmarted.

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Osama bin Laden was fixated on attacking US targets and pressured Al Qaeda groups to heal local rivalries and focus on that cause, according to documents the United States says were seized in bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan and released on Wednesday. A July 2010 letter, which was among the materials released by US intelligence, showed that bin Laden pressed Al Qaeda in Yemen, one of the group's more active affiliates, to make peace with the government and focus on America.

Five of the world's largest banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co and Citigroup Inc, were fined roughly $5.7 billion, and four of them pleaded guilty to US criminal charges over manipulation of foreign exchange rates, authorities said on Wednesday. A fifth bank, UBS AG , will plead guilty to rigging benchmark interest rates, the US Justice Department said. British banks Barclays Plc will pay $650 million in criminal penalties and Royal Bank of Scotland Plc $395 million. Each will plead guilty to one felony count of conspiring to fix prices and rig bids for US dollars and euros in the foreign exchange spot market.

Islamic State stormed the historic Syrian city of Palmyra on Wednesday, seizing parts of it from government forces in fierce fighting as civilians were evacuated and Syria's antiquities chief called on the world to save its ancient ruins. If the Al Qaeda offshoot takes over Palmyra, it would be the first time it has captured a city directly from President Bashar al-Assad's forces, which have already lost ground in northwest and southern Syria to other insurgent groups in recent weeks.

Cleanup crews fanned out Wednesday along a stretch of scenic California coastline stained by thousands of gallons of crude oil that spilled from a broken pipe and flowed into the Pacific Ocean. Workers from an environmental cleanup company strapped on boots and gloves and picked up shovels and rakes to tackle the gobs of goo stuck to sand and rocks along Refugio State Beach on the southern Santa Barbara County coast. The accident Tuesday happened on the same stretch of coastline as a 1969 spill, which was the largest ever in US waters at the time and is credited with giving rise to the American environmental movement.

Target reported a nearly 52 percent increase in its first-quarter profit on strong sales of fashion and baby items, evidence that its efforts to turn around its business are paying off. The retailer, based in Minneapolis, also boosted the bottom end of its annual profit outlook. Target Corp. is aiming to reinvent itself as a more nimble and innovative company and trying to reclaim its reputation as a cheap chic retailer under CEO Brian Cornell, who took the top job last year.

By taking a wrong turn in a dry riverbed in Kenya, scientists discovered a trove of stone tools far older than any ever found before. Nobody knows who made them – or why. At 3.3 million years old, they push back the record of stone tools by about 700,000 years. More significantly, they are half-a-million years older than any known trace of our own branch of the evolutionary tree.

“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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