Where investigations have led

January 16, 2014 - Daily News Briefing

Political scandals begin with bombshell revelations, followed by aftershocks as details trickle out.

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Leaders of both political parties pushed a massive $1.1 trillion US spending bill for this year through the House on Wednesday, shunning the turmoil of recent budget clashes with a compromise financing everything from airports to war costs and brimming with victories and concessions for both parties. The huge bill furnishes the fine print –1,582 pages of it – for the bipartisan pact approved in December that set overall spending levels for the next couple of years.

Iraqi airstrikes pounded a town near Fallujah that had been seized by Al Qaeda-linked militants, and commandos swept in Wednesday to clear the area, senior military officials said. It was a rare victory for government forces that have been struggling for nearly three weeks to regain control of the mainly Sunni area west of Baghdad. North of the capital, a bomb tore through a funeral of an anti-Al Qaeda Sunni militiaman, the deadliest in a series of attacks that killed at least 50 people nationwide.

World sea piracy fell for a third straight year in 2013, as Somali pirates were curbed by international naval patrols and improved ship vigilance, an international maritime watchdog said Wednesday. The International Maritime Bureau said global pirate attacks fell to a six-year low of 264, down from 297 in 2012.

The US Air Force says 34 nuclear missile launch officers have been implicated in a cheating scandal and have been stripped of their certification in what is believed to be the largest such breach of integrity in the nuclear force. Some of the officers apparently texted to each other the answers to a monthly test on their knowledge of how to operate the missiles. Others may have known about it but did not report it.

A Danish tourist was gang-raped near a popular shopping area in New Delhi after she got lost and approached a group of men for directions back to her hotel, police said Wednesday. A police spokesman said two people were arrested after a day-long search for the suspects. The attack is the latest crime to focus attention on the scourge of sexual violence in India.

US officials have received a new video of captured US Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl that they believe was taken within the past month, showing that the soldier is alive. The video came to light several days ago, said one senior defense official. Bergdahl was taken prisoner in Afghanistan in 2009. It is believed he is being held somewhere in Pakistan.

The annual rate of Israeli settler attacks against Palestiniians has almost quadrupled in eight years, UN figures show, buttressing claims that Israeli security forces have largely failed to stem the so-called price tag campaign in which thugs cut down trees, deface mosques, and beat Palestinian farmers. Israeli leaders have repeatedly denounced such attacks – the defense minister has branded them “outright terrorism” – and the military says soldiers are under strict orders to stop them.

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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