Why Turkey matters

June 09, 2015 - Daily News Briefing

Elections curb President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's increasing authoritarianism and underscore the durability of Turkish democracy.

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Investigators are looking into whether civilian employees or private contractors helped two convicted killers obtain the power tools they used to break out of a maximum-security state prison near the Canadian border, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday. Officials said David Sweat and Richard Matt cut through steel walls at the back of their adjacent cells and steel pipes while making their "Shawshank Redemption"-style breakout, which guards discovered early Saturday. Sweat and Matt were still on the loose Monday.

Prison officials have recommended that Oscar Pistorius, who killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, be released from prison Aug. 21 for good behavior after serving just 10 months and be moved to house arrest, the head of correctional services said on Monday. The news emerged the same day the country's Supreme Court of Appeal announced the prosecution's appeal against Pistorius' acquittal on a murder charge for killing Ms. Steenkamp would be heard in November. Pistorius, the double-amputee Olympic athlete, was found guilty of culpable homicide for shooting Steenkamp multiple times through a closed toilet door in his home in 2013. He was sentenced to five years in prison.

A grand jury affirmed the state of South Carolina's murder charge on Monday against a white former North Charleston police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man trying to run from a traffic stop. The shooting April 4 was captured on video by a bystander, showing officer Michael Slager firing eight times as 50-year-old Walter Scott ran away, enflaming a national debate about how black people are treated by white police officers. Prosecutor Scarlett Wilson announced the indictment, which represents at least the fourth time in less than six months that a sitting grand jury in South Carolina has agreed that white officers should stand trial in the shootings of black men.

Prosecutors in Boston on Monday released a video of the fatal police shooting last week of a man who had been under surveillance in a terrorism investigation, showing officers initially retreating before opening fire. Usaamah Abdullah Rahim had been under 24-hour watch by the Joint Terrorism Task Force when FBI agents and a Boston police officer approached him on Tuesday in a parking lot to question him after wire-tapped phone calls revealed that he planned to try to behead police officers, in an attack apparently inspired by Islamic State militants.

Government airstrikes on a northwestern Syrian village Monday killed at least 49 people and left survivors screaming in anguish, according to activists and videos of the chaotic aftermath. The Local Coordination Committees said two air raids on the village of Janoudiyeh in Idlib province killed 60 people and wounded others. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the air raid killed 49 people, including six children. It said the death toll could rise as some people are still missing.

McDonald's Corp posted a smaller-than-expected drop in worldwide sales at established restaurants in May after a lift from value meal deals in Europe helped offset continued weakness in the United States, its top market for profit. The world's biggest restaurant chain by revenue is fighting to lure back customers lost to slower service, more nimble rivals and increasing consumer demand for fresh, less-processed food.

“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.

Subscribe Now to read this post!

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