Around the World: February 9, 2015

 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are trying for a public display of unity despite a potential split over arming Ukrainian fighters to wage a more effective battle against Russian-backed separatists.

 

That was the unstated point of Monday's meeting at the White House, where Merkel was to brief Obama on upcoming talks aimed at reviving a peace plan for besieged Ukraine.

 

At issue is not only Russian President Vladimir Putin's support for the separatists but the revival of the Soviet Cold War strategy of trying to create a critical division between the United States and its NATO allies, Germany in particular.

 

Merkel and French President Francois Hollande met with Ukrainian leaders and Putin last week and have announced a new summit meeting for Wednesday in Minsk. French and German leaders are to sit down with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Putin in an attempt to breathe life into a much-violated September peace plan. The United States will not be at the table.

 

That meeting in the Belarusian capital takes place with Merkel and Hollande deeply opposed to arming Ukraine in its bid to push back the separatists that NATO and the United States insist are being armed by Russia, which also has troops fighting in the eastern Ukraine.

 

The White House has let it be known that Obama, who had resisted calls to send arms, was now considering doing just that. Opponents of arming Kiev believe that could open a proxy war between Washington and Moscow. Merkel and Hollande insist the only way to end the conflict is through diplomacy.

 

 

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's Cabinet has indefinitely suspended the national soccer league after at least 22 fans were killed in a stampede and clashes with police outside a Cairo stadium, three years after Egypt witnessed one of the deadliest soccer riots in the sport's history.

 

The Cabinet announced the suspension late Sunday after riot police clashed with hundreds of soccer fans and fired tear gas to clear a narrow corridor leading to the Air Defense stadium in an eastern Cairo suburb, setting off a deadly stampede.

 

Egypt last suspended the league in 2012 after 74 fans were killed in rioting at a match in the Suez Canal city of Port Said. That violence sparked widespread outrage at the police and the then-ruling transitional military council for not doing enough to stop the killings.

 

Fans have only recently been allowed back in stadiums, but authorities continue to limit the number who can attend.

 

Egypt's public prosecutor has ordered an investigation of the violence. The largely militarized police force is already facing heightened scrutiny following the shooting death of an unarmed female protester last month in downtown Cairo.

 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Spending for the Department of Homeland Security hangs in the balance as Congress fights over immigration matters in the agency's annual funding bill. Without action by Feb. 27, the department's budget will shut off.

 

To hear Democrats and many Republicans tell it, the result would be unacceptable risks to U.S. security at a time of grave threats worldwide. In reality, though, most people will see little change if the department's money flow is halted, and some of the warnings of doom are as exaggerated as they are striking.

 

"There are ghoulish, grim predators out there who would love to kill us or do us harm," said Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. "We should not be dillydallying and playing parliamentary pingpong with national security."

 

In the view of some House conservatives, though, shutting off the agency's $40 billion budget for a time "is obviously not the end of the world," as Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., put it, because many agency employees would stay at work through a shutdown.

 

Who's right, and what would the impact be if Congress were to let money for the department lapse?

Three of the four top Grammys now staying with Sam Smith; he thanks his muse for big haul

Somewhere in England sits a man who was the unwitting inspiration for the biggest winner at the Grammy Awards.

 

He's the man who loved, and dumped, 22-year-old British soul singer Sam Smith. Smith's yearning hit, "Stay With Me," won Grammys for song and record of the year and he was named best new artist — three of the four biggest awards the Grammys present each year. His album, "In the Lonely Hour," won best pop vocal album but lost to Beck for album of the year.

 

Still, not a bad haul.

 

While accepting his record of the year award, Smith said he wanted to thank the man he's been in love with for the past year "for breaking my heart, 'cause you got me four Grammys."

Backstage later, Smith said that "I'll be seeing him soon, so I can let him touch the Grammys — once."

 

 

BOSTON (AP) — Snow is falling yet again on New England and portions of New York state, threatening to bring up to 1 to 2 feet to some areas and making the first commutes of the workweek potentially hazardous.

 

The National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings for central New York, the western Catskills and much of New England through early Tuesday.

 

Government officials Sunday announced that schools and municipal offices in many communities would be closed and that parking bans would be in effect. As accidents began to accumulate, drivers were warned to stay off the slick roads.

 

"This storm marks our third major snow storm we have experienced in nearly two weeks," as parts of Massachusetts have already seen over 60 inches of snowfall, said Gov. Charlie Baker. He said it would cause "many challenges" for the state.

 

The Boston area was expected to receive 1 to 2 feet of snow through Tuesday while Hartford, Connecticut, and Providence, Rhode Island, could each get up to a foot.

 

 

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Tori Sisson and Shante Wolfe camped in a blue and white tent outside the Montgomery County Courthouse during the early hours Monday, hugging and talking excitedly of getting married soon.

 

They hoped to be the first couple to get a marriage license Monday morning as a federal judge's order overturning the state's ban on gay marriage goes into effect, making Alabama the 37th state to allow gays and lesbians to wed.

 

"It's about time," Wolfe, 21, said of gay marriage being allowed in the Deep South state.

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, in an 11th hour move to keep the weddings on hold, sent an order to state probate judges Sunday night telling them to refuse to issue the marriage licenses to gay couples. Moore argued that judges are not bound by the ruling of a federal judge that the gay marriage ban is unconstitutional.

 

It was a dramatic return to defiance for Moore who was removed as chief justice in 2003 for refusing to obey a federal court order to remove a washing machine-sized Ten Commandments from the state judicial building. Critics lashed out that Moore had no authority to tell county probate judges to enforce a law that a federal judge already ruled unconstitutional.

 

 

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — After bursting onto the political scene with a surprisingly strong showing in Israel's last election, Yair Lapid said he was bound for the prime minister's office. But today the telegenic ex-anchorman, actor and novelist hopes to avoid becoming another flash in the pan.

 

His fledgling party, Yesh Atid or "There's a Future," came from nowhere in the 2013 election to capture 19 of the Knesset's 120 seats, second only to the party headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But instead of leading his largely secular and middle-class supporters into opposition to battle Netanyahu, he cut a deal to join the prime minister's government as finance minister — but also wilted his own grass roots support in the process.

 

On the campaign trail ahead of the March 17 election, Lapid has dumped his previous brash talk of replacing Netanyahu as Israel's leader and emphasizes he simply wants his party to retain enough votes to be a force in parliament, either back in the Cabinet or in the opposition. He's hoping that voters forgive him for propping up Netanyahu, and instead credit him as the man whose bitter breakup with Netanyahu's Likud triggered this early election.

 

"It's not about who I want to be, it's about what I want to do," Lapid told The Associated Press last week at a late-night Super Bowl party with supporters in a Tel Aviv bar.

 

Whether there's a future for Lapid's barely three-year-old party may seem like a local issue for Israelis alone. But Yesh Atid's tepid performance in opinion polls is dispiriting for the legions worldwide who want Israel to dump the internationally unpopular Netanyahu. Many still see in Lapid the most charismatic face in a field cluttered with less-than-electrifying leadership candidates.

 

 

GROSSETO, Italy (AP) — Whatever verdict is delivered in the trial of the Italian sea captain for the shipwreck of the Costa Concordia cruise liner and for the deaths of 32 people, survivors and victims' families already are wondering if justice will be done.

 

The trial, expected to bring a verdict this week, has a sole defendant. Francesco Schettino is accused of causing the shipwreck on the night of Jan. 13, 2012, when he steered too close to a tiny Tuscan island, smashing into a granite reef that sliced open the hull, sending seawater rushing in.

Schettino is also charged with multiple manslaughter and injury, and of abandoning the luxury liner when many of the 4,200 passengers and crew were still aboard and desperately trying to save themselves — some by leaping into the sea — as the Concordia was capsizing.

 

Survivors, shivering as they staggered ashore on Giglio Island, were startled to see the captain, already safe on land, "without even getting his feet wet," noted Prosecutor Alessandro Leopizzi in closing arguments.

 

The cruise company, Costa Crociere SpA, has put the blame squarely on Schettino.

 

 

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bruce Jenner was not texting while driving when he got into a chain-reaction crash in Malibu that left a woman dead, and he will provide cellphone records if requested by investigators looking into the cause of the weekend accident, a publicist for the Olympic gold medalist said.

 

"The evidence will show that Bruce was not texting at the time of the accident," Alan Nierob said.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's officials said Sunday that investigators will likely seek cellphone records for all the drivers to determine if distracted driving played a role in the four-vehicle crash on Pacific Coast Highway.

 

Jenner was driving a black Cadillac Escalade when he rear-ended a Lexus sedan that slammed into a Toyota Prius that had slowed down or stopped on the highway, sheriff's Sgt. Philip Brooks said.

 

The Lexus veered into oncoming traffic and collided head-on with a black Hummer.