Here's what's happening across the United States and around the world today.
Italian coast guard transport 28 shipwreck survivors to Italy as EU ministers discuss crisis
MILAN (AP) — An Italian coast guard ship headed toward Sicily Monday with 27 survivors of what could be the Mediterranean's deadliest migrant tragedy, as EU foreign ministers gathered for an emergency meeting on the growing crisis as migrants flee instability in Libya at unprecedented rates.
One survivor, identified as a 32-year-old Bangladeshi, has put the number of people on board the smugglers' boat when it capsized near the Libyan coast at 950, and only a handful have been rescued. The survivor was flown Sunday by helicopter to Catania, in Sicily, where he was interviewed by prosecutors. He was being treated in a hospital.
"He is pretty well now and he is reporting that there were really many, many persons including children on the boat. So it's confirming the terrible news," said Carlotta Sami, a U.N. refugee agency spokeswoman.
International agencies stressed that the information provided to prosecutors still needs to be confirmed.
Earlier Friday, the Italian coast guard ship Gregoretti brought the bodies of 24 victims to Malta, where the dead will be buried.
Aid agency: migrant deaths in recent days comparable to Titanic tragedy
An international aid agency spokeswoman has compared the scale of deaths in recent shipwrecks to the death toll in the sinking of the Titanic luxury liner more than a century ago.
Sarah Tyler, a spokeswoman for Save the Children in Catania, Sicily, said more than 1,000 people have died in the waters of the Mediterranean, adding "that is almost as many as died in the Titanic, and 31 times the number who died when the Costa Concordia sank."
One survivor's account has put at up to 950 the number of people on board the smuggler's boat that sank off the coast of Libya this weekend, with only a handful rescued. last week in which more than 400 people died or went missing in another shipwreck.
The Bangladeshi survivor said many of the passengers were below deck and trapped inside when the boat sank.
5 years after BP's oil spill, an undaunted industry pushes drilling even deeper into the Gulf
ON THE GULF OF MEXICO (AP) — Five years after the nation's worst offshore oil spill, the industry is working on drilling even further into the risky depths beneath the Gulf of Mexico to tap massive deposits once thought unreachable. Opening this new frontier, miles below the bottom of the Gulf, requires engineering feats far beyond those used at BP's much shallower Macondo well.
But critics say energy companies haven't developed the corresponding safety measures to prevent another disaster or contain one if it happens — a sign, environmentalists say, that the lessons of BP's spill were short-lived.
These new depths and larger reservoirs could exacerbate a blowout like what happened at the Macondo well. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil could spill each day, and the response would be slowed as the equipment to deal with it — skimmers, boom, submarines, containment stacks — is shipped 100 miles or more from shore.
Since the Macondo disaster, which sent at least 134 million gallons spewing into the Gulf five years ago Monday, federal agencies have approved about two dozen next-generation, ultra-deep wells.
The number of deepwater drilling rigs has increased, too, from 35 at the time of the Macondo blowout to 48 last month, according to data from IHS Energy, a Houston company that collects industry statistics.
5 years after BP spill: A look at what's changed in offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — As oil gushed from BP's ruptured well five years ago and public outrage built by the day, the Obama administration issued a six-month moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
When the well was finally capped after nearly three months, political and industry pressure mounted on the White House to lift the ban, which it did about a month earlier than planned.
Since then, oil and gas drilling Gulf has bounced back strongly and the number of deep-water drilling rigs has actually increased from 35 to about 48. Drillers are pushing into even deeper water and greater depths below the sea floor to reach reservoirs considered riskier than the Macondo field, the source of the nation's worst offshore spill.
Elsewhere, the Obama administration has pushed to open up offshore waters in Alaska and along the Atlantic coast to drilling. In January, the Interior Department unveiled a plan to open up drilling next year in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas on the Arctic coast of Alaska and off the coast between Maryland and Florida.
Authorities say terrorism investigation leads to 6 arrests in Minnesota, California
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Six people have been arrested in connection with a terrorism investigation in Minnesota, where authorities have been tracking youths who have traveled or tried to travel to Syria to fight with militants, including the Islamic State group, authorities said.
A spokesman for the Minnesota U.S. Attorney's Office said the arrests were made Sunday in Minneapolis and San Diego but there is no threat to public safety. Spokesman Ben Petok did not give details about the charges. He said more information would be released Monday.
The U.S. Attorney's Office and the FBI planned a news conference Monday to announce details. The news conference was billed in a press release as an announcement of a joint terrorism task force operation.
Kyle Loven, spokesman for the Minneapolis office of the FBI, said six people were arrested Sunday but gave no further details. An FBI spokesman in San Diego referred questions to Loven.
Authorities say a handful of Minnesota residents have traveled to Syria to fight with militants within the last year. At least one Minnesotan has died while fighting for the Islamic State.
Hillary Clinton tries to capture magic of 2008 campaign a second time in New Hampshire
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton will try to recapture the magic of her come-from-behind victory in the 2008 New Hampshire primary as she returns to the state that gave her first presidential campaign a second wind.
Clinton again arrives in New Hampshire as the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination. This time, she faces little opposition. Nevertheless, her campaign is determined to show early-state voters that Clinton is not taking that position for granted.
As she did in Iowa last week, Clinton plans to forgo the packed rallies that marked her previous campaign and focus on smaller round-table events with selected groups of supporters.
She'll speak with employees of Whitney Brothers Inc., a small business that makes wood furniture, in the liberal enclave of Keene on Monday and hold a round table with students and teachers at New Hampshire Technical Institute in Concord the next day.
New Hampshire has long been fertile ground for the Clinton family. In 1992, a second-place finish in the New Hampshire primary made Bill Clinton the "comeback kid," refueling his effort to capture the nomination and, eventually, the White House. Sixteen years later, a win in New Hampshire salvaged Hillary Clinton's campaign from a third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses and propelled her into a months-long battle for the nomination finally won by then-Sen. Barack Obama.
Fliers see cheaper tickets this summer domestically and to Europe; Hawaii 10 percent lower
After years of steadily-rising airfare, travelers this summer can expect a tiny bit of relief — $2.01 in savings to be exact.
The average roundtrip domestic ticket this summer, including taxes, now stands at $454, down less than a percent from last summer. Vacationers to Europe will fare better with the average ticket down 3 percent to $1,619, about $50 less than last summer.
Not all travelers will get to save.
Flights to Hawaii, Florida and New Orleans are cheaper, but travelers heading to New York, Denver and San Francisco can expect to pay more.
Even in Europe, it depends on the destination. Overall fares are down but it will cost more this summer to fly to cities like Amsterdam; London; Budapest, Hungary; Lisbon, Portugal; Frankfurt, Germany or Reykjavik, Iceland.
Witnesses to WWII: 70 years later, Iwo Jima vet, Okinawa schoolgirl wrestle with legacy of war
ITOMAN, Japan (AP) — In Norman Baker's mind, the Japanese were fanatical, brutal animals with no respect for life. To Yoshiko Shimabukuro, Americans were long-nosed demons who rained hellfire from the skies before raping and pillaging anything with the worse-than-death fate of crossing their path.
Both the 18-year-old U.S. Marine and the 17-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl had known the enemy only from the virulent propaganda they had been fed. When they finally met their foes in the closing months of WorldWar II, in separate, back-to-back battles hundreds of miles apart, it was on the most terrifying terms. And in the 70 years since, it has been difficult to reconcile the hatred of the past with the peace of the present.
Will the Boston Marathon ever be just a race? Here are some things to look for in Monday's run
BOSTON (AP) — The Boston Marathon will never be just another race again. The twin bombs at the finish line of the 2013 race made sure of that.
But when the field of 30,000 leaves Hopkinton on Monday morning, the world's oldest annual marathon will take the initial, tentative steps back toward its roots as a world-class sporting event first, and a cause — for fitness, for fundraising, for freedom — second.
"For us, the core principle is the Boston Marathon is an international athletic event focused on competition and excellence," Tom Grilk, the executive director of the Boston Athletic Association, said last week as he prepared for the 119th edition of the race.
"We start there, every time. Including last year," he said. "What happened in 2013 was the closest and perhaps most poignant part of our history, but part of the history. The history going forward would be written by the people who come and run and watch and participate in all the ways that people do."
A year after the explosions killed three people and wounded 260 more, the Boston Marathon got just what it needed: A safe race, an American victory on Patriots' Day, and a chance for runners and residents alike to rally on Boylston Street.
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