Flights delayed amid budget-cut furloughs of air controllers
WASHINGTON — Flights were delayed by up to two hours across the country Monday, the first weekday that the nation’s air traffic control system operated with 10 percent fewer controllers. Pilots, gate agents and others were quick to blame furloughs caused by mandatory across-the-board budget cuts, but the Federal Aviation Administration said it was too soon to assign blame.
Two accused in Canada of plotting derailment
OTTAWA, Ontario — The Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Monday announced the arrest of two men who are accused of planning to derail a passenger train in an al-Qaida linked plot.
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President Barack Obama will attend a memorial service this week for the victims of the fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, in what will be his latest foray as the country’s comforter in chief.
US and China put focus on cybersecurity
BEIJING — The United States and China held their highest-level military talks in nearly two years Monday, with a senior Chinese general pledging to work with the United States on cybersecurity because the consequences of a major cyberattack “may be as serious as a nuclear bomb.”
US indicts Guinea-Bissau’s military chief in drug case
DAKAR, Senegal — The head of Guinea-Bissau’s armed forces, Gen. Antonio Injai, has been indicted by federal prosecutors in New York on cocaine and weapons-trafficking charges, the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan said Thursday, part of an ambitious U.S. operation targeting some of the most powerful figures in a country long considered a major haven for drug smuggling.
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SEOUL, South Korea — At least two agents from the South Korean National Intelligence Service illegally posted comments online criticizing the political opposition ahead of the December presidential election, the police said on Thursday in an interim report on an investigation into accusations of political meddling.
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BEIJING — China is investigating four possible cases of human-to-human transmission of a deadly bird flu that has killed 17 people, but so far there has been “no sustained” evidence of transmission between people, the World Health Organization said Thursday.
Ruins searched for firefighters after blast
WEST, Texas — Rescue workers searched the rubble of a fertilizer plant Thursday, looking for missing firefighters and survivors of a huge explosion that tore through this small central Texas town Wednesday night, killing as many as 15 people and injuring more than 160 others, laying waste to buildings
After defeat, gun bill’s backers seek to keep issue alive
WASHINGTON — The last whimpers of the gun control debate in the Senate played out in anticlimactic fashion on Thursday as lawmakers began the process of formally moving on.
Israeli officials stress readiness for lone strike on Iran
JERUSALEM — With Chuck Hagel scheduled to begin his first visit to Israel as secretary of defense on Sunday, Israeli defense and military officials issued explicit warnings this week that Israel was prepared and had the capability to carry out a lone military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Warm and windy weather precedes overnight shower
The same frontal system that spawned several tornadoes in Texas and Oklahoma on Wednesday and brought significant flooding to Chicago yesterday will be approaching our area from the west today. As the cold front draws closer, cloud cover will increase, and a tightening pressure gradient will result in strong southerly winds. These winds will advect warm air from the south, possibly causing the temperature to top the 70 degree mark for only the second time in 2013.
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ISTANBUL — Turkish police said Thursday that they found evidence of an al-Qaida-linked plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, a synagogue in Istanbul and other targets, during a raid on two houses in February.
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A report on three of the first patients in China to contract a new strain of avian flu paints a grim portrait of severe pneumonia, septic shock and other complications that damaged the brain, kidney and other organs. All three died.
Unsettled weather today, but dry weekend
A potent storm system over the Midwest will continue traveling toward the Atlantic. The storm is responsible for numerous reports of severe weather across the eastern U.S. over the past two days. Most of these reports involved damaging winds on Wednesday, as a series of squall lines propagated eastward. Not surprisingly, given that tornadoes mostly occur in the spring, several tornadoes were also spotted closer to the Gulf. Since much of the atmospheric instability is confined to the southeastern U.S., we will only see a cool, steady rain today rather than thunderstorms. Some of the cool Canadian air mass will reach us because the approaching storm will actually split into two weaker low pressure areas. As this occurs, winds will partially blow from the north through tonight and keep temperatures near 40°F (4°C) for today. We may even see sleet mix in with the rain if the air above is sufficiently cold.
US blacklists Iranian business over sanction breach
The United States blacklisted an affluent Iranian business executive and what it described as his multibillion-dollar money laundering network Thursday, accusing them of selling oil for Iran in violation of the Western economic sanctions imposed over Iran’s disputed nuclear program.
Kerry heads to Asia to reassure allies of US support
MANAS, Kyrgyzstan — With tensions on high in the Korean Peninsula, Secretary of State John Kerry arrives in South Korea on Friday in an attempt to reassure U.S. allies in the region that the United States remains committed to their defense.
Pentagon finds nuclear strides by North Korea
WASHINGTON — A new assessment by the Pentagon’s intelligence arm has concluded for the first time, with “moderate confidence,” North Korea has learned how to make a nuclear weapon small enough to be delivered by a ballistic missile.
Unsafe practices found at compounding pharmacies
After a crash inspection program, federal regulators said Thursday that they had found numerous unsafe practices at about 30 compounding pharmacies, the same type of facility responsible for the tainted drug that caused a deadly meningitis outbreak last year.
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BRUSSELS — Jacob J. Lew, the U.S. Treasury secretary, urged European officials to adopt more growth-friendly policies on Monday. But there was little indication that the recession-plagued European Union was moving away from the austerity path it has pursued to deal with the debts and imbalances that emerged in the financial crisis of 2008-09.
Unsettled weather for the rest of the week
Yesterday’s weather was glorious, with temperatures at the weather station on the roof of the Green Building reaching 65.1°F. We also experienced a common Boston spring and summertime phenomenon for one of the first times this year — the sea breeze. Around 4 p.m., the winds shifted from northwest to east. With the winds now coming off the ocean (with sea surface temperatures still in the 40°Fs), the temperature at the Green Building plummeted by 10°F in a little more than an hour.