No summer in sight; cold spring in store
After a week of relatively clear weather, the clouds will return this afternoon and will stick around at least through the weekend. Temperatures should rise into the 40s, which will feel balmy compared to yesterday and this morning. Don’t get too used to it, though — long-range forecasts are predicting a much colder spring than we had last year.
Egypt’s generals stumble in new leadership role
CAIRO — Egypt’s ruling military council answered a long-standing demand of the protest movement by forcing the resignation of Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq on Thursday, but the fitful pacwe of change has left all sides more anxious than ever about the rocky transition ahead.
Judge who ruled against health care law allows it to proceed
A federal judge in Florida stayed his own ruling against the Obama health care law Thursday, allowing the act to be carried out as the case progresses through the courts of appeal and on to the Supreme Court.
Obama says Col. Moammar Gadhafi ‘must leave’ Libya now
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama demanded Thursday that the embattled Libyan leader, Col. Moammar Gadhafi, “step down and leave” immediately and said he would consider a full range of options to stem the bloodshed there, though he did not commit the United States to any direct military action.
Gold rush stemming from high prices fuels Colombia’s conflict
CAUCASIA, Colombia — Officers pored over intelligence reports describing the movements of two warlords with private armies. Then the helicopters lifted off at dawn, carrying an elite squad armed with assault rifles to the newest front in this country’s long war: gold mines.
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PARIS — The European Union’s banking regulator said Thursday that it would start a new health check of banks Friday and would publish the results in June.
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ATLANTA — Newt Gingrich on Thursday became the first major Republican candidate to begin raising money for the 2012 presidential race, but he stopped short of declaring his candidacy until he finishes delivering paid speeches this month and distances himself from a web of business ventures that would interfere with a campaign.
Harvard University says it will allow the ROTC back on campus
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Nearly 40 years after Harvard expelled the Reserve Officers Training Corps program from its campus, university officials announced Thursday that they would officially recognize the Naval ROTC.
China takes Middle East as example, calls for action and protests begin
BEIJING — The call to action shot across mobile phones and Internet chat sites, urging people to converge on 13 Chinese cities to demand an end to corruption, inflation, and the strictures of authoritarian rule.
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BENGHAZI, Libya — Moammar Gadhafi’s forces struck back on three fronts on Monday, using fighter jets, special forces units, and regular army troops in an escalation of hostilities that brought Libya closer to civil war.
UN refugee agency declares Libya a humanitarian crisis
PARIS — Almost 100,000 people have fled Libya’s fighting to neighboring Egypt and Tunisia, the U.N. refugee agency said, in what it called a humanitarian emergency.
Academy Awards less popular than last year, ratings are poor
LOS ANGELES — The Oscars tripped in their transition to a hipper, younger, media-mad future, attracting 12 percent fewer viewers than last year in the important 18-to-49 age bracket.
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WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama told the nation’s governors Monday that he was willing to amend his landmark health care law to give states the ability to opt out of its most controversial requirements right from the start, including the mandate that most people buy insurance.
Digital music services such as Pandora gather new investors
Since it emerged in the 1990s, digital music has been hugely popular with fans, but for online music companies and their investors, it has almost never been profitable.
Another week of ups and downs
This week will again be a bit of a weather roller coaster as a few passing weather systems impact New England. After Sunday’s four-inch snow accumulation was washed away by over half an inch of rain on Monday, the remainder of the week will bring a few more weather extremes. After a relatively normal day today, gusty winds from the southwest will bring warm air to the area tomorrow. However, a cold front tomorrow night will then immediately knock temperatures into the mid-teens (°F).
Two popular Iranian opposition leaders are mysteriously missing
CAIRO — The mystery over the whereabouts of the two main Iranian opposition leaders, Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, deepened Monday with contradictory reports over whether they had been jailed on the eve of a nationwide protest or remained under extreme house arrest, completely cut off from the outside world.
Libyan rebels repel Colonel Gadhafi’s forces near Tripoli
BENGHAZI, Libya — Rebels seeking to overturn the 40-year rule of Col. Moammar Gadhafi repelled a concerted assault by his forces Thursday on cities close to the capital, removing any doubt that Libya’s patchwork of protests had evolved into an increasingly well-armed revolutionary movement.
Gay marriage seems to wane as conservative issue
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s decision to abandon his legal support for the Defense of Marriage Act has generated only mild rebukes from the Republicans hoping to succeed him in 2012, evidence of a shifting political climate in which social issues are being crowded out by economic concerns.
General said to order effort to sway U.S. lawmakers
WASHINGTON — The American commander in Afghanistan will order an investigation into accusations that military personnel deployed to win Afghan hearts and minds were instructed over their own objections to carry out “psychological operations” to help convince visiting members of Congress to increase support for the training mission there, military officials said Thursday.