NowMyNews

Gunmen shot dead four Shi'ite Muslim men in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley in an ambush on Sunday, security sources said, in the latest sectarian violence close to the border with Syria . _0"> The civil war just a few miles across the border in Syria has inflamed tensions in the Bekaa Valley, where Sunni Muslims who support the uprising against Bashar al-Assad live close to Shi'ites who back the Syrian president.   It was not clear who was responsible for Sunday's killings. A military source said residents of the nearby Sunni Muslim town of Arsal denied any involvement. The recapture of the Syrian border town of Qusair by Assad's forces, spearheaded by Shi'ite Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, led to an influx of Syrian rebel fighters and civilians into Lebanon and more violence spilling over into the Bekaa region. Rockets fired from areas believed to be controlled by Syrian rebels have targeted the Shi'ite town of Hermel, while a Syrian helicopter crosse

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on Sunday dismissed talk of an early election over the abrupt closure of the state broadcaster, which brought protests from viewers, workers, the opposition and his coalition partners. Samaras defended his decision to close ERT and relaunch what he said would be a smaller, more efficient version as a way for Greece to show it was serious about implementing reforms and saving money under the terms of its international bailout.   But a clash between the prime minister and his two left-wing coalition partners over when and how to resume public broadcasts has raised the prospect of political turmoil, just a year after Greeks went to the polls, and the derailing of the bailout. "If some people naively believe that they can trap us into an election dilemma, let them not tire themselves," Samaras told a gathering of his conservative New Democracy party in the seaside town of Nafplio in the Peloponnese. "Nobody wants it." The oppo

Some members of the Czech Republic's governing coalition are considering ditching Prime Minister Petr Necas after his closest aide was charged with bribery and ordering illegal surveillance, his deputy said on Sunday. Necas faces a showdown with his coalition partners later on Sunday when they meet for talks following the arrest of his long-standing personal assistant Jana Nagyova. If Necas is forced to step down, the government has to quit according to the constitution, meaning a period of instability in the European Union member of 10.5 million people. Prolonged horse-trading would be likely between the coalition, opposition and the president over how to form a new government.   Necas has been under pressure to resign since the biggest police operation against corruption in two decades led to charges against Nagyova and seven other suspects. Necas has insisted he has done nothing wrong and will not quit. "Anyone who has a bit of political tact of course feels that the

Germany's Left party set an election platform attacking capitalism head on this weekend, avowing old school socialism and making any later coalition pact with the mainstream opposition seem all but impossible. If the Left party and the center-left opposition Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens joined forces they could match Merkel's center-right government in strength, possibly even ousting the chancellor after the September 22 vote. Yet the SPD rejects such a "red-red-green" coalition, and the uncompromising agenda of the Left party, while not ruling collaboration out, appeared to effectively end any prospect of working with a party it sees as almost indistinguishable from Merkel's conservatives.   "Time and time again I'm asked about a possible coalition with the SPD and the Greens ... but the question is, when will the SPD and Greens be ready to exit their political consensus mishmash and adhere to the will of the majority?" Left parliamentary

A Cairo court sentenced an Egyptian Muslim preacher to 11 years in jail for blasphemy on Sunday for burning a Bible during a protest last year outside the U.S. embassy. _0"> Convictions for insulting Islam are common in Egypt, ruled by Islamists after the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, but more rare for cases involving the minority Christian faith. Ahmed Mohamed Mahmoud, known as Abu Islam, who runs his own religious television channel, led a demonstration in September against a U.S.-made anti-Islam video posted on the Internet.   His son was sentenced to eight years in jail for the same offence. Both will remain at liberty pending appeal. The video's depiction of the Prophet Mohammad as a fool and sexual deviant set off anti-American protests across the Muslim world. The film was later attributed to a Californian born in Egypt's Coptic Christian community, a group that has expressed concern about the rise of Islamist political power. (Reporting b

Rebel brigades fought Hezbollah-backed forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in and around Syria's commercial hub of Aleppo on Sunday, trying to claw back territory lost to an assault that threatens the opposition's grip on the city, activists said. Rebel brigades poured into Aleppo last July and have more than half the city under their control. But pro-Assad forces have deployed there in the past three weeks, suggesting a push to retake the city could be under way.   So far, Assad's forces have not made a major sweep into rebel areas, but given the size of the city and its position near Turkey allowing supplies to the opposition, it would be a major victory for the government if it were to regain Aleppo. The battles in the city follow the capture by loyalist troops and their Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah guerrilla allies of Qusair, a strategic town in central Syria , after heavy bombardment that razed much of the town. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Na

Russian President Vladimir Putin, arriving in Britain ahead of an international summit set to be dominated by disagreement over the U.S. decision to send weapons to Syria's rebels, said the West must not arm fighters who eat human flesh. In Syria , rebels fought back on Sunday against forces of President Bashar al-Assad and his Lebanese Hezbollah allies near Aleppo, where Assad has announced a campaign to recapture the rebel-held north after seizing a strategic town this month.   After months of deliberations, Washington decided last week to send weapons to the rebels, declaring that Assad's forces had crossed a "red line" by using nerve gas. The move throws the superpower's weight behind the revolt and signals a potential turning point in global involvement in a two-year-old war that has already killed at least 93,000 people. It has also infuriated Russia , Cold War-era ally of Syria, which has sold arms to Assad and used its veto at the U.N. Security Counc

Al Qaeda's North African wing (AQIM) on Sunday confirmed the death of two of its senior commanders in Mali earlier this year, veteran jihadist Abdelhamid Abou Zeid and brigade commander Abdallah Al Chinguetti, Mauritania's ANI news agency said. _0"> The death of Abou Zeid, who made millions of dollars kidnapping Western hostages over the past decade, had already been announced "with certainty" by France in March after clashes with its troops in northern Mali.   AQIM, however, had not until now officially confirmed the death of Abou Zeid, the leader of one of its southern brigades and a trusted lieutenant to the group's elusive leader, Abdelmalek Droukdel. The AQIM statement sent to ANI said Abou Zeid had been killed in fighting with French-led forces in February in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains in remote northeastern Mali. France launched a massive military operation in January that succeeded in driving al Qaeda-linked Islamists from Mali's des

Attacks across Iraq targeting mainly Shi'ite Muslims killed at least 30 people on Sunday, police and medics said, intensifying fears of a descent into all-out sectarian war. Ten years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Sunni leader Saddam Hussein, a stable power-sharing compromise between Iraq's Sunni, Shi'ite and ethnic Kurdish factions is still elusive and violence is on the rise.   More than 1,000 people were killed in militant attacks in May, according to the United Nations, making it Iraq's deadliest month since the intercommunal strife of 2006-07. Regional sectarian tensions have been inflamed by the conflict in Syria, Iraq's neighbor, where Sunni rebels are fighting to overthrow a leader backed by Shi'ite Iran . Two car bombs exploded minutes apart in the predominantly Shi'ite southern oil hub of Basra, 420 km (260 miles) southeast of Baghdad, killing at least five people and tearing off shop fronts. "We heard a bang and rushed outsi

Sporadic clashes between police and protesters flared up in Istanbul overnight after a weekend in which Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan sought to steal back the agenda, rallying his supporters and expelling demonstrators from an Istanbul park. Two union federations called a nationwide strike for Monday over the forced eviction of protesters from Gezi Park, a leafy corner of Istanbul's central Taksim Square and the focus of two weeks of fierce anti-government demonstrations that have spread to other big cities. Labour groups representing doctors, engineers and dentists said they too would take part. Hundreds of thousands of Erdogan supporters gathered to hear the prime minister speak at an Istanbul parade ground on Sunday as riot police fired teargas a few kilometres away in the city center to disperse protesters. A defiant Erdogan told a sea of flag-waving supporters that two weeks of unrest had been manipulated by "terrorists" and dismissed suggestions that he was be

James "Whitey" Bulger made it clear to Boston bookmakers that murder was among his violent options if they balked at paying thousands of dollars in annual "rent" to the notorious mob boss, two former bookies testified on Friday. "We have a business beyond bookmaking," Richard O'Brien recalled Bulger telling him in a private meeting decades ago to settle a disagreement. "Killing assholes like you." O'Brien spent decades placing illegal bets on horse-racing and football games. "Rather than being in the bookmaking business and taking the unknown gamble, they would take rent like you would for an apartment," O'Brien, 84, testified.   On the third day of Bulger's racketeering and murder trial, O'Brien and 72-year-old James Katz, another former bookie, told jurors how the 83-year-old Bulger had earned millions while running the city's violent "Winter Hill Gang." "You had to comply," Katz told

A judge who found Arizona lawman Joe Arpaio racially profiled Latino drivers in his crackdown on illegal immigration gave attorneys on Friday an August deadline to agree to steps to correct the abuse and indicated he is likely to appoint a monitor to ensure their implementation. The decision handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow late last month ordered Arpaio, who styles himself "America's toughest sheriff," to stop using race as a factor in law enforcement decisions.   It came in response to a class-action lawsuit brought by Hispanic drivers in the Phoenix valley that tested, during a three-week trial in July and August, whether police could target illegal immigrants without racially profiling U.S. citizens and legal residents of Hispanic origin. At a hearing on Friday, Snow set an August 30 date for attorneys representing the American Civil Liberties Union and Arpaio to return to federal court with a consent decree that satisfies the ruling ordering

The octogenarian son of the late New York philanthropist and socialite Brooke Astor made a last-minute attempt on Friday to overturn his conviction for siphoning millions of dollars from his mother's fortune, according to court documents. Days before Anthony Marshall, 89, was expected to turn himself in on Monday to start serving a one- to three-year prison sentence for grand larceny and other charges, a juror recanted in a case that shocked and captivated New York society.   Juror number eight, Judi DeMarco, in an affidavit said she had been coerced to cast a guilty vote in Marshall's 2009 trial. Citing the sworn document, Marshall's defense team on Friday asked a judge in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan to stay the sentence while deciding whether to vacate the conviction. DeMarco, a New York lawyer, said she did not believe Marshall and his co-defendant, attorney Francis Morrissey, 72, were guilty of the charges but succumbed to fatigue and other feelings w

Detroit said on Friday it would stop making payments on some of its about $18.5 billion debt, which would put it in default, and the "insolvent" city called on most of its creditors to accept pennies on the dollar to help it avoid the largest municipal bankruptcy filing in U.S. history. In a forceful opening salvo of negotiations with debt holders, Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr announced a moratorium on some principal and interest payments, including one payment he said was due on Friday. Under his proposal, Orr said unsecured debt holders would be paid less than 10 cents on the dollar, but some creditors would get a bit more based on city revenue. Some $11.5 billion of the debt is unsecured and $7 billion secured, according to figures presented by Orr. Orr said secured creditors would get better treatment, although how much better was not specified.   "We may try to get a discount from them, but the reality is they are secured," Orr said. Secured credi

A judge's decision to sequester jurors for the murder trial of a Florida neighborhood watchman who fatally shot an unarmed black teenager in 2012 will slow an already painstaking selection process to find impartial minds amid saturation media coverage. Jury selection in the racially charged case of teenager Trayvon Martin is headed into a second week as prosecutors and defense lawyers on Friday worked to cope with the judge's sequester order and another decision to expand the pool of potential jurors.   While it will make jury selection more complicated, lawyers on both sides say they are happy with the decision to isolate jurors during testimony and deliberations. "I think it helps with making sure that the jury can focus solely on the evidence that comes from the trial," said Benjamin Crump, the lawyer for the Martin family. Despite the slow progress and the high dismissal rate of prospective jurors, both sides appear confident an unbiased jury can be seated l

Property losses from a deadly wildfire that ranks as the most destructive in Colorado history rose on Friday to 400 homes destroyed, even as authorities reported making headway in containing the massive blaze with the help of rain and calmer winds. _0"> The fire has charred roughly 24 square miles of rolling, forested terrain northeast of Colorado Springs, the state's second-largest city, since it erupted on Tuesday, forcing some 38,000 people to flee their homes and claiming two lives.   Officials on Friday began lifting evacuation orders in some areas. (Reporting by Keith Coffman; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

Relatives of boys who died at a Florida reform school urged the state on Friday to issue a permit allowing investigators to exhume human remains found on the grounds of the school, which has long been plagued with accusations of abuse and mysterious deaths. Dozens of unmarked graves have been uncovered at the Dozier School in the Florida Panhandle city of Marianna. Investigators are trying to determine the circumstances surrounding the deaths, which experts say likely occurred between 1914 and 1952. The school was closed in 2011.   On Friday, relatives of three boys who died at the school submitted to DNA cheek swabs in the hopes that these and other families' samples can soon start being compared to the remains discovered at Dozier, once the state's major reform school. A more than two-year-long investigation led by researchers at the University of South Florida (USF) has hit a snag while relatives, surviving former students and prominent politicians await a state decisio

California lawmakers passed a $96.3 billion budget on Friday that would spend more on education, health care and other services while setting aside $1.1 billion from the first surplus in years for a rainy day fund. The spending plan makes changes to the way the state funds education, increasing the base amount spent on all students while funneling more money to districts with children who live in poverty or who do not speak fluent English.   It also restores funds that had been cut from dental programs for the poor in the most populous U.S. state, and for mental health services and assistance for veterans. The $1.1 billion reserve was part of a deal negotiated with Governor Jerry Brown, who pressed fiscal restraint on the Democratic legislature. It marks a dramatic turnaround from four years ago, when the state was in the red by $16 billion. "This was the first year in many that we weren't negotiating how deep to cut and what to cut," Darrell Steinberg, president pr

Relatives of boys who died at a Florida reform school urged the state on Friday to issue a permit allowing investigators to exhume human remains found on the grounds of the school, which has long been plagued with accusations of abuse and mysterious deaths. Dozens of unmarked graves have been uncovered at the Dozier School in the Florida Panhandle city of Marianna. Investigators are trying to determine the circumstances surrounding the deaths, which experts say likely occurred between 1914 and 1952. The school was closed in 2011.   On Friday, relatives of three boys who died at the school submitted to DNA cheek swabs in the hopes that these and other families' samples can soon start being compared to the remains discovered at Dozier, once the state's major reform school. A more than two-year-long investigation led by researchers at the University of South Florida (USF) has hit a snag while relatives, surviving former students and prominent politicians await a state decisio

An Air Force recruiter was sentenced on Friday to 27 years in prison for sexually assaulting women who went to his Houston-area recruiting station to ask about joining the military, a Lackland Air Force Base spokesman said. Technical Sergeant Jaime Rodriguez, 34, also was reduced in rank to airman basic, the lowest rank in the Air Force, and will be dishonorably discharged when he completes his prison sentence, Lackland Air Force Base spokesman Brent Boller said.   The sentence was the longest prison term yet given in an Air Force scandal involving 21 training sergeants and one recruiter, Rodriguez, accused of offenses ranging from inappropriate sexual relationships with female recruits to rape. One female sergeant was convicted of having inappropriate relationships with male recruits. The jury convicted Rodriguez on Thursday of aggravated sexual assault, aggravated sexual contact, abusive sexual contact, wrongful sexual contact and indecent exposure, Boller said. Jurors acquitted

Six months after a gunman massacred 26 children and adults at an elementary school, Newtown, Connecticut, marked the day with 26-seconds of silence and an expression of frustration at the stalled progress on gun control. Several hundred people, many struggling to hold back tears, gathered under gray skies to remember the December 14 carnage at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the more than 6,000 other Americans who have been killed by gunfire since the school shooting.   The event was organized by the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which kicked off its "No More Names" bus tour in Newtown. The group is largely funded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The next stop on the tour, titled after the reading of the list of those killed since December 14, is New Hampshire, home to U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte, a Republican who has been a target of negative ads by the group for her vote against the expanded background checks for gun buyers. "Six months ago today, my siste

A self-styled collector for a Mexican drug cartel who confessed to more than 30 murders after he was arrested last month saw himself as a person who cleansed the world of bad and abusive people, the investigator in the case said on Friday. California native Jose Manuel Martinez, 52, was arrested by U.S. border police in western Arizona last month after a records check showed that he was wanted on a homicide charge in Lawrence County in Alabama.   After being returned to Alabama, Martinez was charged June 3 with killing Jose Ruiz, a man who allegedly "disrespected" his daughter, Tim McWhorter, captain of the investigation division at the Lawrence County Sheriff's Office. During a two-hour interview in custody, Martinez appeared to take a professional pride in the killings that he felt would one day catch up with him. "He was good at what he did and this was his shining moment. It was quite shocking. He said he expected the murders to catch up with him someday,&q

The judge in the trial of accused Colorado theater gunman James Holmes said in a court filing on Friday that he expects the initial jury pool could include 3,500 people, a figure a legal observer called unusually large and a reflection of the high-profile nature of the case. _0"> Holmes is accused of killing 12 moviegoers last summer in a suburb of Denver. Arapahoe County District Judge Carlos Samour Jr. revealed the potential size of the jury pool in a ruling that granted the defense's request to have potential jurors complete a written questionnaire. "The court anticipates that as many as 3,500 individuals may respond to jury summonses issued in this case," Samour wrote in the decision filed on Friday. Samour granted the request for a questionnaire, saying it "will be helpful and will save time and effort during the jury selection process."   Holmes, 25, is charged with multiple counts of first-degree murder and attempted murder in the July 2012