Virginia fraternity announces legal action against Rolling Stone for 'reckless' rape story
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — A fraternity at the University of Virginia announced Monday that it will "pursue all available legal action" against Rolling Stone, saying a Columbia Journalism School review shows the magazine acted recklessly and defamed its members by publishing an article that falsely accused them of gang rape.
"The Rolling Stone article viewed by millions fueled a court of public opinion that ostracized Phi Kappa Psi members and led to vandalism of the fraternity house," the fraternity's statement said.
"Clearly our fraternity and its members have been defamed, but more importantly we fear this entire episode may prompt some victims to remain in the shadows, fearful to confront their attackers," said Stephen Scipione, president of the the University of Virginia's Phi Kappa Psi chapter. "If Rolling Stone wants to play a real role in addressing this problem, it's time to get serious."
Rolling Stone's "shock narrative" about sex assaults at the University of Virginia was rife with bad journalism, and the magazine has nobody but its own staff to blame, Columbia Journalism School Dean Steve Coll said Monday at a question and answer session about the review he led at the magazine's request.
The magazine pledged to review its practices and removed "A Rape on Campus" from its website, but publisher Jann S. Wenner said he won't fire anyone despite the blistering review. In a New York Times interview, Wenner described "Jackie," whose claims provided the article's narrative thread, as "a really expert fabulist storyteller" who manipulated the magazine's journalism process.
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Kenya unleashes airstrikes against Islamic extremists in Somalia after college attack
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenyan warplanes bombed militant camps in Somalia, officials said Monday, following a vow by President Uhuru Kenyatta to respond "in the fiercest way possible" to a massacre of college students by al-Shabab extremists.
The airstrikes Sunday and Monday targeted the Gedo region of western Somalia, directly across the border from Kenya, said Col. David Obonyo of the Kenyan military.
The al-Shabab camps, which were used to store arms and for logistical support, were destroyed, but it was not possible to determine the number of casualties because of poor visibility, he said.
The Somalia-based militant group claimed responsibility for Thursday's attack at Garissa University College in northeastern Kenya in which militants killed 148 people, most of them students.
Hawa Yusuf, who lives in a village near the town of Beledhawa that is close to the Kenyan-Somali border, said the warplanes "were hovering around for a few minutes, then started bombing." She didn't know if there were any casualties, she said by phone.
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Kenya attack victims described as humble, intent on building a career through studies
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — He was a soccer player with a fighting spirit, a talented keyboard player with "golden fingers" who was intent on succeeding in life, his guardian said. But Bryson Mwakuleghwa, a 21-year-old student at Garissa University College in Kenya, never had the chance to make his dreams happen.
Mwakuleghwa was among 148 people who were killed in an attack by Islamic militants Thursday on the college in Garissa, near the border with Somalia, where the al-Shabab extremist group is based. On Monday, relatives of the dead converged on a funeral parlor in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, for the grim task of identifying the dead. Some grieved quietly, while others emerged from viewing bodies of lost family members in physical distress, wailing as Red Cross officials escorted and even carried them to tents for counseling.
Several mourners interviewed by The Associated Press outside the Chiromo Funeral Parlour of the University of Nairobi spoke wistfully of those they lost, sometimes using the same words — humble, devout, studious and a role model — to describe youths who were trying hard to forge a career, leaving home and traveling many hours by bus to Garissa to take advantage of the education opportunities there.
"I knew Bryson as a young man who grew up in the church" and performed in its choir, said his guardian, Ginton Mwachofi.
The young man's death hit hard in Taita-Taveta, the coastal county where he grew up, Mwachofi said.
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Focusing on close contact with voters, Clinton expected to launch '16 campaign in next 2 weeks
WASHINGTON (AP) — After months of anticipation, Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to launch her presidential campaign sometime in the next two weeks with an initial focus on intimate events putting her in close contact with voters.
Clinton wants to avoid soaring speeches delivered to big rallies, and the risk they'll convey the same cloak of inevitability that contributed to her loss in the 2008 Democratic primaries to Barack Obama.
The goal, according to people close to the Clinton organization, is to make her second run for the White House more about voters and less about herself, regardless of her place atop a field of candidates that currently looks far weaker this time around.
"For Secretary Clinton, it's about being at the level with the people," said Robert Gibbs, a longtime political adviser to President Obama. "You're demonstrating to people that you're on the ground ready to work each and every day for that vote."
Clinton's initial events are expected to be held in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first states to vote in the presidential primary contest. Robby Mook, who is slated to serve as Clinton's campaign manager, and Marlon Marshall, a top incoming campaign aide, traveled to both states last week to meet party activists and longtime Clinton allies.
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Fighting intensifies on the ground in Yemen's Aden, as Saudi asks Pakistan to join campaign
SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Pitched fighting intensified Monday in Yemen's second-largest city, Aden, leaving streets littered with bodies, as Shiite rebels and their allies waged their strongest push yet to seize control of the main bastion of supporters of their rival, the country's embattled president.
The fierce fighting in the southern port city on the Arabian Sea raises doubts over the possibility of landing ground forces from a Saudi-led coalition backing President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to try to carve out an enclave to which Hadi, who fled the country two weeks ago, could return.
Saudi Arabia has asked Pakistan to contribute soldiers to the military campaign, as well as air and naval assets, Pakistan's defense minister said Monday. Pakistan's parliament is debating the request and is expected to vote in coming days.
Saudi Arabia has been leading an air campaign since March 26 against the Houthis and their allies, military units loyal to Hadi's predecessor, ousted autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh. The International Committee for the Red Cross said Monday it was still unable to get medical supplies into the capital, Sanaa, or to Aden amid the air and sea blockade by the coalition.
On Monday, Houthi fighters and pro-Saleh forces attacked Aden's Moalla neighborhood, one of the last districts held by Hadi loyalists where the presidential palace, port facilities, TV, government offices and a military camp are located. The districts are on a peninsula that juts into the sea, meaning Hadi's forces are bottled up in the neighborhoods.
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Closing arguments: Prosecutor says Boston Marathon bomber meant to punish and terrorize the US
BOSTON (AP) — As he planted a backpack containing a bomb near a group of children, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev made a coldblooded decision aimed at punishing America for its wars in Muslim countries, a federal prosecutor told the jury during closing arguments Monday at Tsarnaev's death penalty trial.
"This was a cold, calculated terrorist act. This was intentional. It was bloodthirsty. It was to make a point," Aloke Chakravarty said. "It was to tell America that 'We will not be terrorized by you anymore. We will terrorize you.'"
Defense attorney Judy Clarke countered by arguing, as she did at the trial's outset, that Tsarnaev took part in the attack but did so under the malevolent influence of his now-dead older brother, Tamerlan. Clarke repeatedly referred to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — then 19 — as a "kid" and a "teenager."
"If not for Tamerlan, it would not have happened," Clarke said.
The jury is expected to begin deliberating Tuesday morning in the case against Tsarnaev, 21, almost two years after the twin bombings near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed three people and wounded more than 260. It was the nation's deadliest terror attack since 9/11.
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Tough sell: White House ramps up lobbying campaign to persuade skeptics to stomach Iran deal
WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing deep skepticism on multiple fronts, President Barack Obama ramped up lobbying Monday for a framework nuclear deal with Iran, one of the toughest sells of his presidency. Yet critics from Jerusalem to Washington warned they won't sit idly by while Obama and world leaders pursue a final accord that would leave much of Iran's nuclear infrastructure intact.
The White House deployed Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz — a nuclear physicist — to offer a scientific defense of a deal that Moniz said would block all Iranian pathways to a nuclear weapon. He described the emerging deal as a "forever agreement," disputing skeptics who contend it would merely delay Iran's progress toward a bomb.
"This is not built upon trust," Moniz said, describing a set of intrusive inspections that would tip off the global community if Iran attempts to cheat. "This is built upon hardnosed requirements in terms of limitations on what they do, at various timescales, and on the access and transparency."
Under the agreement, Moniz said, Iran would agree — in perpetuity — to a beefed-up level of inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Other elements of the inspection regimen, such as those dealing with storage and mining of nuclear materials, would end sooner. And Moniz acknowledged that over time, some restrictions on Iran's nuclear activities might be eased if the world gains confidence that its program is being operated for purely peaceful purposes.
Skeptics of Obama's diplomatic outreach to Iran were undeterred.
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Israeli Cabinet minister warns military option against Iran is still 'on the table'
JERUSALEM (AP) — A senior Israeli government minister on Monday warned that taking military action against Iran's nuclear program is still an option — despite last week's framework deal between world powers and the Islamic Republic.
The comments by Yuval Steinitz, Israel's minister for strategic affairs, reflected the alarm in Israel over last week's deal, which offers Iran relief from economic sanctions in exchange for scaling back its suspect nuclear program. Israeli leaders believe the framework leaves too much of Iran's nuclear infrastructure intact and could still allow it to develop the means to produce a nuclear weapon.
Steinitz, a confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's, said the government would spend the coming months lobbying the world powers negotiating with Iran to strengthen the language in the deal as they hammer out a final agreement. While stressing that Israel prefers a diplomatic solution, he said the "military option" still exists.
"It was on the table. It's still on the table. It's going to remain on the table," Steinitz told reporters. "Israel should be able to defend itself, by itself, against any threat. And it's our right and duty to decide how to defend ourselves, especially if our national security and even very existence is under threat."
Israel considers a nuclear-armed Iran to be a threat to its survival, pointing to years of Iranian calls for Israel's destruction, its support for anti-Israeli militant groups and its development of long-range ballistic missiles that could be armed with nuclear warheads. Israel — which is widely believed to be a nuclear power — says a nuclear-armed Iran would set off an arms race in the world's most volatile region.
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Cuba-US warming, hopes of opening embassy, held up by fight over Cuba on terror list
HAVANA (AP) — American hopes of opening an embassy in Havana before presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro meet at a regional summit this week have been snarled in disputes about Cuba's presence on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terror and U.S. diplomats' freedom to travel and talk to ordinary Cubans without restriction, officials say.
The Summit of the Americas will be the scene of the presidents' first face-to-face meeting since they announced Dec. 17 that they will re-establish diplomatic relations after a half-century of hostility. The Obama administration wanted the embassies reopened before the summit starts in Panama on Friday, boosting a new American policy motivated partly by a sense that isolating Cuba was causing friction with other countries in the region.
Arriving at the summit with a deal to reopen embassies in Washington and Havana would create goodwill for the U.S., particularly after it issued new sanctions on selected Venezuelan officials last month that prompted protests from left-leaning countries around the hemisphere.
Negotiators on both sides said they are confident they will be able to strike a deal to reopen embassies in the coming weeks but not necessarily before the summit.
"It's not a lot of time, let's put it that way," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told a briefing on Friday when asked whether an agreement on embassies was likely before the gathering in Panama City.
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Thousands of kids — and 1 slightly scary insect — take over White House lawn for egg roll
WASHINGTON (AP) — A flying, buzzing harbinger of spring briefly upstaged President Barack Obama at the annual White House Easter egg roll Monday.
Squeals and shrieks from a clump of agitated children interrupted Obama's reading of his childhood favorite, Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are," at the storytime stage, one of several outdoor stations at an event that has grown into far more than colored eggs.
Obama looked up to see what the trouble was.
"Oh no, it's a bee!" he said, laughing, then quickly tried to reassure the kids. "That's OK guys, bees are good. They won't land on you. They won't sting you."
In fact, helping honeybees and other beleaguered pollinators survive is a goal of Obama's administration. Elsewhere at the event, children were given donated Burpee garden seeds to encourage them to plant bee-friendly habitats.
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