In Brief | Nation & World | 12-29-15

White officer won’t face charges in death of black Ohio boy

CLEVELAND — A grand jury on Monday declined to indict a white police officer in the killing of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old black boy who was shot while playing with what turned out to be a pellet gun.

In explaining the decision, Cuyahoga County prosecutor Tim McGinty said it was “indisputable” that the boy was drawing the pistol from his waistband when he was gunned down. McGinty said Tamir was trying to either hand the weapon over to police or show them it wasn’t real, but the officer and his partner had no way of knowing that.

“Simply put, given this perfect storm of human error, mistakes and miscommunications by all involved that day, the evidence did not indicate criminal conduct by police,” McGinty said.

He said patrolman Timothy Loehmann was justified in opening fire: “He had reason to fear for his life.”

Tamir’s family condemned the decision but echoed the prosecutor in urging those who are disappointed to express themselves “peacefully and democratically.” Barricades were set up outside the county courthouse in Cleveland in case of protests, and about two dozen people gathered in the cold rain at the recreation center where Tamir was shot, some holding signs with photos of the boy and others killed by police in the U.S.

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Texas cleans up after twisters, snow and ice pelt Midwest

GARLAND, Texas — Jacqui Gordon spent Monday sifting through the debris that had been her home, searching for old family photographs — especially of her father, who died two years ago.

She and nine others were enjoying a holiday gathering when winds began to rattle her home in suburban Dallas. They all dashed into closets and suffered only bumps and bruises, but Gordon’s roof was torn away and her house destroyed.

“I just got divorced, and this is all I had,” she said.

With rain all day Sunday keeping people away, residents worked on a dreary and frigid Monday to salvage what they could, with the American Red Cross distributing items like tarps, rakes and work gloves to help them.

At least 11 people died and dozens were injured in the tornadoes that swept through the Dallas area Saturday. Snow from New Mexico through the Midwest, plus flooding in Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois, added to the succession of severe weather events across the country in the last week that led to about four dozen deaths.

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Iraqi troops advance in Ramadi, pockets of IS remain

BAGHDAD — Iraqi forces backed by U.S.-led airstrikes drove Islamic State militants out of the center of Ramadi on Monday and seized the main government complex there, according to military officials, who said insurgents are still dug into pockets of the city west of Baghdad.

Ramadi, the provincial capital of the sprawling Anbar province, fell to IS in May, marking a major setback for Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led campaign. Ramadi and nearby Fallujah, which is controlled by IS, saw some of the heaviest fighting of the eight-year U.S. intervention in Iraq.

In recent months Iraqi forces launched several offensives to retake Ramadi, but all had stalled. Iraqi troops began advancing into some parts of the city, located about 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of Baghdad, earlier this month. But their progress was slowed by snipers, booby traps and the militants’ destruction of bridges leading into the city center.

The heavy fighting and limited access to front-lines made it difficult to follow the troops’ progress, and Iraqi officials issued a string of sometimes contradictory statements.

Brig. Gen. Ahmed al-Belawi told The Associated Press that IS militants stopped firing from inside the government complex at around 8 a.m. Monday and said troops were encircling it as engineering teams cleared booby traps.

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Advocates say Chicago police crisis training has languished

CHICAGO — In the wake of another police shooting, Mayor Rahm Emanuel called for an immediate review of how the Chicago Police Department trains officers to respond to calls involving people in crisis or with mental health problems.

But advocates for what’s known as crisis intervention team training say Chicago’s program has been “starved” of resources, with only about 15 percent of officers completing the 40-hour course. Advocates say they tried to get meetings with Emanuel early in his first term to stress the importance of the training and ask the city to invest more in it, but were ignored. Illinois’ budget crisis also created a lapse, not just in Chicago but elsewhere.

The issue resurfaced last weekend, after officers responding to a domestic disturbance shot and killed a 19-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman. The deaths of Bettie Jones — who police say was accidentally hit by gunfire — and Quintonio LeGrier occurred just weeks after the Department of Justice opened a civil-rights investigation into Chicago police practices.

Here’s a look at Chicago’s training program and what its supporters describe as the city’s “shameful” response to a growing crisis:

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South Korea, Japan reach landmark deal on WWII sex slaves

SEOUL, South Korea — An apology from Japan’s prime minister and a pledge of more than $8 million sealed a breakthrough deal Monday in a decades-long impasse with South Korea over Korean women forced into Japanese military-run brothels during World War II.

The accord, which aims to resolve the emotional core of South Korea’s grievances with its former colonial overlord, could begin to reverse decades of animosity and mistrust between the two thriving democracies, trade partners and staunch U.S. allies. It represents a shift for Tokyo’s conservative government and a new willingness to compromise by previously wary Seoul.

A statement by both countries’ foreign ministers said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe “expresses anew his most sincere apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences and suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women,” the euphemistic name given the women.

Historians say tens of thousands of women from around Asia, many of them Korean, were sent to front-line military brothels to provide sex to Japanese soldiers.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Abe would be issuing a separate written statement or if it would be directly delivered to the 46 surviving former Korean sex slaves, now in their 80s and 90s.

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Cruz taps evangelicals, tea partiers to fuel campaign

MADISON, Wis.— When Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz first ran for U.S. Senate in Texas, the only thing lower than his name recognition was the expectation that he’d win.

Then the state solicitor general, Cruz amassed a coalition anchored by tea party conservatives and evangelicals on his way to defeating a sitting lieutenant governor who entered the primary with the financial and organizational muscle of the GOP establishment.

Now Cruz is trying to take the model nationwide, even as some of his White House rivals, especially Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, compete for the same voters in a scrambled GOP race.

The son of a Southern Baptist preacher, Cruz will continue his efforts this week with a two-day meeting at a remote Texas ranch that began Monday and was expected to bring together about 300 Christian leaders and key financial backers for a fundraiser.

Some are already supporting him, while others are undecided, Cruz said.

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Relatives of drowned Syrian boy land in Canada

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Relatives of a Syrian boy whose lifeless body washed up on a Turkish beach, sparking worldwide concern for the refugee crisis, have landed in Canada

Mohammed Kurdi, his wife and their five children arrived in Canada as refugees on Monday, sponsored by Mohammed’s sister Tima Kurdi, who wiped away tears as she greeted her relatives at Vancouver airport’s arrival gates.

Speaking through his sister, who translated from Arabic, Mohammed Kurdi thanked Canadians and the government for making his dream come true.

“I’m happy! Very happy!” he said in English to a crowd of reporters gathered around the family.

His teenage son Shergo said he was looking forward to going back to school and starting a new life.

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Boko Haram attacks northeast Nigerian city, town, 80 killed

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Boko Haram Islamic extremists struck a city and a town in northeastern Nigeria with rocket-propelled grenades and multiple suicide bombers Monday, killing at least 80 people, witnesses said.

In Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, at least 30 were killed and more than 90 wounded in overnight blasts and shootouts, and another 20 died in a bombing outside a mosque at dawn Monday, said Muhammed Kanar, area coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency.

A twin suicide bombing also killed at least 30 people in Madagali, a town 150 kilometers (95 miles) southeast of Maiduguri, witnesses said. Danladi Buba said two women blew themselves up at a market near a busy bus station at about 9 a.m. Brig. Gen. Victor Ezugwu, the officer commanding in northeast Adamawa State, confirmed the attack but said casualties have yet to be established.

The attacks appear to be a challenge to President Muhammadu Buhari’s declaration last week that Nigerian security forces have “technically won the war” against Boko Haram and that it is now capable of no more than suicide bombings on soft targets.

Maiduguri, with a population of about 1 million people, now hosts almost as many refugees — among the 2.5 million people driven from their homes in the 6-year-old Islamic uprising. About 20,000 people have been killed in Nigeria and hundreds others elsewhere as the insurgents have carried their conflict across its borders into Cameroon, Niger and Chad.

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Pink Sisters mark 100 years of nonstop prayer, seek 100 more

PHILADELPHIA — For more than 100 years, the cloistered nuns known as the Pink Sisters have worked in shifts to ensure nonstop prayer in Philadelphia’s Chapel of Divine Love.

Now, to address their shrinking numbers and ensure their prayers continue for another century, the Roman Catholic Holy Spirit Adoration sisters have begun quietly reaching out, seeking to grow their order while carefully maintaining their secluded life.

In the last year, they hung a banner outside their chapel and convent as a way to let other people know about their daily public Masses. They’ve granted more interviews with news reporters. And they have begun inviting Catholic women’s organizations and schools to speak to the sisters — with all conversations taking place through the grille in the convent visiting room, of course.

There’s even a subtle recruitment flier hanging just inside the front door of the chapel. It encourages visitors to ask themselves three questions: Do you love Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament? Do you realize the power of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament? Is Jesus calling you to say ‘yes’ to a life of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament?

“We rarely reached out for vocation promotion before the centennial. But now we want young ladies to see how beautiful the life is and how truer the joy when it is without the trappings of material things,” said Sister Maria Clarissa, 55. “We do our part in addressing these challenges, but at the same time, we leave it to the Lord. He’s the one who calls.”

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Fitbit likely a hot seller for Christmas

NEW YORK — It was a very merry Christmas for fitness-tracking device maker Fitbit.

The company’s app was the most downloaded on Apple’s app store Christmas Day, a sign that many people couldn’t wait to set up their Fitbit trackers after unwrapping them. It also suggests that Fitbit trackers were a hot seller during the holidays, despite increasing competition from Apple’s smartwatch and other wearable devices. Investors were pleased, sending shares of the San Francisco company higher Monday.

The Fitbit app topped Apple’s app store in the U.S. on Christmas Day and the day after, according App Annie, which tracks app downloads and rankings. That’s far better than last year when the Fitbit app ranked at No. 18 on Christmas Day and No. 15 the day after, according to research from Raymond James & Associates. In a note to clients, Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt called the numbers “impressive.”

Fitbit declined to comment Monday. Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

While app downloads don’t necessarily mean a tracker was sold, McCourt said it’s a “good measure of relative sales success.”