US orders diplomats out of Lebanon US orders diplomats out of Lebanon ADVERTISING BEIRUT — The State Department ordered all nonessential U.S. personnel Friday to leave Lebanon, reflecting fears that an American-led strike on neighboring Syria would unleash more bloodshed
US orders diplomats out of Lebanon
BEIRUT — The State Department ordered all nonessential U.S. personnel Friday to leave Lebanon, reflecting fears that an American-led strike on neighboring Syria would unleash more bloodshed in this already fragile nation.
The Lebanese government’s top security body held an emergency meeting and the Shiite militant group Hezbollah put its fighters on high alert.
Lebanon and Syria share a complicated history and a web of political and sectarian ties and rivalries. The uprising against President Bashar Assad has intensified divisions among Lebanese religious groups as well as polarization among those who support him and those backing the rebels fighting to topple him.
Lebanon has become completely consumed by the civil war next door. Car bombings, rockets, kidnappings and sectarian clashes — all related to the conflict — have become increasingly common in recent months.
Ohio kidnapper told police he could have been caught in 2004
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A man who held three women for a decade in his Cleveland home said authorities missed an opportunity to catch him in 2004, because his picture should have been captured by a school security camera minutes before he abducted one of his victims, according to interrogation videotapes that became public Friday.
“You could have broke the case right then and there,” Castro told police during a recorded interview that was obtained by NBC and first reported Friday on the “Today” show.
In the video, deceased kidnapper Ariel Castro said cameras outside Gina DeJesus’ school should have captured him there 15 minutes before the then-14-year-old girl was abducted.
Cleveland police did not respond to requests for comment regarding Castro’s claim there was a missed opportunity to catch him after DeJesus disappeared.
The recording shows the former schoolbus driver eating a slice of pizza and later pacing the room during a reportedly four-hour interrogation in which he told police he had used victim Amanda Berry’s cellphone to call her mother and say she was alive.
Arizona woman on death row awaits release, retrial
PHOENIX — An Arizona woman who spent more than two decades on death row was released on bond Friday after a judge ruled there’s no direct evidence linking her to the death of her young son, other than a purported confession to a detective whose honesty has been questioned.
Debra Milke walked out of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s jail after supporters posted $250,000 bond.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned her conviction in March, stating that prosecutors should have disclosed information that cast doubt on the credibility of a since-retired detective who said Milke confessed.
The 49-year-old Milke has not been exonerated, but a judge said she could go free while preparing for a new trial in a case that made her one of Arizona’s most reviled inmates.
Milke was convicted in the death of her 4-year-old son, Christopher, who was allegedly killed for a $5,000 insurance payout. His mother was accused of dressing the boy in his favorite outfit in December 1989 and telling him he was going to see Santa Claus at a mall before handing him over to two men who took the child into the desert and shot him. She had been imprisoned since 1990.
Moon rocket launches from Virginia
A spacecraft was launched late Friday night from Virginia to the moon, a first in the history of space exploration.
The launch from Wallops Island occurred on schedule at 11:27 p.m. EDT.
The rocket that launched the spacecraft was a five-stage Minotaur V, provided by Orbital Sciences, a Dulles, Va.-based company.
By wire sources
