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Australia sends planes to check possible objects from missing Malaysia jet; cautions on hopes
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Four military search planes were dispatched Thursday to determine whether two large objects bobbing in a remote part of the Indian Ocean are debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight.
One of the objects spotted by satellite imagery was 24 meters (almost 80 feet) in length and the other was 5 meters (15 feet). There could be other objects in the area, a four-hour flight from Australia's southwestern coast, said John Young, manager of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority's emergency response division.
"This is a lead, it's probably the best lead we have right now," Young said. He cautioned that the objects could be seaborne debris along a shipping route where containers can fall off cargo vessels, although the larger object is longer than a container.
Young told a news conference in Canberra, Australia's capital, that planes had been sent to the area about 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) southwest of Perth to check on the objects. He said satellite images "do not always turn out to be related to the search even if they look good, so we will hold our views on that until they are sighted close-up."
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott earlier told Parliament about the debris, and said Orion search aircraft had been dispatched.
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Merkel says EU considering further sanctions on Russia as Ukrainian naval commander released
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia faces further sanctions from the European Union on Thursday over its annexation of the Crimea Peninsula as tensions in the region remained high despite the release of a Ukrainian naval commander.
In an address to the German Parliament, Chancellor Angela Merkel said the EU was readying further sanctions and that the G-8 forum of leading economies had been suspended indefinitely. Russia holds the presidency of the G-8 and President Vladimir Putin was due to host his counterparts, including President Barack Obama, at a summit in Sochi in June.
"So long as there aren't the political circumstances, like now, for an important format like the G-8, then there is no G-8," Merkel said. "Neither the summit, nor the format."
Earlier this week, the EU and the United States slapped sanctions on certain individuals that were involved in what they say was the unlawful referendum in Crimea over joining Russia.
Merkel said EU leaders would increase those "Level 2" sanctions against Russia when they meet later Thursday in Brussels to widen the list of those whose assets are being frozen and who are banned from traveling.
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Could new Russian threat in Eastern Europe divert NATO's attention away from Afghanistan?
WASHINGTON (AP) — With Russia pushing new hostilities to Europe's doorstep, U.S. and NATO officials are trying to gauge whether already dwindling resources and attention will be diverted from what, until now, has been a top security priority: Afghanistan.
NATO, the international military alliance, is intent on continuing its 12-year mission in Afghanistan and has urged the government in Kabul to sign a security agreement allowing foreign troops to stay and train local forces beyond a Dec. 31 withdrawal deadline.
But with NATO states in Eastern Europe openly worried over Russian aggression, especially after Moscow this week annexed the strategic Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine, the alliance may have little choice but to bolster its own borders at some cost of keeping a robust and diverse military presence a continent away.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen insisted Wednesday that Russia's aggressions would not distract the military alliance from Afghanistan.
"We have the capacity to deal with several missions and operations at one and the same time," Rasmussen said under questioning at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington. "And ongoing events will not have any impact on our engagement in Afghanistan."
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Analysis: Ukraine crisis has roots in end of Cold War, disregard of Russian sensitivities
WASHINGTON (AP) — The crisis over Crimea is more than a dispute over whether the strategic Black Sea peninsula should be considered Russian or Ukrainian. At its root is a deeper issue: Russia's simmering anger over its treatment by the West since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.
Russia's biggest grievance has been the absorption into the NATO alliance not only of former Soviet allies, such as Poland and Romania, but also three republics that were part of the Soviet Union: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The last straw was a European Union move to draw Ukraine closer to the West through a political association agreement. That set off a chain of events that led to the ouster of Ukraine's pro-Russian president and, ultimately, to Russia's annexation of Crimea.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recounted the post-Cold War history during a speech Tuesday marking Crimea's annexation, accusing the West of cheating Russia and ignoring its interests in the years that followed the Soviet collapse.
"They have constantly tried to drive us into a corner for our independent stance, for defending it, for calling things by their proper names and not being hypocritical," Putin said. "But there are limits. And in the case of Ukraine, our Western partners have crossed a line. They have behaved rudely, irresponsibly and unprofessionally."
Few Western observers and students of East-West relations condone Putin's actions in Ukraine — the military takeover, the hastily organized referendum about Crimean independence or Moscow's equally rushed annexation of the strategic Black Sea peninsula on Tuesday. But there is an understanding that the Ukraine crisis marks a Kremlin decision that more than "20 years of trying to develop a better relationship with the West has been a failure," said Keith Darden, a professor of international service at American University.
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Southern Democrats lean on young legacies and has-beens for 2014 comeback effort
ATLANTA (AP) — Democrats in the conservative Deep South are looking to recapture some old political magic in the 2014 elections.
President Barack Obama's party is running candidates with familiar names, like Carter and Nunn in Georgia, in hopes of rebuilding clout where Republicans rule. Given their recent political struggles in the region, some Democrats say they have nothing to lose.
"We need known quantities while we continue to build our bench for the future," said Georgia Democratic Chairman DuBose Porter, a failed candidate for governor in 2010. "This gives us a short game and a long game."
The candidates are carefully managing their family connections and their own political histories — a tactic that reflects the risk of looking like a party of the past and the sheer difficulty of winning in the face of widespread disdain for Obama and his signature health care law.
Southern Democratic Party leaders counter that it's still their best shot to restore an old majority coalition: blacks, urban liberals and just enough whites from small towns and rural areas. That would mean remixes and retreads successfully luring voters who have trended Republican or stayed home in recent years while the GOP built a virtual monopoly on statewide offices.
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25 years after Exxon Valdez, some damage heals, some effects linger in Prince William Sound
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Before the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico, there was the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, at the time the nation's largest oil spill.
The 987-foot tanker, carrying 53 million gallons of crude, struck Bligh Reef at 12:04 a.m. on March 24, 1989. Within hours, it unleashed an estimated 10.8 million gallons of thick, toxic crude oil into the water. Storms and currents then smeared it over 1,300 miles of shoreline.
For a generation of people around the world, the spill was seared into their memories by images of fouled coastline in Prince William Sound, of sea otters, herring and birds soaked in oil, of workers painstakingly washing crude off the rugged beaches.
Twenty five years later, most of the species have recovered, said Robert Spies, a chief science adviser to governments on the oil spill restoration program from 1989 to 2002. But some wildlife, as well as the people who live in the region, are still struggling.
Here's a look at what's changed since the spill:
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1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, then world's worst oil spill, as reported by The Associated Press
EDITOR'S NOTE: Early on March 24, 1989, Dean Fosdick, the Alaska bureau chief of The Associated Press, was awakened around 5:30 a.m. by a phone call. The caller had a tip that a tanker had run aground outside Valdez.
Fosdick quickly confirmed with a top Coast Guard official that the Exxon Valdez had struck a reef and was leaking thick, toxic crude oil into Prince William Sound, and sent out first word to the world of what at the time was the nation's worst-ever oil spill.
The AP dispatched more than a dozen reporters, photographers and editors to cover the disaster. For a generation of people, the stories and the images of fouled coastline, of sea otters, herring and birds soaked in oil, of workers painstakingly washing crude off the rugged shoreline, became seared in their memories.
Twenty five years after their original publication, the AP is making this report, by Susan Gallagher, and images, taken by Jack Smith and John Gaps III, among others, available to subscribers:
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How to follow the job market like a Fed chair: Yellen lists key employment gauges
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve on Wednesday downplayed the unemployment rate as a guide to the U.S. economy's health. But Janet Yellen, the new Fed chair, didn't leave investors in the dark.
Instead, she listed five gauges that make up her "dashboard" for tracking the economy. She also specified, in some cases, when those measures would signal a healthy economy.
The issue arose because Fed policymakers, like many economists, worry that the unemployment rate might be overstating the health of the economy. The rate has fallen by a full percentage point in the past year. But much of the drop occurred because fewer Americans are working or looking for work. The government doesn't count people as unemployed unless they're actively searching for jobs.
For those who want to track the economy along with Yellen, here are the items she listed during a news conference Wednesday, her first as Fed chair:
— THE U-6:
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Cat behaviorist Jackson Galaxy heading to Oregon to work with animal that attacked family
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The large cat that attacked a baby and trapped an Oregon family in a bedroom touched off an Internet uproar that worries Jackson Galaxy, star of Animal Planet's "My Cat from Hell."
Cats don't become ferocious felines that turn on their families for no reason, says the cat behavior expert, who is heading to Portland soon to work with the 4-year-old part-Himalayan pet named Lux. Galaxy will film the visit for his show's fifth season, which kicks off April 26.
"Every parental site on the Internet blames the cat for this confrontation. Every pet site blames the family," he said, adding that something is wrong if the cat is acting out. "We need to step away from the hysteria. There is a story behind all this. Don't assume anything."
Lux became a worldwide phenomenon after owner Lee Palmer called 911 and said the cat had cornered him, his girlfriend, their baby and the family dog inside a room.
Palmer says his 7-month-old pulled Lux's tail, and he kicked the animal after it scratched the child. Then, the cat "just went off over the edge," Palmer told an emergency dispatcher after the family barricaded themselves. "He's charging us," Palmer said, as the cat was heard screeching in the background. Officers arrived and caught Lux with a dog snare.
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Mascots in danger, prez hops aboard Michigan State's bandwagon and Joe Biden jumps off
Welcome back to BracketRacket, the one-stop shopping place for all your NCAA tournament needs. If you think the lack of breathable polyester in those ridiculous get-ups is the biggest threat to mascots, you may want to go directly to item No. 3. Without further ado:
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THE SADDEST NCAA POOL IN AMERICA, BAR NONE
When the news release first crossed the desk, it seemed like a sign of the times. On reflection, it might be the lamest attempt at a "March Madness" tie-in ever.
"Today, as millions of Americans fill out NCAA men's basketball tournament brackets at their jobs," the release began, "one office pool is different. It's the one for people currently without jobs."
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