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Huge tornado kills 16 in Arkansas on day of violent weather; other twister kills 1 in Oklahoma
VILONIA, Ark. (AP) — Three years after a tornado devastated the Little Rock suburb of Vilonia, its residents found themselves huddling in the dark early Monday wondering how they would rebuild again after the most powerful tornado yet this year carved a path through their city and others nearby, killing at least 16 people.
The tornado touched down Sunday about 10 miles west of Little Rock at around 7 p.m., then carved an 80-mile path of destruction as it passed through or near several suburbs north of the state capital, including Vilonia. It grew to be a half-mile wide and remained on the ground for much of that route, authorities said.
Among the ruins was a new $14 million intermediate school that was set to open this fall.
"There's just really nothing there anymore. We're probably going to have to start all over again," Vilonia Schools Superintendent Frank Mitchell said after surveying what was left of the building.
The tornado was the largest of several produced by a powerful storm system that rumbled through the central and southern U.S. Another twister killed a person in Quapaw, Okla., before crossing into Kansas to the north and destroying 60 to 70 homes and injuring 25 people in the city of Baxter Springs, according to authorities in Kansas. A death was reported in Baxter Springs, but it wasn't yet known if it was caused by the tornado, making the Oklahoma death the only confirmed death from Sunday's storms outside of Arkansas. The overall death toll stood at 17 early Monday.
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Pro-Russian insurgents seize council building in another city in eastern Ukraine
KOSTYANTYNIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — Masked and armed militants on Monday seized a council building in yet another city in eastern Ukraine, expanding their onslaught in the region, while Barack Obama said the U.S. would levy new sanctions on Russians for Moscow's alleged involvement in the unrest.
The building housing the city hall and the city council in Kostyantynivka, just 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the Russian border, was seized by masked men who carried automatic weapons. About 15 armed men, some wearing a symbol of the pro-Russian movement, guarded the building.
Kostyantynivka is just 35 kilometers south of Slovyansk which has been in insurgents' hands for more than three weeks now.
Since November, Ukraine has been engulfed in its worst political crisis since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union. Months of anti-government protests in the capital Kiev culminated in President Viktor Yanukovych fleeing to Russia in late February.
Ukraine's acting government and the West have accused Russia of orchestrating the unrest, which they fear Moscow could use as a pretext for an invasion. Last month, Russia annexed Crimea weeks after seizing control of the Black Sea peninsula.
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Obama: US to levy new sanctions Monday on Russian individuals, companies
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Seeking to ratchet up pressure on Vladimir Putin, President Barack Obama said the United States will levy new sanctions Monday on Russian individuals and companies in retaliation for Moscow's alleged provocations in Ukraine.
Obama said the targets of the sanctions would include high-technology exports to Russia's defense industry. The full list of targets will be announced by officials in Washington later Monday and are also expected to include wealthy individuals close to Putin, the Russian president.
"The goal here is not to go after Mr. Putin personally," Obama said. "The goal is to change his calculus with respect to how the current actions that he's engaging in could have an adverse impact on the Russian economy over the long haul."
Obama announced the sanctions during a news conference in the Philippines, his final stop on a four-country Asia swing. The president has been building a case for this round of penalties throughout his trip, both in his public comments and in private conversations with European leaders.
The new sanctions are intended to build on earlier U.S. and European visa bans and asset freezes imposed on Russian officials, including many in Putin's inner circle, after Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine last month.
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Egypt judge sentences 683 to death in mass trial, including Muslim Brotherhood leader
MINYA, Egypt (AP) — A judge in Egypt sentenced to death 683 alleged supporters of the country's ousted Islamist president on Monday over acts of violence and the murder of policemen in the latest mass trial in Egypt that included the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual leader, defense lawyers said.
Under the law, Monday's verdicts in the southern city of Minya have to be referred to Egypt's Grand Mufti, the top Islamic official, said one of the attorneys, Ahmed Hefni.
Such a move is usually considered a formality but the same judge in the trial on Monday also reversed most of the death sentences out of 529 that were passed in a similar case in March, and commuted the majority of them to life imprisonment.
Monday's case is linked to deadly riots that erupted in Minya and elsewhere in Egypt after security forces violently disbanded sit-ins held by Brotherhood supporters in Cairo last August.
Hundreds were killed as part of a sweeping campaign against supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi, who was removed by the military last July.
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Report: US high school graduation rate at 80 percent; more progress needed to meet 90 percent
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. public high schools have reached a milestone, an 80 percent graduation rate. Yet that still means 1 of every 5 students walks away without a diploma.
Citing the progress, researchers are projecting a 90 percent national graduation rate by 2020.
Their report, based on Education Department statistics from 2012, was being presented Monday at the Building a GradNation Summit.
The growth has been spurred by such factors as a greater awareness of the dropout problem and efforts by districts, states and the federal government to include graduation rates in accountability measures. Among the initiatives are closing "dropout factory" schools.
In addition, schools are taking aggressive action, such as hiring intervention specialists who work with students one on one, to keep teenagers in class, researchers said.
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Democrats hope Senate minimum wage vote will draw November support from women, young voters
WASHINGTON (AP) — Win or lose — and they'll probably lose — Democrats hope this week's Senate showdown over raising the federal minimum wage reaps them benefits in November's congressional elections.
Whether they'll get an Election Day payoff is uncertain.
In a Senate vote expected Wednesday, Republicans seem likely to block the Democratic measure, which would gradually raise today's $7.25 hourly minimum, reaching $10.10 as soon as 2016. Even if the bill, one of President Barack Obama's top priorities, somehow survives in the Senate, it stands little chance of even getting a vote in the GOP-run House.
Who would the proposal most directly affect? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women and young people make up disproportionate portions of the 3.3 million people who earned $7.25 or less last year. Both groups traditionally skew Democratic, and the party would love to drive them to the polls in November as it battles to retain Senate control.
"It's a powerful values issue for middle-class voters," Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin said of the minimum wage push. "And it's a powerful motivator for voters in the Democratic base who are a focal point of Democratic efforts to turn out voters in the midterm elections."
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Volunteers quietly help families of SKorean ferry's lost in manifold ways, from cabs to kebabs
JINDO, South Korea (AP) — The mother, slightly drunk, sits on the edge of a windblown dock and wails. A Buddhist monk approaches and wipes the tears from her face as she pours out her grief and longing for her missing son. He leads her away from the dock's edge and, as she weeps, chants Buddhist scriptures and sounds a wooden gong in a prayer for her son's return.
"They are really suffering," said the monk, Bul Il, who came from the southeastern port city of Busan to help the families of the more than 100 still missing in the sunken South Korean ferry. "It's painful for me to watch their misery," he said, his face peeling and red from long chants on a platform facing the sea.
Bul Il is one member of an impromptu city that has sprung up at this normally sleepy port for the families of those lost in the disaster. The city runs on the kindness of strangers.
A sense of national mourning over a tragedy that will likely result in more than 300 deaths, most of them high school students, has prompted an outpouring of volunteers. More than 16,000 people — about half the island's normal population — have come to help.
They handle much of the care that relatives of the missing receive in Jindo as they wait for divers to retrieve the bodies of their loved ones from the wreckage of the ferry Sewol.
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Australia says missing plane's search area to be expanded in 2nd phase of underwater hunt
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The underwater hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet will be expanded to include a massive swath of ocean floor that may take up to eight months to thoroughly search, Australia's prime minister said Monday.
The U.S. Navy's Bluefin 21 robotic submarine has spent weeks scouring the initial search area for Flight 370 in the remote Indian Ocean far off Australia's west coast, but has found no trace of the missing aircraft, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said. Officials are now looking to bring in new equipment that can search a larger patch of seabed for the plane, Abbott said.
"It is highly unlikely at this stage that we will find any aircraft debris on the ocean surface. By this stage, 52 days into the search, most material would have become waterlogged and sunk," Abbott told reporters. "Therefore, we are moving from the current phase to a phase which is focused on searching the ocean floor over a much larger area."
An aerial search for the plane that has dragged on for six weeks will officially end on Monday, the search coordination center later confirmed.
Radar and satellite data show the jet carrying 239 passengers and crew veered far off course on March 8 for unknown reasons during a flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing. Analysis indicates it would have run out of fuel in the remote section of ocean where the search has been focused. But not a single piece of debris has been recovered since the massive multinational hunt began.
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With players anxious for resolution to Sterling matter, all eyes now on NBA's Adam Silver
The Los Angeles Clippers have Monday off.
Adam Silver likely won't get that same luxury.
Facing the first real crisis of his short tenure as NBA commissioner, Silver is under pressure to swiftly bring some sort of resolution to the scandal surrounding Clippers owner Donald Sterling and the racially charged comments he allegedly made in a recorded conversation, portions of which were released over the weekend by TMZ and Deadspin.
The matter will not go away anytime soon, but the players' association is hoping Silver rules before the Clippers play host to Golden State in a critical Game 5 of their knotted-up Western Conference first-round series on Tuesday night. That means plenty of eyeballs will remain on the commissioner's office Monday, waiting to see if any word is coming.
"This situation is a massive distraction for the league right now," said Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, the former NBA All-Star who is serving as an adviser to the National Basketball Players Association while the Sterling matter plays out. "It must be addressed immediately."
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Obama says new military pact with the Philippines will improve security in Asia
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — President Barack Obama said a 10-year agreement signed Monday to give the U.S military greater access to Philippine bases will help promote peace and stability in the region and that he hopes China's dominant power will allow its neighbors to prosper on their own terms.
The Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement signed as Obama arrived in the Philippines will give American forces temporary access to selected military camps and allow them to preposition fighter jets and ships. It is being seen as an effort by Washington to counter Chinese aggression in the region, and Obama said his message to China is, "We want to be a partner with you in upholding international law."
"Our goal is not to counter China. Our goal is not to contain China. Our goal is to make sure international rules and norms are respected and that includes in the area of international disputes," Obama said at a news conference with Philippine President Benigno Aquino at the Malacanang Palace.
Obama's overnight visit to the Philippines is the last stop of a weeklong Asia tour that also included Japan, South Korea and Malaysia. At each stop along his tour, Obama reaffirmed the U.S. treaty commitments to defend its Asian allies, including in their territorial disputes with China.
"We don't even take a specific position on the disputes between nations but as a matter of international law and international norms we don't think that coercion and intimidation is the way to manage these disputes," Obama said. He added that when the U.S. has disputes with its neighbors, it works them out through dialogue. "We don't go around sending ships and threatening folks."
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