— A large fire broke out Sunday in the basement of a sprawling residential complex in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich east, killing at least 11 people and injuring more than 200, officials in the kingdom said.
The blaze began early in the morning in a multistory residential compound known as Radium in the eastern city of Khobar. The complex houses workers for state oil giant Saudi Aramco, which oversees petroleum production in the OPEC powerhouse.
Fire at Saudi oil company residence kills 11
Egypt sentences 3 Al-Jazeera reporters to 3 years in prison
A court in Egypt has sentenced three Al Jazeera journalists to three years in jail after finding them guilty of "aiding a terrorist organization".
Egyptian Baher Mohamed, Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Australian Peter Greste were all handed three-year jail sentences when the court in Cairo delivered the verdict on Saturday, sparking worldwide condemnation of the decision.
Mohamed was sentenced to an additional six months for possession of a spent bullet casing. An appeal against the verdict is planned.
NASA: Sea Level Rise Likely To Get Much Worse
Sea levels worldwide rose an average of nearly 3 inches (8 cm) since 1992, the result of warming waters and melting ice, a panel of NASA scientists said on Wednesday.
In 2013, a United Nations panel predicted sea levels would rise from 1 to 3 feet (0.3 to 0.9 meters) by the end of the century. The new research shows that sea level rise most likely will be at the high end of that range, said University of Colorado geophysicist Steve Nerem.
Snowden may get freedom prize at Norway border
The Norwegian academy which gave Edward Snowden a free speech prize is planning to hold a "symbolic ceremony" for the whistleblower at the country's far-northern border with Russia.
The Norwegian Academy of Literature and Freedom of Expression, which awarded the NSA whistleblower its Bjornson prize earlier this year, said that, as Norway's government is still giving no assurances that it will protect Snowden, it could be forced to hold the ceremony at the border.
"An award ceremony like that would without doubt be very special," Hege Newth Nouri, the academy's head, told state broadcaster NRK.
Refugee boat sinkings claim at least 100 off Libya, hundreds more missing
The bodies of scores of refugees have been recovered by Libyan authorities responding to two off-coast sinkings of smuggling ships thought to be carrying hundreds of people.
A Red Crescent official told the Associated Press that 105 people have so far been confirmed dead, but it is feared that the total could rise as hundreds are still missing. On Friday, Libyan authorities were observed removing bodies from the waters off the coastal city of Zuwara — a launch pad for overcrowded refugee ships heading to Europe.
65 Pounds of Diamonds Vanish in Russia
Rough diamonds worth millions of dollars have reportedly disappeared from Russia's supposedly impenetrable repository created by the Bolsheviks to store the tsar's jewels.
The state-owned Severalmaz company handed diamonds weighing a combined 150,000 carats — or 66 pounds — to the Gokhran repository for inventory purposes, according to respected business daily Kommersant.
Same-sex couple cheers gay marriage ruling in Kentucky
April Miller and Karen Roberts hugged as the news flashed across their television screen, and their hug turned into a brief slow dance across the living room rug.
A federal appeals court had just upheld a ruling ordering the clerk in their rural Kentucky county to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
For two months since the United States Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage across the country, Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis has refused to issue any marriage licenses, citing her Christian faith and constitutional right to religious freedom. On Thursday, her office refused to issue a marriage license to another couple, William Smith Jr. and James Yates. It was their third attempt to get a license.
More than 20 dead refugees discovered in truck in Austria
As many as 50 refugees were found dead in a parked truck in eastern Austria on Thursday, police said, marking what one Austrian official called a “dark day” in Europe’s escalating refugee crisis.
The vehicle, which contained between 20 and 50 bodies, was found on a parking strip off the highway in Burgenland state, police spokesman Hans Peter Doskozil said at a press conference with Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner. "This tragedy affects us all deeply," Mikl-Leitner said.
Bob Alexander: The Ghosts in the Clock
A bell tolls each life event.
Bong … New Year's … Bong … Birthdays … Bong … Spring … Bong … Summer … Bong … Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas and … Bong … Happy New Year.
Before we can catch our breath the bell tolls again for the very next thing as we continue to race around the sun at the speed of time. To remember what we have seen, rushing from one thing to the next, we watch television, the medium designed to make us forget. To facilitate the forgetting process the most trusted television news network tells us lies 60% of the time.
The second hand sweeps around the face of the clock, every second a new story is told, and with every revolution memories are wiped clean. Memory is a palimpsest; the new erases the old and is itself overwritten by the next. But … stop the clock … and we can see the ghosts who live between the tick and the tock. Before the present is erased by the future, we can still see the faint traces of the past. As Faulkner said, “The past is never dead. It's not even past.”
Page 224 of 1154
