Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/243904
Friday, January 17, 2014 – Daily News 5A WORLD BRIEFING tions in all four acting categories, ''Hustle'' managed the same feat with Amy Adams, Christian Bale, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper all receiving nods. Vatican comes under tough grilling by UN rights committee GENEVA (AP) — The dressing down came in the unlikeliest of places, a stuffy U.N. conference room before an obscure human rights committee. After decades of fending off accusations that its policies and culture of secrecy had contributed to the global priest sex abuse scandal, the Vatican was called to account. U.N. experts interrogated The Holy See for eight hours on Thursday about the scale of abuse and what it was doing to prevent it, marking the first time the Vatican had been forced to defend its record at length or in public. It resembled a courtroom cross-examination, only no question was offlimits, dodging the answer wasn't an option and the proceedings were webcast live. The Vatican was compelled to appear before the committee as a signatory to the U.N. Convention for the Rights of the Child, which among other things calls for governments to take all adequate measures to protect children from harm and ensure their interests are placed above all else. The Holy See was one of the first states to ratify the treaty in 1990, eager to contribute the church's experience in caring for children in Catholic schools, hospitals, orphanages and refugee centers. The Holy See submitted a first implementation report in 1994, but didn't provide progress reports for nearly two decades until 2012. Airfares rise 12 percent in 5 years Obama's health care law and tighter regulations on financial markets, but at levels lower than the president wanted. The compromise-laden legislation reflects the realities of divided power in Washington and a desire by both Democrats and Republicans for an election-year respite after three years of budget wars that had Congress and the White House lurching from crisis to crisis. Both parties looked upon the measure as a way to ease automatic spending cuts that both the Pentagon and domestic agencies had to begin absorbing last year. Shortly before the final vote, Sen. Ted Cruz, RTexas, delivered a slashing attack on Senate Democrats, accusing them of ignoring the problems caused by the health care law. ''It is abundantly clear that millions of Americans are being harmed right now by this failed law,'' Cruz said. For Obama, $1.1 trillion spending bill NSA review a quest to nears vote WASHINGTON (AP) regain trust — A $1.1 trillion bill easing the harshest effects of last year's automatic spending cuts neared final congressional approval Thursday with wide-scale bipartisan support after tea party critics chastened by last October's government shutdown mounted only a faint protest. A Senate vote Thursday evening on funding the government through next September was the only step remaining to getting the bill to the White House for President Barack Obama's signature before a midnight Saturday deadline, when a temporary funding measure expires. The House passed the bill Wednesday with an overwhelming 359-67, bipartisan majority. The huge bill funds the operations of virtually every agency of government, pairing increases for NASA and Army Corps of Engineers construction projects with cuts to the Internal Revenue Service and foreign aid. It cements a tight lid on government spending demanded by Republicans while paying for the implementation of WASHINGTON (AP) — Faced with Edward Snowden's first leaks about the government's sweeping surveillance apparatus, President Barack Obama's message to Americans boiled down to this: trust me. ''I think on balance, we have established a process and a procedure that the American people should feel comfortable about,'' Obama said in June, days after the initial disclosure about the National Security Agency's bulk collection of telephone data from millions of people. But the leaks kept coming. They painted a picture of a clandestine spy program that indiscriminately scooped up phone and Internet records, while also secretly keeping tabs on the communications of friendly foreign leaders, like Germany's Angela Merkel. On Friday, Obama will unveil a much-anticipated blueprint on the future of those endeavors. His changes appear to be an implicit acknowledgement that the trust he thought Americans would have in the spy operations is shaky at best. His focus is expected to be on steps that increase oversight and transparency while largely leaving the framework of the programs in place. The president is expected to back the creation of an independent public advocate on the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approves the bulk collections and currently only hears arguments from the government. And seeking to soothe international anger, Obama will extend some privacy protections to foreigners and increase oversight of the process used to decide on foreign leader monitoring. Egypt's army chief said to be focusing on country's problems CAIRO (AP) — Having secured victory in a referendum on a relatively liberal constitution that he championed, Egypt's military chief is turning his attention to the country's overwhelming array of problems — from health and education to government subsidies and investment, insiders said Thursday. The revelations offer the latest indication that Gen. Abdel-Fattah elSissi is planning a run for president, capping a stunning transformation for the 59-year-old officer who started in the infantry. He was widely seen as an obscure and acquiescent subordinate a year and a half ago when thenPresident Mohammed Morsi promoted him to defense minister in what has emerged as a colossal political miscalculation. In swift succession, elSissi threw Morsi in jail along with hundreds of his Islamist cohorts, his Muslim Brotherhood has been declared a terrorist group with membership in it banned, and a carefully orchestrated personality cult appears to have been successfully engineered for the general. El-Sissi remains an enigma: Little is known about his private life, other than he is married with four children. His When you have an Urgent Health Care need we have the answer. LASSEN MEDICAL URGENT CARE CLINIC 2450 Sister Mary Columba Drive (530) 527-0414 Open: Monday-Friday 8am-8pm Saturday & Sunday 8am-6pm www.lassenmedical.com daily activities and whereabouts are generally hidden from view. Oscar frontrunner status elusive In a hydra-headed Oscar race, ''American Hustle,'' ''12 Years a Slave'' and ''Gravity'' all have legitimate claims to favorite status. And that's a good thing. Even if a front-runner emerges from the muchnominated trio over the six weeks leading up to the 86th Academy Awards on March 2, the credentials of each film should be plenty to heighten nerves and add to the drama on Oscar night. ''It's an extremely competitive year,'' said David O. Russell, whose ''American Hustle'' landed 10 nods, tied for most with ''Gravity,'' in nominations announced Thursday from Beverly Hills, Calif. ''It could go any which way.'' Steve McQueen's ''12 Years a Slave,'' an unflinching depiction of 19th century American slavery, trailed close behind with nine nominations, including nods for McQueen, lead actor Chiwetel Ejiofor and supporting players Michael Fassbender and Lupita Nyong'o. Since its festival debut, it's been seen by many as the movie to beat, a film bearing heavy historical gravitas that the lighter ''American Hustle'' and the literally weightless ''Gravity'' can't match. But Russell's wild Abscam comedy, thick in 1970s style, has ridden a wave of enthusiasm for its manic performances. It's three in a row for Russell, too, who may be due for bigger Oscar wins than his much-nominated films ''Silver Linings Playbook'' and ''The Fighter'' managed. A year after ''Silver Linings Playbook'' landed nomina- Mobile Pet Vaccinations LOW COST RAIN OR SHINE VACCINE CLINIC DOGS ON LEASH Distemper/Parvo (6-in-1) and Rabies............. $15 Distemper/Parvo (6-in-1) Corona, Rabies & Bordetella....... $25 Distemper/Parvo (6-in-1).............$10 Rabies Only.... $7 CASH ONLY CATS PRESCRIPTION FLEA IN BOX PREVENTION ALSO Feline Distemper AVAILABLE (3-in-1) and Rabies ............. $15 Rabies Only .... $7 Leukemia.........$12 All Three.......... $25 SATURDAY, JAN. 18TH RED BLUFF Reynolds Ranch & Farm Supply 501 Madison, Red Bluff 12:00-2:00 MOBILE PET VACCINATIONS (916) 983-4686 (Not affiliated with any other vaccine clinic) NEW YORK (AP) — The price to board an airliner in the United States has risen for the fourth straight year, making it increasingly expensive to fly almost anywhere. The average domestic roundtrip ticket, including tax, reached $363.42 last year, up more than $7 from the prior year, according to an Associated Press analysis of travel data collected from millions of flights throughout the country. The 2 percent increase outpaced inflation, which stood at 1.5 percent. Airfares have risen nearly 12 percent since their low in the depths of the Great Recession in 2009, when adjusted for inflation, the analysis showed. Ticket prices have increased as airlines eliminated unprofitable routes, packed more passengers into planes and merged with one another, providing travelers with fewer options. Can police search an arrestee's cellphone without a warrant? WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court decided 40 years ago that police don't need a search warrant to look through anything a person is carrying when arrested. But that was long before smartphones gave people the ability to take with them the equivalent of millions of pages of documents or thousands of photographs. In a new clash over technology and privacy, the court is being asked to resolve divisions among federal and state courts over whether the old rules should still apply in the digital age. The justices could say as early as Friday whether they will hear appeals involving warrantless cellphone searches that led to criminal convictions and lengthy prison terms. There are parallels to other cases making their way through the federal courts, including the much-publicized ones that challenge the massive collection without warrants of telephone records by the National Security Agency. Though the details and scale are far different — searching a single phone for evidence that could send someone to jail versus gathering huge amounts of data, almost all of which will never be used — In both situations the government is relying on Supreme Court decisions from the 1970s, when most households still had rotary-dial telephones. Cellphones are now everywhere. More than 90 percent of Americans own at least one, the Pew Research Center says, and the majority of those are smartphones — essentially increasingly powerful computers that are also telephones. Syria allows aid into 2 contested areas near the capital BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian government allowed supplies to enter two contested front-line areas near the capital, a relief official said Thursday. Activists said the death toll from two weeks of infighting in the north between rebel forces and an al-Qaida-linked group climbed to more than 1,000 people. The head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, Khaled Iriqsousi, told The Associated Press that enough supplies to feed 10,000 people for a month entered the Damascus suburbs of alGhezlaniya and Jdaidet alShibani on Thursday. The areas are east and west of the capital of a region known as Ghouta. The government's decision to permit the supplies to enter appeared to be a goodwill gesture on its part as well as an attempt to present itself as a responsible partner ahead of a peace conference scheduled to open next week in Switzerland. It was not clear whether the move was part of arrangement agreed to by Damascus and the main Westernbacked opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, to allow humanitarian aid into some blocked-off areas. That agreement was announced Tuesday in Paris by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who together are working to ease the bloody strife that has engulfed Syria since an uprising there began nearly three years ago. In Washington, Kerry on Thursday reiterated his call for the main Westernbacked opposition group to attend the United Nationsbrokered peace talks. The Syrian National Coalition is scheduled to meet Friday in Turkey to decide whether to take part in the so-called Geneva conference.