World / Nation briefs December 8, 2011
Ousted Illinois Gov. Blagojevich gets 14 years
CHICAGO - The Rod Blagojevich who once challenged a prosecutor to face him like a man, the glad-handing politician who took to celebrity TV shows to profess his innocence, was nowhere to be found Wednesday as he was sentenced to 14 years in prison for corruption.
Frowning and pulling nervously at his tie, the disgraced former governor seemed like another person as he stepped up to address the sentencing judge. Bluster once as conspicuous as his famously lavish head of dark hair was wiped out, a victim of his June convictions on charges that included attempting to sell President Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat.
In a low voice, the two-term Democrat apologized again and again, telling Judge James Zagel he had made "terrible mistakes."
"I caused it all. I'm not blaming anybody," Blagojevich said, trying with uncharacteristic humility to avert severe punishment. "I was the governor and I should have known better and I am just so incredibly sorry."
It was not enough for Zagel, who gave the 54-year-old a sentence close to the 15 to 20 years prosecutors had sought.
5 killed in tour helicopter crash near Lake Mead
LAS VEGAS - A helicopter taking people on a luxury sunset tour of the Las Vegas Strip and Hoover Dam crashed into a mountainside Wednesday, killing the pilot and the four passengers on board, federal authorities said.
The aircraft operated by Sundance Helicopters crashed into the River Mountains surrounding Lake Mead just before 5 p.m., said National Park Service spokesman Andrew Munoz. Numerous witnesses heard the crash and reported seeing smoke about 4 miles west of the lake's edge, Munoz said, and officials determined that all five people on board were killed.
The remote crash site, about 30 miles from the Las Vegas Strip, is not accessible by road, which slowed down the initial rescue and later prompted officials to delay any recovery and investigation until early today.
A park ranger rode in a 4-wheel-drive truck to the crash site late Wednesday to protect the bodies and debris until the investigation resumes, Munoz said.
A spokesman at Sundance Helicopters told The Associated Press that the helicopter had been giving a local tour when it suddenly went missing. He didn't give his name and declined to answer further questions.
Syria's president denies ordering crackdown
BEIRUT - Syrian President Bashar Assad said in a rare interview broadcast Wednesday that he never ordered the brutal suppression of the uprising in his country and insisted only a "crazy person" would kill his own people.
Apparently trying to distance himself from violence that the U.N. says has killed 4,000 people since March, Assad laughed off a question about whether he feels any guilt.
"I did my best to protect the people," he told ABC's Barbara Walters during an interview at the presidential palace in the Syrian capital, Damascus. "You feel sorry for the life that has been lost, but you don't feel guilty when you don't kill people."
"No government in the world (kills) its people unless it is led by a crazy person," Assad added in the interview, which was conducted in English. Assad, who trained as an opthamologist in Britain, speaks the language fluently.
The interview offered a rare glimpse into the character of the 46-year-old Assad, who inherited power from his father in 2000. His brother - widely regarded as the chosen heir - had died in a car crash years earlier.
Assad, who commands Syria's armed forces, has sealed off the country to most outsiders while clinging to the allegation that the uprising is the work of foreign extremists, not true reform-seekers aiming to open the authoritarian political system.
Photos reveal rapidly melting glacier in Chile
SANTIAGO, Chile - Researchers in Chile released a series of time-lapse photos Wednesday showing the dramatic retreat of a glacier in Patagonia.
The Jorge Montt Glacier is shrinking faster than any other in Chile, with its snout retreating a half-mile between February 2010 and January 2011, glaciologist Andres Rivera said.
Rivera said that global warming is a factor and that the glacier also is melting especially quickly because it partly rests in the waters of a deep fjord.
Researchers presented a video showing the glacier's yearlong retreat through a total of 1,445 time-lapse photos. It's one of various similar projects by researchers around the world documenting the loss of glaciers.
Rivera has studied dozens of glaciers as a researcher at the Center of Scientific Studies in Valdivia, Chile. He said he and his colleagues didn't know how rapidly the glacier was shrinking until they put up two cameras with solar panels to charge the batteries and programmed them to shoot four frames a day.
The glacier is about 1,100 miles south of Santiago in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, which blankets a wide swath of the Andes between Chile and Argentina.
- The Associated Press