World/Nation Briefs February 3, 2012
<p>A woman looks out of a bus window covered in frost in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday. At least 11,000 villagers have been trapped by heavy snow and blizzards in Serbia's mountains, authorities said Thursday, as the death toll from Eastern Europe's weeklong deep freeze rose to 122.</p>
Street clashes continue across Egypt; two killed
CAIRO - Police shot and killed two protesters in Suez, Egypt, early Friday, a health official said, the first to die in clashes that erupted around the country after a riot at a soccer stadium killed 74, as sports violence spiraled into a new political crisis for Egypt.
Protesters blame police for failing to control the riot after the soccer game in Port Said. In Cairo, thousands demonstrated Thursday in front of the Interior Ministry, which oversees the police. Demonstrators threw rocks, and police responded with clouds of tear gas. Hundreds were treated by medics.
In Suez, witnesses said about 3,000 people demonstrated in front of police headquarters after news spread that one of the victims in the Port Said riot was from their city.
Police responded with tear gas and then opened fire, witnesses said. Health official Mohammed Lasheen said two men were killed by bullets. Fifteen other protesters were wounded, he said.
More fallout after Komen cuts screening grants
NEW YORK - The renowned breast cancer charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure faced an escalating backlash Thursday over its decision to cut breast screening grants to Planned Parenthood. Some of Komen's local affiliates are openly upset, including all seven in California, and at least one top official has quit, reportedly in protest.
Meanwhile, Komen has been deluged with negative emails and Facebook postings, accusing it of knuckling under to pressure from anti-abortion groups, since The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that it was halting grants that Planned Parenthood affiliates used for breast exams and related services. The grants totaled $680,000 last year.
Planned Parenthood has been heartened by an outpouring of support in response to the cutoff. Besides $400,000 in smaller donations from 6,000 people, it is receiving $250,000 from a family foundation in Dallas and a $250,000 pledge announced Thursday by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to match future donations.
In Washington, 26 U.S. senators - all Democrats except for independent Bernie Sanders, of Vermont - signed a letter calling on Komen to reconsider its decision.
"It would be tragic if any woman - let alone thousands of women - lost access to these potentially lifesaving screenings because of a politically motivated attack," the senators wrote.
Fortune seekers tempted by Italy cruise ship
ROME - In the chaotic evacuation of the Costa Concordia, passengers and crew abandoned almost everything on board the cruise ship: jewels, cash, champagne, antiques, 19th-century Bohemian crystal glassware and thousands of art objects, including 300-year-old woodblock prints by a Japanese master.
Now, a veritable treasure lies beneath the pristine Italian waters where the luxury liner ran aground last month.
Though some objects are bound to disintegrate, there is still hoard enough to tempt treasure seekers - just as the Titanic and countless shipwrecks before have lured seekers of gold, armaments and other riches for as far back as mankind can remember.
It may be just a matter of time before treasure hunters set their sights on the sunken spoils of the Costa Concordia, which had more than 4,200 people on board.
"As long as there are bodies in there, it's considered off base to everybody because it's a grave," said Robert Marx, a veteran diver and the author of numerous books on maritime history, underwater archaeology and treasure hunting. "But when all the bodies are out, there will be a mad dash for the valuables."
More winter? U.S. groundhogs issue split decision
PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. - Pennsylvania's Punxsutawney Phil told people to prepare for six more weeks of winter on Thursday, making him the minority opinion among his groundhog brethren who seem to think that spring is coming early.
But with such a mild and relatively snowless winter so far, who can tell the difference?
Phil's "prediction" came as he emerged from his lair to "see" his shadow on Gobbler's Knob, a tiny hill in the town for which he's named about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
Yet groundhogs in at least five other states - West Virginia's French Creek Freddie, Georgia's Gen. Beauregard Lee, Michigan's Woody the Woodchuck, Ohio's Buckeye Chuck and New York's Staten Island Chuck (full name: Charles G. Hogg) - did not see their shadows. Nor did Ontario's Wiarton Willie or Nova Scotia's Shubenacadie Sam.
The Groundhog Day celebration is rooted in a German superstition that says if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on Feb. 2, the Christian holiday of Candlemas, winter will last another six weeks. If no shadow is seen, legend says, spring will come early.
- The Associated Press