World/Nation
• Riot police storm opposition office in Ukraine
KIEV, Ukraine - Heavily armed riot troops broke into the offices of a top Ukrainian opposition party in Kiev and seized its servers Monday, the party said, as anti-government protests crippled the capital for yet another day.
Elsewhere police dismantled or blocked off several small protest tent camps set up near key national government buildings in the city.
Tensions also rose as a double cordon of helmeted, shield-holding police deployed in the street near Kiev's city administration building, which demonstrators had occupied and turned into a makeshift command post and dormitory.
• 'Sound of Music' actress Eleanor Parker dies at 91
LOS ANGELES - Eleanor Parker, who was nominated for Academy Awards three times for her portrayals of strong-willed women and played a scheming baroness in "The Sound of Music," has died at 91.
Family friend Richard Gale said Parker died Monday morning due to complications from pneumonia. "She passed away peacefully, surrounded by her children at a medical facility near her home in Palm Springs," Gale added.
Parker was nominated for Oscars in 1950, 1951 and 1955, but then saw her career begin to wane in the early 1960s. Her last memorable role came in 1965's "The Sound of Music," in which she played the scheming baroness who loses Christopher Plummer to Julie Andrews.
"Eleanor Parker was and is one of the most beautiful ladies I have ever known," said Plummer. "Both as a person and as a beauty. I hardly believe the sad news for I was sure she was enchanted and would live forever."
Parker's death comes at a time when "The Sound of Music" is back in the spotlight following NBC's live restaging of the classic last week - a ratings smash.
• One year after Newtown, gun control stymied
WASHINGTON - Narrowly beating a midnight deadline, Congress voted Monday to renew an expiring ban on plastic firearms that can evade airport detection machines. But Republicans blocked an effort to toughen the restrictions - the latest defeat for gun-control forces in the year since the grade school massacre in Newtown, Conn.
By voice vote, the Senate gave final congressional approval to a 10-year extension of the prohibition against guns that can slip past metal detectors and X-ray machines. The House voted last week for an identical decade-long renewal of the ban, and the measure now goes to President Barack Obama for his signature.
Obama, traveling to Africa for ceremonies honoring the late South African president Nelson Mandela, was expected to sign the bill before midnight using an auto pen, a White House official said. The device has been used for the signatures of traveling presidents since the administration of president George W. Bush.
GOP senators rejected an effort by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to strengthen the ban by requiring that such weapons contain undetachable metal parts. Some plastic guns meet the letter of the current law with a metal piece that can be removed, making them a threat to be slipped past security screeners at schools, airports and elsewhere.
• Major tech firms urge crackdown on Internet spying
WASHINGTON - Silicon Valley is escalating pressure on President Barack Obama to curb the U.S. government surveillance programs that vacuum personal information off the Internet and threaten the technology industry's financial livelihood.
A coalition that includes Google, Apple, Yahoo, Facebook and Microsoft lashed out in an open letter printed Monday in major newspapers and a new website.
The crusade united eight companies that often compete fiercely against each other, but now find themselves banding together to limit the potential damage from revelations about the National Security Agency's snooping on Web surfers.
- The Associated Press