World/ Nation Briefs June 6, 2013
<p>Two-month-old orphaned baby elephant Ajabu is given a dust-bath in the red earth after being fed milk from a bottle by a keeper, as she is too young to do it herself, at an event to mark World Environment Day at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya Wednesday. Trust founder Daphne Sheldrick said at the event, which was attended by U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Robert Godec, that they are seeing an upsurge in orphaned elephants because of the poaching crisis occurring across Africa.</p>
Obama names Rice as national security adviser
WASHINGTON - Defying Republican critics, President Barack Obama named outspoken diplomat Susan Rice as his national security adviser Wednesday, giving her a larger voice in U.S. foreign policy despite accusations that she misled the nation in the aftermath of the deadly attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya.
The appointment, along with the nomination of human rights advocate Samantha Power to replace Rice as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, signals a shift by Obama toward advisers who favor more robust American intervention overseas for humanitarian purposes. But it's unclear whether that philosophy will alter the president's policies in Syria, where he has resisted pressure to use U.S. military force to stem that country's civil war.
Rice's appointment provides a measure of redemption after the contentious Benghazi investigations forced her from consideration as Obama's second-term secretary of state. The president, who vigorously defended Rice from the GOP criticism at the time, lauded his close friend Wednesday as a "patriot who puts her country first."
Court: Girls of all ages can buy morning-after pill
NEW YORK - Girls of any age can buy generic versions of emergency contraception without prescriptions while the federal government appeals a judge's ruling allowing the sales, a federal appeals court said Wednesday.
The order, the latest in a series of rulings in a complex back-and-forth over access to the drug, was met with praise from advocates for girls' and women's rights and scorn from social conservatives and other opponents, who argue the drug's availability takes away the rights of parents of girls who could get it without their permission.
The brief order issued by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan permitted two-pill versions of emergency contraception to immediately be sold without restrictions, but the court refused to allow unrestricted sales of Plan B One-Step until it decides the merits of the government's appeal.
TSA drops plan to allow small knives on planes
WASHINGTON - The Transportation Security Administration is abandoning a plan to allow passengers to carry small knives, souvenir bats, golf clubs and other sports equipment onto planes in the face of fierce congressional and industry opposition, the head of the agency said Wednesday.
By scuttling the plan to drop the knives and sports equipment from TSA's list of prohibited items, the agency can focus its attention on other priorities, including expanding its Pre-Check program to identify ahead of time travelers who don't pose a security risk, TSA Administrator John Pistole said.
Soldier pleads guilty in Afghan massacre
JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. - The American soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians, many of them women and children who were asleep in their villages, pleaded guilty to murder Wednesday and acknowledged to a judge that there was "not a good reason in this world" for his actions.
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales' plea ensures he will avoid the death penalty for the slayings that so inflamed tensions with the people of Afghanistan that the American military suspended combat operations there.
Prosecutors say Bales slipped away before dawn on March 11, 2012, from his base in Kandahar Province. Armed with a 9 mm pistol and an M-4 rifle equipped with a grenade launcher, he attacked a village of mud-walled compounds called Alkozai, then returned and woke up a fellow soldier to tell him about it.
The soldier didn't believe Bales and went back to sleep. Bales then left to attack a second village known as Najiban.
Relatives of the dead were outraged at the idea that Bales could escape execution when they spoke to The Associated Press in April in Kandahar.
Judge grants dying girl's bid to seek adult lungs
PHILADELPHIA - A dying 10-year-old girl can move up the adult waiting list for a lung transplant after a federal judge intervened in her case Wednesday, a move questioned by a prominent medical ethicist.
U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson suspended an age factor in the nation's transplant rules for 10 days for Sarah Murnaghan because of the severity of her condition.
The girl's family believes that is enough time to find a match. Sarah has been hospitalized at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for three months with end-stage cystic fibrosis.
The Newtown Square family filed suit Wednesday to challenge organ transplant rules that say children under age 12 must wait for pediatric lungs to become available, or wait at the end of the adult list, which included adults who aren't as critically ill.
- The Associated Press.