World Nation Briefs March 18, 2013
2 Ohio HS football players convicted of rape
STEUBENVILLE, Ohio - Two members of Steubenville's celebrated high school football team were found guilty Sunday of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl, and Ohio's attorney general warned the case isn't over, saying he is investigating whether coaches, parents and other students broke the law, too.
Trent Mays, 17, and Ma'Lik Richmond, 16, were sentenced to at least a year in juvenile prison in a case that has rocked this Rust Belt city of 18,000 and led to allegations of a cover-up to protect the Steubenville High team, which has won nine state championships. Mays was ordered to serve an additional year for photographing the underage girl naked.
They can be held until they turn 21.
The two broke down in tears after a Juvenile Court judge delivered his verdict. They later apologized to the victim and the community, Richmond struggling to speak through his sobs.
"My life is over," he said as he collapsed in the arms of his lawyer.
Palestinians have little hope for peace
RAMALLAH, West Bank - President Barack Obama will find a disillusioned Palestinian public, skeptical about his commitment to promoting Mideast peace, when he visits the region.
Obama's trip, beginning Wednesday, appears aimed primarily at resetting the sometimes troubled relationship with Israel. But winning the trust of the Palestinians, who accuse him of unfairly favoring Israel, could be a far more difficult task.
After suffering disappointments during the first Obama administration, Palestinians see little reason for optimism in his new term. The White House announcement that Obama will not present any new peace initiatives strengthened their conviction that the U.S. leader isn't prepared to put the pressure on Israel that they think is necessary to end four years of deadlock in negotiations.
"Obama is coming for Israel, not for us," said Mohammed Albouz, a 55-year-old Palestinian farmer. "Obama will come and go as his predecessors did, without doing anything."
Inmates escape prison in helicopter
SAINT-JEROME, Quebec - Two Quebec inmates used a helicopter to make a daring daylight escape from a prison northwest of Montreal and remained at large Sunday evening, authorities said.
Police received a call from the staff at the prison in Saint-Jerome, Quebec, regarding the dramatic escape around 2:20 p.m., said Quebec provincial police Sgt. Benoit Richard. He didn't say if the helicopter had landed on the prison grounds and wouldn't provide further details about the escape. He said the pilot was taken to a local hospital.
Quebec provincial police tracked down the helicopter on Sunday afternoon in Mont-Tremblant, about 53 miles away from the prison, but only the chopper's pilot was still at the scene.
Richard said authorities were still searching for the escaped prisoners, identified as Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau, 36, and Danny Provencal, 33, on Sunday evening.
Historic U.S. move to a white minority
WASHINGTON - Welcome to the new off-white America.
A historic decline in the number of U.S. whites and the fast growth of Latinos are blurring traditional black-white color lines, testing the limits of civil rights laws and reshaping political alliances as "whiteness" begins to lose its numerical dominance.
Long in coming, the demographic shift was most vividly illustrated in last November's re-election of President Barack Obama, the first black president, despite a historically low percentage of white supporters.
It's now a potent backdrop to the immigration issue being debated in Congress that could offer a path to citizenship for 11 million mostly Hispanic illegal immigrants. Also, the Supreme Court is deciding cases this term on affirmative action and voting rights that could redefine race and equality in the U.S.
The latest census data and polling from The Associated Press highlight the historic change in a nation in which non-Hispanic whites will lose their majority in the next generation, somewhere around the year 2043.
Large crowd watches vigilantes kill 2 thieves
CAIRO - Egyptian vigilantes beat two men accused of stealing a motorized rickshaw on Sunday and then hung them by their feet while some in a watching crowd chanted "kill them!" Both men died, security officials said.
The killings come a week after the attorney general's office encouraged civilians to arrest lawbreakers and hand them over to police. They are emblematic of the chaos sweeping Egypt and a security breakdown of frightening proportions.
It was one of the most extreme cases of vigilantism in two years of sharply deteriorating security following the 2011 uprising. Gruesome photos circulated quickly on Facebook and other social media outlets, showing images taken by people in the crowd of thousands who watched and recorded the lynchings on cell phone cameras.
- The Associated Press