World/Nation
Prince William, Kate spend busy day in New York
NEW YORK - Britain's Prince William and his wife, Kate, are to visit to one of New York City's most somber sites, the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum.
The visit to the site today, where 67 British citizens were among those who died - the most of any foreign country - is coming on the last day of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's trip. The visit to New York City and Washington was the first time either of them has visited those cities.
Tonight, William and Kate are expected at a black-tie fundraiser for the University of St. Andrews, where they both got their degrees.
On Monday, William went to the White House and spoke at a World Bank conference. Kate wrapped Christmas gifts and helped children decorate picture frames while touring a child development center with New York City's first lady, then talked technology, theater and more with a British-success-story guest list at a lunch at the consul general's home.
In the evening, the couple attended a reception at the British Consul General's residence co-hosted by the Royal Foundation and the Clinton Foundation, celebrating conservation efforts. When they arrived, they spent some time talking with former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and her husband, Marc Mezvinsky.
William spoke to the crowd, and then he and Kate then headed over to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn to watch a basketball game between the Brooklyn Nets and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The royals are visiting a city where thousands of people have protested over the past week to decry a grand jury's decision not to indict a white police officer in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man, Eric Garner. Demonstrators were outside the Barclays Center on Monday night.
White House: US embassies ready for security risks
WASHINGTON - American embassies, military units and other U.S. interests are bracing for possible security threats related to Tuesday's planned release of a report on the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques, the White House says.
The report from the Senate Intelligence Committee will be the first public accounting of the CIA's use of torture on al-Qaida detainees held in secret facilities in Europe and Asia in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The committee is expected to release a 480-page executive summary of the more than 6,000-page report compiled by Democrats on the panel.
"There are some indications that the release of the report could lead to a greater risk that is posed to U.S. facilities and individuals all around the world," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday. "The administration has taken the prudent steps to ensure that the proper security precautions are in place at U.S. facilities around the globe."
According to many U.S. officials who have read it, the document alleges that the harsh interrogations failed to produce unique and life-saving intelligence. And it asserts that the CIA lied about the covert program to officials at the White House, the Justice Department and congressional oversight committees.
Religious groups not pleased with exemption
DENVER - In the latest religious challenge to the federal health care law, faith-based organizations that object to covering birth control in their employee health plans argued in federal appeals court Monday that the government hasn't gone far enough to ensure they don't have to violate their beliefs.
Plaintiffs including a group of Colorado nuns and four Christian colleges in Oklahoma argued in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver that a federal exemption for groups that oppose contraceptives, including the morning-after pill, violates their beliefs.
The groups don't have to cover such contraceptives, as most insurers must. But they have to tell the government they object on religious grounds in order to get an exemption. They argued Monday that because they must sign away coverage to another party, the exemption makes them complicit in providing contraceptives.
"It is morally problematic" to sign the forms, argued Greg Baylor, lawyer for Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Oklahoma.
"There are plenty of other ways the government could put (emergency contraception) in the hands of the people without us," Baylor said.
Museum lifts lid on 2,500-year-old Egyptian coffin
CHICAGO - Not until the lid was off the wood coffin - exposing the 2,500-year-old mummified remains of a 14-year-old Egyptian boy - could J.P. Brown relax.
The conservator at Chicago's Field Museum and three other scientists had just employed specially created clamps as a cradle to raise the fragile coffin lid. Wearing blue surgical gloves, they lifted the contraption and delicately walked it to safe spot on a table in a humidity-controlled lab.
"Sweet!" Brown said after helping set the lid down, before later acknowledging the stress. "Oh yeah, I was nervous."
The much-planned procedure Friday at the museum, revealing the burial mask and blackened toes of Minirdis, the son of a priest, will allow museum conservators to stabilize the mummy so it can travel in an upcoming exhibit.
"Mummies: Images of the Afterlife" is expected to premier in September at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, then travel to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in fall 2016.
- The Associated Press