World/Nation
• Ethiopian co-pilot hijacks plane to Switzerland
GENEVA - It seemed like a routine overnight flight until the Ethiopian Airlines jetliner went into a dive and oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling. Only then did the terrified passengers - bound for Italy from Addis Ababa - realize something was terribly wrong.
The co-pilot had locked his captain from the cockpit, commandeered the plane, and headed for Geneva, where he used a rope to lower himself out a window, then asked for political asylum.
Authorities say a prison cell is more likely.
One passenger said the hijacker threatened to crash the plane if the pilot didn't stop pounding on the locked door. Another said he was terrified "for hours" Monday as the plane careened across the sky.
"It seemed like it was falling from the sky," 45-year-old Italian Diego Carpelli said of the Boeing 767-300.
• Train accidents stir oil boom safety worries
BILLINGS, Mont. - At least 10 times since 2008, freight trains hauling oil across North America have derailed and spilled significant quantities of crude, with most of the accidents touching off fires or catastrophic explosions.
The derailments released almost 3 million gallons of oil, nearly twice as much as the largest pipeline spill in the U.S. since at least 1986. And the deadliest wreck killed 47 people in the town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec.
Those findings, from an Associated Press review of U.S. and Canadian accident records, underscore a lesser-known danger of America's oil boom, which is changing the global energy balance and raising urgent safety questions closer to home.
Experts say recent efforts to improve the safety of oil shipments belie an unsettling fact: With increasing volumes of crude now moving by rail, it has become impossible to send oil-hauling trains to refineries without passing major population centers, where more lives and property are at risk.
Adding to the danger is the high volatility of the light, sweet crude from the fast-growing Bakken oil patch in Montana and North Dakota, where many of the trains originate. Because it contains more natural gas than heavier crude, Bakken oil can have a lower ignition point. Of the six oil trains that derailed and caught fire since 2008, four came from the Bakken and each caused at least one explosion. That includes the accident at Lac-Megantic, which spilled an estimated 1.6 million gallons and set off a blast that levelled a large section of the town.
• UN warns North Korean leader on widespread abuse
GENEVA - A U.N. panel warned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Monday that he may be held accountable for orchestrating widespread crimes against civilians in the secretive Asian nation, ranging from systematic executions to torture, rape and mass starvation.
It is unusual for a U.N. report to directly implicate a nation's leader. But in a letter accompanying a year long investigative report, the chairman of a three-member U.N. commission of inquiry, retired Australian judge Michael Kirby, directly warned Kim that international prosecution is needed "to render accountable all those, including possibly yourself, who may be responsible for crimes against humanity."
The investigative commission's 372-page report is a wide-ranging indictment of North Korea for policies including political prison camps with 80,000 to 120,000 people, state-sponsored abductions of North Korean, Japanese and other nationals, and life long indoctrination.
• Study: Saliva test may help predict teen depression
LONDON - A saliva test for teenage boys with mild symptoms of depression could help identify those who will later develop major depression, a new study says.
Researchers measured the stress hormone cortisol in teenage boys and found that ones with high levels coupled with mild depression symptoms were up to 14 times more likely to suffer clinical depression later in life than those with low or normal cortisol levels.
The test was tried on teenage boys and girls, but found to be most effective with boys.
About one in six people suffer from clinical depression at some point in their lives, and most mental health disorders start before age 24. There is currently no biological test to spot depression.
"This is the emergence of a new way of looking at mental illness," Joe Herbert, of the University of Cambridge and one of the study authors, said at a news conference on Monday. "You don't have to rely simply on what the patient tells you, but what you can measure inside the patient," he said.
- The Associated Press