World/Nation Briefs

U.S. defends prisoner swap with Taliban

WASHINGTON - Five years a captive from the Afghanistan war, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is back in American hands, freed for five Guantanamo terrorism detainees in a swap stirring sharp debate in Washington over whether the U.S. should have negotiated with the Taliban over prisoners.

U.S. officials said Sunday that Bergdahl's health and safety appeared in jeopardy, prompting rapid action to secure his release. Republicans said the deal could place U.S. troops in danger, especially if the freed detainees return to the fight - one called it "shocking." Arizona Sen. John McCain said of the five detainees, "These are the hardest of the hard core."

Visiting troops in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel stepped forward at Bagram Air Field to thank the special operations forces who retrieved Bergdahl, who officials said was the only American prisoner of war still held by insurgents in that conflict. Gen. Joseph Dunford spoke of the excitement that spread through U.S. ranks when the sergeant's release was confirmed. "You almost got choked up," he said. "It was pretty extraordinary."

Tireless campaigners for their son's freedom, Bob and Jani Bergdahl thanked all who were behind the effort to retrieve him. "You were not left behind," Bob Bergdahl told reporters, as if speaking to his son. "We are so proud of the way this was carried out." He spoke in Boise as residents in the sergeant's hometown of Hailey prepared for a homecoming celebration.

EPA seeks to cut power plant pollution by 30 percent

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration today will roll out a plan to cut earth-warming pollution from power plants and 30 percent by 2030, setting in motion one of the most significant actions to address global warming in U.S. history.

The rule, which is expected to be final next year, will set the first national limits on carbon dioxide, the chief gas linked to global warming from the nation's power plants. They are the largest source of greenhouse gases in the U.S., accounting for about a third of the annual emissions that make the U.S. the second largest contributor to global warming on the planet.

The Environmental Protection Agency regulation is a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's plans to reduce the pollution linked to global warming, a step that the administration hopes will get other countries to act when negotiations on a new international treaty resume next year.

Seven killed in Massachusetts plane crash

BEDFORD, Mass. - Philadelphia Inquirer co-owner Lewis Katz was killed along with six other people in a fiery plane crash in Massachusetts, just days after reaching a deal that many hoped would end months of infighting at the newspaper and help restore it to its former glory.

The 72-year-old businessman's Gulfstream corporate jet ran off the end of a runway, plunged down an embankment and erupted in a fireball during a takeoff attempt Saturday night at Hanscom Field outside Boston, authorities said. There were no survivors.

Katz was returning to New Jersey from a gathering at the home of Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Also killed was a next-door neighbor of Katz's, Anne Leeds, a 74-year-old retired preschool teacher he had invited along, and Marcella Dalsey, the director of Katz's son's foundation.

Six climbers who fell may not be recovered

MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK, Wash. - It's too dangerous right now to search for the bodies of six climbers who likely plummeted to their deaths while attempting one of the more technical and physically grueling routes to the peak of Mount Rainier, park officials said Sunday.

Like others who have died on the mountain, there's a possibility the two guides and four climbers believed to have fallen 3,300 feet from their last known location may never be found, they say.

"People are very understanding that we cannot risk another life at this point," Patti Wold, a Mount Rainier National Park spokeswoman, said Sunday.

Under safer conditions, crews could go in after the bodies. "The families, I'm sure, would like that closure," Wold said. But continuous falling ice and rock make the avalanche-prone area too dangerous for rescuers, she said.

Is decentralized al-Qaida weaker or gaining strength?

WASHINGTON - Al-Qaida has decentralized, yet it's unclear whether the terrorist network is weaker and less likely to launch a Sept. 11-style attack against the United States, as President Barack Obama says, or remains potent despite the deaths of several leaders.

Obama said in his foreign policy speech last week that the prime threat comes not from al-Qaida's core leadership, but from affiliates and extremists with their sights trained on targets in the Middle East and Africa, where they are based. This lessens the possibility of large-scale 9/11-type attacks against America, the president said.

"But it heightens the danger of U.S. personnel overseas being attacked, as we saw in Benghazi," he said, referring to the September 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Libya that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

Experts argue that this restructured al-Qaida is perhaps even stronger than it has been in recent years, and that the potential for attacks on U.S. soil endures.

"We have never been on a path to strategically defeat al-Qaida. All we've been able to do is suppress some of its tactical abilities. But strategically, we have never had an effective way of taking it on. That's why it continues to mutate, adapt and evolve to get stronger," said David Sedney, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia.

Prosecutors: Suspect in Belgian Jewish museum killings was in Syria, tried to film shooting

PARIS - A suspected French jihadist who spent time in Syria has been arrested over the shooting deaths of three people at a Belgian Jewish museum, prosecutors said Sunday, crystalizing fears that European radicals will parlay their experiences in Syria into terrorism back home.

When Mehdi Nemmouche was arrested in southern France on Friday, he was in possession of firearms, a large quantity of ammunition and a video claiming responsibility for the May 24 attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, a Belgian prosecutor said.

In a one-minute rampage that deeply shook Europe's Jewish community, a gunman opened fire at the Brussels museum. In addition to the fatalities, another person was gravely wounded.

Authorities raised anti-terror alert levels as they searched for the attacker. But it was ultimately a customs inspection in the French port city of Marseille that turned up Nemmouche, as he disembarked from a bus coming from Amsterdam, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said.

The suspect had a revolver and a retractable automatic weapon like those used in the Brussels attack, and ballistics analyses were underway to determine if they were the same weapons, Molins said.

Jacques Cousteau's grandson extends Conshelf II legacy with 31-day underwater mission in Fla.

ISLAMORADA, Fla. - Like viewers worldwide, Fabien Cousteau was entranced by his famous grandfather's films about marine life and human exploration underwater. Now he's adding to his family's sea stories with a 31-day underwater expedition in the Florida Keys.

Cousteau dove Sunday to Aquarius Reef Base, a school bus-sized laboratory 60 feet below the ocean's surface, a few miles off Key Largo. He plans to spend more than a month living underwater with a five-person crew, making a documentary and leading science experiments on the nearby coral reef.

Before their boat left an Islamorada dock Sunday morning, Cousteau and his crew said they would miss seeing the sun for more than month, but they weren't nervous about being isolated in the undersea lab.

"I imagine we'll want to stay down once we get comfy down there," Cousteau said. "We won't want to come back up to the surface because it's such a magical place."

The idea for "Mission 31" came to Cousteau two years ago when he visited Aquarius during a fundraising push to save the lab, which federal budget cuts had threatened to permanently close.

NASA plans launch of saucer-shaped vehicle to test Mars parachute off coast of Hawaii

LOS ANGELES - The skies off the Hawaiian island of Kauai will be a stand-in for Mars as NASA prepares to launch a saucer-shaped vehicle in an experimental flight designed to land heavy loads on the red planet.

For decades, robotic landers and rovers have hitched a ride to Earth's planetary neighbor using the same parachute design. But NASA needs a bigger and stronger parachute if it wants to send astronauts there.

Weather permitting, the space agency will conduct a test flight Tuesday high in Earth's atmosphere that's supposed to simulate the thin Martian air.

Cameras rigged aboard the vehicle will capture the action as it accelerates to four times the speed of sound and falls back to Earth. Viewers with an Internet connection can follow along live.

Engineers cautioned that they may not succeed on the first try.