World/Nation
Ferguson protests temporarily close malls near St. Louis
FERGUSON, Mo. - Demonstrators temporarily shut down three large malls in suburban St. Louis on one of the busiest shopping days of the year Friday, as other rallies were held nationwide to protest a grand jury's recent decision not to indict the police officer who fatally shot 18-year-old Michael Brown.
Several stores lowered their security doors or locked entrances as at least 200 protesters sprawled onto the floor while chanting, "Stop shopping and join the movement," at the Galleria mall in Richmond Heights a few miles south of Ferguson, Mo., where Officer Darren Wilson fatally shot Brown, who was unarmed, in August.
The action prompted authorities to close the mall for about an hour Friday afternoon, while a similar protest of about 50 people had the same effect at West County Mall in nearby Des Peres. It didn't appear that any arrests were made. Later Friday, the appearance of several dozen demonstrators led to the early closing of the Chesterfield Mall.
The protests, along with demonstrations in Chicago, New York, Seattle and northern California - where protesters chained themselves to trains - were among the largest in the country on Black Friday.
"We want to really let the world know that it is no longer business as usual," Chenjerai Kumanyika, an assistant professor at Clemson University in South Carolina, said at a rally at a Wal-Mart in Manchester, another St. Louis suburb.
Brown's legacy: Some say symbol others say troublemaker
NEW YORK - For some Americans on opposite sides of a national debate, Michael Brown has become a symbol, epitomizing their polarized views on who bears the blame for the toll of young black men killed by police officers. Brown was a gentle giant, in one version. A defiant troublemaker, in another.
Yet as more details of the 18-year-old's life and death emerge, his legacy in the eyes of many is more nuanced, reflecting the ups and downs and challenges faced by many young Americans.
"He was someone trying to come into his own, trying to grow up in a world that's not that friendly to young people," civil rights lawyer Barbara Arnwine said.
"Other young people see themselves in him. They're not looking for someone who's perfect. It's his vulnerabilities that appeal to them," said Arnwine, president of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
In the days after Brown's Aug. 9 shooting death at the hands of a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, a warm, upbeat portrait emerged.
Town devastated as fighting versus IS militants turns corner
KOBANI, Syria - Blocks of low-rise buildings with hollow facades, shattered concrete, streets strewn with rubble and overturned, crumpled remains of cars and trucks. Such is the landscape in Kobani, where the sounds of rifle and mortar fire resonate all day long in fighting between Islamic State extremists and the Syrian town's Kurdish defenders.
Kurdish fighters peek through sand-bagged positions, firing at suspected militant positions. Female fighters in trenches move quickly behind sheets hung to block the view of snipers. Foreign jets circle overhead.
An exclusive report shot by a video journalist inside Kobani offered a rare, in-depth glimpse of the horrendous destruction that more than two months of fighting has inflicted on the Kurdish town in northern Syria by the Turkish border.
There, Kurdish fighters backed by small numbers of Iraqi peshmerga forces and Syrian rebels, are locked in what they see as an existential battle against the militants, who swept into their town in mid-September as part of a summer blitz after the Islamic State group overran large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq.
Helped by more than 270 airstrikes from a U.S.-led coalition and an American airdrop of weapons, the Kurds have succeeded in halting the militants' advance and now believe that a corner has been turned.
Police say bomb blasts at Nigerian mosque killed 35 people
KANO, Nigeria - Multiple explosions tore through the central mosque in Nigeria's second-largest city on Friday, killing 35 people, police said.
One hundred and fifty others sustained various degrees of injury in the blasts in the city of Kano, State Deputy Police Commissioner Sanusi Lemu said.
Hundreds had gathered to listen to a sermon in a region terrorized by attacks from the militant group Boko Haram.
Witnesses said heavy smoke could be seen billowing in the sky from a long distance away. Immediately after the blasts, hundreds of angry youth took to the streets in riots, throwing stones, brandishing sticks and shouting at security officials.
The palace of the Emir of Kano is near the central mosque. Palace officials told AP that the Emir, one of the highest ranking Islamic figures in Nigeria, is currently out of the country.
N.Y. boys buried in snow pile for hours couldn't answer rescuers
NEWBURGH, N.Y. - Two boys trapped in a snow pile for about seven hours after a plow buried them could hear their worried family's cries but couldn't respond loudly enough to be heard, they said Friday. Police credited an air pocket with saving their lives.
The two cousins, 11-year-old Elijah Martinez and 9-year-old Jason Rivera, were building a snow fort Wednesday night across the street from Elijah's apartment in Newburgh when a plow operator clearing a parking lot unknowingly pushed snow over them.
Buried in 5 feet of snow, they could barely move and couldn't breathe very well, so they could do nothing as they heard the anguished cries nearby. Jason lost his gloves. His hat flew off. They relied on each other to stay alive, they said, sharing Elijah's face mask to try and keep their hands warm and talking to each other so they wouldn't fall asleep.
"I felt so tired. It didn't feel real that they were coming to get us," Elijah said at a news conference at the hospital where the boys were recovering.
Meanwhile, their parents were growing more frantic, calling police and searching through the snowy streets for the children who were mere feet from the apartment.
- The Associated Press