World/Nation
Obama implores U.N. leaders: Help us destroy 'network of death'
UNITED NATIONS - Confronted by the growing threat of Middle East militants, President Barack Obama implored world leaders at the United Nations Wednesday to rally behind his expanding military campaign to stamp out the violent Islamic State group and its "network of death."
"There can be no reasoning, no negotiation, with this brand of evil," Obama told the General Assembly. In a striking shift for a president who has been reluctant to take military action in the past, Obama declared that force is the only language the militants understand. He warned those who have joined their cause to "leave the battlefield while they can."
The widening war against the Islamic State was just one in a cascade of crises which confronted the presidents, prime ministers and monarchs at the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. Also vying for attention was Russia's continued provocations in Ukraine, a deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and the plight of civilians caught in conflicts around the world.
"Not since the end of the Second World War have there been so many refugees, displaced people and asylum seekers," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said as he opened Wednesday's session.
Suspect captured in missing student case worked at hospital
RICHMOND, Va. - A man charged in the disappearance of a University of Virginia student was captured on a Texas beach Wednesday, a day after police announced they had probable cause to arrest him.
Police believe Jesse Leroy Matthew Jr. was the last person seen with Hannah Graham, an 18-year-old sophomore who went missing on Sept. 13 in Charlottesville, Va. Authorities obtained a felony warrant for his arrest late Tuesday. He has been charged with abduction with intent to defile.
Matthew had sped away from a police station Saturday after coming with family members to ask for a lawyer. It's not clear whether the longtime area resident knew Graham, who was last seen in an area lined with shops and restaurants where police believe she went into a bar with him.
Workers killed in shooting at UPS processing plant were supervisors
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The fiancee of one of two UPS supervisors who police say were slain by a fired employee said Wednesday her boyfriend had expressed sympathy for the man over the dismissal but didn't fear him.
Brian Callans, 46, wasn't pleased when he found out the shipping company planned to fire 45-year-old Kerry Joe Tesney, partly because the man had a family to support, said Erica Carmichael, who was engaged to Callans.
"He told me, 'I'm not happy about it, Erica. The guy has been with the company a long time. That's a huge change in somebody's life,'" Carmichael said.
UPS identified Callans, a business manager from Birmingham and driver supervisor Doug Hutcheson, 33, of Odenville, as the victims in the shooting at a package-sorting center on Tuesday. Callans had worked for the shipping giant for 26 years, and Hutcheson since 1999.
Police previously identified the men's killer as Kerry Joe Tesney, 45, of Trussville. The driver had been with UPS for 21 years but had been fired recently, authorities said in a statement Wednesday.
U.S. airstrikes hit Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq
BEIRUT - U.S. fighter jets and bombers expanded their aerial campaign against Islamic State targets Wednesday, striking the militants in both Syria and Iraq even as the extremists pressed their offensive in Kurdish areas within sight of the Turkish border, where fleeing refugees told of civilians beheaded and towns torched.
President Barack Obama, speaking at the United Nations, vowed an extended assault and called on the world to join in.
"The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force, so the United States of America will work with a broad coalition to dismantle this network of death," he told the U.N. General Assembly in a 38-minute speech.
- The Associated Press