World/Nation
Man reported missing at sea for 66 days is found; in good condition
PORTSMOUTH, Va. - Adrift on the ocean, the mast of his 35-foot sailboat torn away, Louis Jordan said he was able to survive more than two months at sea by catching rainwater in a bucket, scooping up fish that were attracted to the laundry he hung over the side, and fervently praying to God for help.
Early Friday, just hours after he was found by a passing German freighter, the bearded 37-year-old man walked out of a Norfolk hospital showing no obvious ill effects.
"We were expecting worse, with blisters and severe sunburn and dehydration," said Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Kyle McCollum, a member of the helicopter crew who brought Jordan to shore.
Jordan hadn't been heard from since Jan. 23, when he began a fishing expedition aboard the single-masted 1950s-era sailboat that had been his home for months at a marina in South Carolina.
It was unclear how long after leaving port that the boat was damaged, the Coast Guard said.
German co-pilot accelerated plane as he drove it into French Alps
PARIS - Information retrieved from the "black box" data recorder of a doomed German jet shows its co-pilot repeatedly accelerated the plane before it slammed into the French Alps, investigators said Friday.
France's air accident investigation agency, BEA, provided the disturbing new details a day after a gendarme found the blackened data recorder buried in debris scattered along a mountainside ravine.
Based on an initial reading of the recorder, the revelation strengthened investigators' early suspicions that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz meant to destroy the Germanwings A320.
French and German investigators are still trying to figure out why. All 150 people aboard Flight 9525 from Barcelona to Duesseldorf were killed in the March 24 crash, which has been a reminder of the trust that passengers place in pilots.
The BEA said the preliminary reading of the data recorder shows that the pilot used the automatic pilot to put the plane into a descent and then repeatedly during the descent adjusted the automatic pilot to speed up the plane.
Pope procession decries 'silence' to current killings of Christians
ROME - Pope Francis, presiding at the traditional Good Friday Colosseum procession, decried what he called the "complicit silence" about the killing of Christians.
The evening, torch-lit ceremony at the ancient arena recalls the suffering and death of Jesus by crucifixion.
After listening silently, often with head bowed and eyes tightly shut, to reflections read aloud about Jesus' suffering, Francis pressed what lately has been an urgent concern of his papacy -- the present-day martyrdom of Christians in parts of the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere.
"We see, even today, our brothers persecuted, beheaded and crucified, for their faith in you, in front of our eyes or often with our complicit silence," he said, as he prayed.
A few hours earlier, Francis had condemned the deadly attack by Islamic militants targeting Christians at a Kenyan university. Earlier this year he denounced the murder in Libya of 21 Coptic Christians by Islamic State-affiliated militants, saying they were slain simply for being Christian. And he has lamented how Christians in parts of the Middle East have been forced to flee their ancient communities to escape persecution.
Kenyan attack survivors give accounts of bloodshed
GARISSA, Kenya - The 20-year-old student called home from the university besieged by Islamic militants and frantically told her father, "There are gunshots everywhere! Tell Mum to pray for me - I don't know if I will survive."
The call by Elizabeth Namarome Musinai at dawn Thursday was one of several her family received as the attack and hostage drama unfolded at Garissa University College, where gunmen from the al-Shabab militant group killed 148 people.
Then, about 1 p.m., a man got on the line to demand that Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta be contacted within two minutes and told to remove troops from neighboring Somalia, where they are fighting al-Shabab extremists.
He phoned back promptly. When told the president had not been contacted, he said, "I am going to kill your daughter." Three gunshots followed, and he hung up. When Elizabeth's father, Fred Kaskon Musinai, called the man back, he said he was told: "She is now with her God."
More than 300 enslaved Burmese fishermen rescued
BENJINA, Indonesia - At first the men filtered in by twos and threes, hearing whispers of a possible rescue.
Then, as the news rippled around the island, hundreds of weathered former and current slaves with long, greasy hair and tattoos streamed from their trawlers, down the hills, even out of the jungle, running toward what they had only dreamed of for years: Freedom.
"I will go see my parents. They haven't heard from me, and I haven't heard from them since I left," said Win Win Ko, 42, beaming, his smile showing missing teeth. The captain on his fishing boat had kicked out four teeth with his military boots, he said, because Win was not moving fish fast enough from the deck to the hold below.
The Burmese men were among hundreds of migrant workers revealed in an Associated Press investigation to have been lured or tricked into leaving their countries and forced into catching fish for consumers around the world, including the United States. In response to the AP's findings, Indonesian government officials visited the island village of Benjina on Friday and found brutal conditions, down to an "enforcer" paid to beat men up. They offered immediate evacuation.
The officials first gave the invitation for protection just to a small group of men who talked openly about their abuse. But then Asep Burhanuddin, director general of Indonesia's Marine Resources and Fisheries Surveillance, said everybody was welcome, including those hiding in the forest because they were too scared to go out.
- The Associated Press