World/Nation
China, India rush to Nepal's aid in wake of quake
BEIJING - Wedged between the two rising Asian powers of China and India, landlocked Nepal watched rescuers and offers of help pour in from both sides within hours of an earthquake that killed more than 4,000 people.
India, the traditional power in the region, launched Operation Friendship soon after the quake Saturday. It has sent the most help so far, deploying 13 aircraft and more than 500 rescuers as well as water, food, equipment and medical supplies.
China, increasingly making inroads in Nepal through everything from infrastructure investment to increased tourism, also pledged all-out assistance within hours of the disaster. It has sent 62 rescuers plus blankets, tents and generators and announced plans to send four planes and an additional 170 soldiers.
India's rival, Pakistan, also has sent four cargo planes full of supplies, including concrete cutters and sniffer dogs.
Administration seeks to advance Iran deal
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration moved on two fronts Monday to advance its nuclear diplomacy with Iran, with talks between top U.S. and Iranian diplomats and an aggressive effort to sell the emerging deal to skeptical American lawmakers and constituencies.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met at the residence of Iran's ambassador to the United Nations in New York for the first time since April 2, when world powers and Iran sealed a framework agreement that would limit Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon. They now have little more than two months to meet their own June 30 deadline for a comprehensive accord.
Neither man spoke to reporters as the meeting got underway, but earlier Kerry told a U.N. conference on nuclear non-proliferation that a deal would make the world a safer place. "I want you to know the hard work is far from over and some key issues remain unresolved," he said. "But we are, in fact, closer than ever to the good comprehensive deal that we have been seeking. And if we can get there, the entire world will be safer."
In Washington, lead U.S. negotiator Wendy Sherman told a conference of reform Jews that diplomatic collapse would leave Iran perilously close to nuclear weapons capacity. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said a final agreement would in some ways be tougher than what the U.S. has outlined thus far.
Shooting trial begins with look inside man's mind
CENTENNIAL, Colo. - Two versions of the unstable mind of James Holmes were presented to a jury Monday as lawyers revealed many more details about his conversion from a promising grad student to a gunman capable of opening fire on hundreds of unsuspecting moviegoers at a "Batman" premiere.
The lead prosecutor displayed an image of the theater door on a TV screen as he told of a sinister but sane killer who methodically carried out the 2012 mass murder to make himself feel good and be remembered.
"Through this door is horror. Through this door are bullets, blood, brains and bodies. Through this door, one guy who thought as if he had lost his career, lost his love life, lost his purpose, came to execute a plan," said District Attorney George Brauchler, standing before a scale model of the theater.
"He tried to murder a theater full of people to make himself feel better and because he thought it would increase his self-worth."
Boston Marathon bomber is called 'a good kid'
BOSTON - Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers pleaded with a jury Monday to spare his life, portraying him as "a good kid" who was led down the path to terrorism by his increasingly fanatical older brother.
David Bruck delivered the defense's opening statement in the penalty phase of Tsarnaev's trial, saying there is no punishment Tsarnaev can get that would be equal to the suffering of the bombing victims.
"There is no evening the scales," Bruck said. "There is no point in trying to hurt him as he hurt because it can't be done."
Tsarnaev, 21, was convicted earlier this month in the twin bombings that killed three spectators and wounded more than 260 other people near the marathon's finish line on April 15, 2013. He was also found guilty of killing an MIT police officer during the Tsarnaev brothers' getaway attempt.
- Associated Press