World/Nation Briefs

Negotiators plan to declare Iran nuke deal done

VIENNA - Negotiators at the Iran nuclear talks plan to announce today that they've reached a historic deal capping nearly a decade of diplomacy that would curb the country's atomic program in return for sanctions relief, two diplomats told The Associated Press on Sunday.

The envoys said a provisional agreement may be reached even earlier - by late Sunday. But they cautioned that final details of the pact were still being worked out. Once it is complete, a formal, final agreement would be open to review by officials in the capitals of Iran and the six world powers at the talks, they said.

Senior U.S. and Iranian officials suggested, however, there might not be enough time to reach a deal by the end of Sunday and that the drafting of documents could bleed into today.

All of the officials, who are at the talks in Vienna, demanded anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the negotiations publicly.

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Drug lord 'El Chapo' Guzman escapes prison

MEXICO CITY - Mexico mounted an all-out manhunt Sunday for its most powerful drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who escaped from a maximum security prison through a 1-mile tunnel from a small opening in the shower area of his cell, according to the country's top security official.

The elaborate underground escape route, built allegedly without the detection of authorities, allowed Guzman to do what Mexican officials promised would never happen after his re-capture last year - slip out of one of the country's most secure penitentiaries for the second time.

"This represents without a doubt an affront to the Mexican state," said President Enrique Pena Nieto, speaking during a previously scheduled trip to France. "But I also have confidence in the institutions of the Mexican state ... that they have the strength and determination to recapture this criminal."

If Guzman is not caught immediately, the drug lord will likely be back in full command and control of the Sinaloa Cartel in 48 hours, said Michael S. Vigil, a retired U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief of international operations.

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Pope Francis reaches out to sick and sinners

ASUNCION, Paraguay - Pope Francis reinforced his place as spokesman for the world's disenfranchised Sunday by visiting a flood-prone slum to encourage its landless and insisting the Catholic Church be a place of welcome for all - sick and sinners especially.

Francis ended his South American pilgrimage with a huge Mass and words of hope and faith for young and old. But the political, anti-capitalist message he left behind may have a more lasting punch.

On the final day before flying off to Rome, Francis sought to offer a message of hope to the residents of the Banado Norte shantytown and to an estimated 1 million people gathered for his farewell Mass on the same swampy field where St. John Paul II proclaimed Paraguay's first saint nearly 30 years ago.

"How much pain can be soothed, how much despair can be allayed in a place where we feel at home!" Francis said.

Then he outlined his vision of the church: "Welcoming those who do not think as we do, who do not have faith or who have lost it. Welcoming the persecuted, the unemployed. Welcoming the different cultures, of which our Earth is so richly blessed. Welcoming sinners."

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South getting its first wind farm soon

On a vast tract of old North Carolina farmland, crews are getting ready to build something the South has never seen: a commercial-scale wind energy farm.

The $600 million project by Spanish developer Iberdrola Renewables LLC will put 102 turbines on 22,000 acres near the coastal community of Elizabeth City, with plans to add about 50 more. Once up and running, it could generate about 204 megawatts, or enough electricity to power about 60,000 homes.

It would be the first large onshore wind farm in a region with light, fluctuating winds that has long been a dead zone for wind power.

After a years-long regulatory process that once looked to have doomed the plan, Iberdrola spokesman Paul Copleman told The Associated Press that construction is to begin in about a month.

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It's showtime for Pluto; NASA craft to fly by Tuesday

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Pluto, reveal thyself.

On Tuesday, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will sweep past Pluto and present the previously unexplored world in all its icy glory.

It promises to be the biggest planetary unveiling in a quarter-century. The curtain hasn't been pulled back like this since NASA's Voyager 2 shed light on Neptune in 1989.

Now it's little Pluto's turn to shine way out on the frigid fringes of our solar system.

New Horizons has traveled 3 billion miles over 9 years to get to this historic point. The fastest spacecraft ever launched, it carries the most powerful suite of science instruments ever sent on a scouting and reconnaissance mission of a new, unfamiliar world.

- Associated Press