AP News in Brief at 5:58 a.m. EDT
German FM travels to Kyiv to help launch talks between Ukrainian government and its foes
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Germany’s foreign minister flew to Ukraine Tuesday to help start talks between the Ukrainian government and its foes following the declaration of independence by two eastern regions.
Speaking at the Kyiv Boryspil airport Tuesday morning, Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Germany supports Ukraine’s efforts to arrange for a dialogue between the central government and its opponents in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions that form the nation’s industrial heartland.
Steinmeier voiced hope for a quick release of hostages and freeing captured government buildings, and stressed the importance of the presidential vote on May 25.
Steinmeier’s trip is intended to begin implementing a road map for settling the crisis laid out by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a top trans-Atlantic security and rights group.
Russia, which is an OSCE member, has welcomed its efforts to mediate the crisis and spoken in support of the road map.
—
Pedophile teacher abused dozens of boys around world as chances to stop him were missed
He was one of the most beloved teachers in the small world of international schools that serve the children of diplomats, well-off American expatriates and local elites. He was often the first to arrive in the morning, and the last to leave each day. He led students on class trips to exotic places, treating them to cookies and milk at bedtime.
That was the public persona of William Vahey, carefully crafted over four decades until a maid cleaning his home in Nicaragua stole a 16-gigabyte memory drive. There, in photograph after photograph, was evidence that the model teacher had molested scores of adolescent boys, possibly more, in a career spanning 10 schools on four continents.
The discovery of a man the FBI regards as one of the most prolific pedophiles in memory has set off a crisis in the close-knit community of international schools, where horrified parents are being told their children may have been victims of a favorite teacher, and administrators are scurrying to close teacher-vetting loopholes revealed by Vahey’s abuses.
“With the sheer volume, the sheer number of incidents in which this man molested, it surprises me that somehow this was not picked up by someone,” said John Magagna, the founding director of Search Associates, the world’s largest international school recruiting firm. “I don’t know what went wrong.”
Apparently not even Vahey’s victims knew they had been molested. The double-cream Oreos that he handed out at bedtime on the overnight trips were laced with sleeping pills — enough to leave the boys unconscious as he touched them, and posed them for lewd photographs.
—
US flying manned surveillance aircraft over Nigeria in hunt for missing girls
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — A Nigerian government official said “all options are open” in the search for missing schoolgirls that’s now being actively supported by U.S. surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft.
Boko Haram, the militant group that is holding some 276 female students kidnapped , says in a new video that the girls will only be freed after the government releases jailed militants.
The group, which wants to impose Islamic law on Nigeria, has killed more than 1,500 people this year in a campaign of bombings and massacres. Boko Haram’s kidnapping of schoolgirls at a boarding school in northeast Nigeria last month has focused international attention on the extremist group amid outrage that most of the girls have not been rescued.
Nigeria’s government, which has repeatedly denied allegations that was slow to respond to the mass abduction, had initially suggested there would be no negotiations with Boko Haram. Now it appears that stance may be relaxed.
Mike Omri, the director of Nigeria’s National Orientation Agency, said late Monday that the government will “use whatever kind of action” it takes to free the girls.
—
Scorn, icy stares are part of the job for lawyers who represent despised terrorism suspects
NEW YORK (AP) — People in the courthouse sometimes shun them. Friends, and even family, sometimes question their principles.
For the small band of lawyers who defend the most despised terror suspects — the ones accused of hatching al-Qaida plots to kill Americans around the world — this is the highly uncomfortable life they chose.
They are the true believers in the legal principle that everybody deserves representation in court, even if it means they get the same scorn and sometimes the same scrutiny as the people they represent.
Just ask Anthony Ricco, who was among a handful of respected defense lawyers summoned to the federal courthouse in Manhattan after the Sept. 11 attacks because they might be needed for potential suspects. He recalled his mother telling him, in a temporary moment of outrage, “If you go down there to represent them, I will never speak to you again.”
Such hazards are becoming more common for the few dozen defense attorneys who specialize in terrorism cases as the Justice Department pushes the use of civilian courts — most often federal court in Manhattan — to bring foreign terrorism suspects to justice.
—
Israeli court sentences ex-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to 6 years in prison for bribery
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel’s former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was sentenced on Tuesday to six years in prison for his role in wide-ranging bribery case, capping a stunning fall from grace for one of the most powerful men in the country.
The Tel Aviv district court handed down the punishment in the Jerusalem real estate scandal case related to Olmert’s activities before becoming prime minister in 2006. Tuesday’s sentencing followed a guilty verdict that was handed down by the same court in March.
The 68-year-old Olmert, who stood stoically in the courtroom in a navy blue shirt, has insisted he is innocent and that he never took a bribe.
Olmert’s spokesman Amir Dan said he would appeal both the verdict and the sentence to Israel’s Supreme Court.
“This is a sad day where a serious and unjust verdict is expected to be delivered against an innocent man,” Dan said, shortly before sentencing.
—
Arkansas’ troubled civil rights history casts shadow as gay marriage is debated
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Fifty-seven years after federal troops escorted nine black students into Little Rock’s Central High School as a white mob jeered, Arkansas again finds itself in the center of a debate over civil rights. This time, the issue is gay marriage, but the 1957 desegregation crisis still casts a shadow.
More than 200 gay couples have been issued marriage licenses in the Bible Belt state after a judge struck down Arkansas’ same-sex marriage ban.
Gay rights supporters regularly invoke the 1957 desegregation battle, warning opponents that history may not look kindly on them. At the same time, those concerns may not resonate throughout Arkansas, where recent polling still shows heavy opposition to gay marriage.
Nearly a week before the ban was struck down, Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel cited the state’s spotty civil rights history as he declared his support for marriage equality. While vowing to defend the ban in court, McDaniel became the first statewide elected official to endorse same-sex marriage.
McDaniel said he voiced his opinion because he wanted to avoid following the legacy of former Attorney General Bruce Bennett, who is little remembered after he didn’t fight then-Gov. Orval Faubus’ efforts to keep Little Rock’s schools segregated in 1957.
—
European court upholds ‘right to be forgotten,’ says Google must amend some search results
AMSTERDAM (AP) — A European court, in an important test of the “right to be forgotten,” ruled Tuesday that Google must amend some of its search results at the request of ordinary people when they show links to outdated, irrelevant information.
In an advisory judgment stemming from a Spanish case, The Court of Justice of the European Union said Google and other search engines do have control of individuals’ private information, given that they sometimes compile and present links to it in a systematic way.
The court found that under European law, individuals have a right to control over their private data, especially if they are not a public figures. If they want irrelevant or wrong personal information about themselves “forgotten” from search engine results, they have the right to request it — even if the information was legally published.
People “may address such a request directly to the operator of the search engine … which must then duly examine its merits,” the ruling said.
Whether or not the request should be granted will depend “on the nature of the information in question and its sensitivity for the data subject’s private life and on the interest of the public in having that information, an interest which may vary,” it said.
—
US looks to repair ties with India, but has uneasy relationship with election front-runner
WASHINGTON (AP) — Indian elections results due Friday provide a chance to repair relations with the U.S. that were strained by the arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York in December. But there’s a big catch: Washington’s uneasy relationship with the man expected to become India’s next prime minister.
Hindu nationalist leader Narendra Modi was denied a U.S. visa in 2005 for alleged complicity in religious riots in 2002 that killed more than 1,000 Muslims. Exit polls show his Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies with a large lead over the ruling Congress party and its allies after voting ended Monday.
The Obama administration started mending fences in February, when, for the first time in Modi’s decade-long tenure as the top official in Gujarat state, the U.S. ambassador met with him. Officials since have said whoever is elected India’s next leader would be welcome to the U.S., leaving little doubt that if Modi becomes prime minister, he could visit Washington.
On Monday, President Barack Obama congratulated India on its national election and said the U.S. will work closely with India’s next government.
“We look forward to working with the leaders chosen by the Indian people to advance this important partnership and to set an ambitious agenda,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
—
Availability of government-funded pre-K varies widely from state to state
WASHINGTON (AP) — The availability of state-funded pre-kindergarten programs varies widely from one part of the country to another, says a new report.
For example, more than 9 in 10 4-year-olds in the District of Columbia attended such a program during the 2012-13 school year, while 10 states have no such program.
A number of states had fairly high enrollments, according to the report released Tuesday, though slightly lower than the District. More than 7 out of 10 4-year-olds in Florida, Oklahoma and Vermont were in such programs, while about 6 in 10 in Iowa, Georgia, West Virginia and Wisconsin were enrolled.
In fact, even as lawmakers from both parties have embraced the idea of expanding early childhood programs, the number of children enrolled in state preschool programs saw a modest decline of about 9,200 children in the 20-2013 school year — the first such reduction since 2002, when researchers at Rutgers University started tracking pre-K trends. Even as funding increased from a year earlier, more than half of states with programs made cuts. California alone, for example, lost nearly 15,000 slots.
Overall, $5.4 billion was spent by states on pre-K funding for about 1.3 million preschoolers.
—
Sterling seeks forgiveness but creates new controversy with remarks on Magic Johnson, HIV
LOS ANGELES (AP) — An interview that was supposed to be an attempt at rehabilitation instead had Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling facing fresh rebukes as he went from apologizing for recent racist remarks to slamming Magic Johnson, repeatedly bringing up the ex-NBA star’s HIV status and calling him an unfit role model for children.
“He’s got AIDS!” Sterling said loudly at one point in the interview, cutting off CNN’s Anderson Cooper as the interviewer attempted to cite Johnson’s accomplishments after Sterling asked, “What has he done, big Magic Johnson, what has he done?”
The comments earned Sterling quick condemnation from the league that was already trying to rid itself of the owner.
Commissioner Adam Silver, who gave Sterling a lifetime ban and $2.5 million fine two weeks ago, issued a statement saying, “while Magic Johnson doesn’t need me to, I feel compelled on behalf of the NBA family to apologize to him that he continues to be dragged into this situation and be degraded by such a malicious and personal attack.”
“The NBA Board of Governors is continuing with its process to remove Mr. Sterling as expeditiously as possible,” the commissioner added.