BEIJING | Wed May 23, 2012 11:35pm EDT BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police have arrested a young couple who buried an old woman alive believing she was dead after their car hit the 68-year-old, newspapers said on Thursday, in a case which has sparked outrage over declining public morality. The couple had been at an all-night karaoke session when they hit the woman while driving in the early hours of the morning in the wealthy eastern province of Zhejiang last month, the official China Daily said."A witness said he heard someone crying and saw an elderly woman lying on the ground near (the car)," it cited a policeman as saying."A man and a woman got out and put the elderly woman in the car, saying ... Continue reading →

Iranian dissidents have long suspected that the country's Islamist regime has used the cover of its not-so-covert war with Israel to crack down on internal opponents, and that a leading Iranian nuclear scientist whose death was blamed on Mossad might really have been killed by his own government. Now a prominent opposition blogger based in London says that discrepancies in the recent trial and execution of the "Israeli spy" officially charged with killing scientist Masoud Ali Mohammadi are yet more evidence that Iranian intelligence agents may have been the real assassins. Mohammadi, a nuclear physicist, died in January 2010 when a motorcycle parked outside his house was detonated by remote control when he walked past. PHOTOS of Covert War: Iran vs. the West? A half ... Continue reading →

Moises Saman for The New York Times Women lined up to vote on Wednesday in Egypt's first competitive presidential election. More Photos » CAIRO — Egyptians went to the polls Wednesday to choose their first freely elected president in a vote that could end 15 chaotic months of military rule and define the future of political Islam. It was a new climax in a cascade of scenes that would have been unthinkable just two years ago, when election days meant that state television would film former President Hosni Mubarak walking a red carpet to his special polling place in a predictably fraudulent plebiscite. But on Wednesday, millions of Egyptians waited patiently in long lines, often holding scraps of cardboard against the desert sun, and debated ... Continue reading →

LOS ANGELES | Wed May 23, 2012 5:26pm EDT LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A 101-year-old man crossing an intersection in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank was struck by a car being driven by a 91-year-old woman and later died of his injuries, police said on Wednesday. Otto Jensen, a popular local photographer, suffered serious injuries in the Tuesday evening accident and was pronounced dead at a hospital, Burbank police spokesman Darin Ryburn said."It's truly a tragedy, not only for Otto's family but for the city, to lose such a well-known figure here in Burbank. He lived and worked here for a long time," Ryburn said.Jensen, a former boxer who first opened his photo studio in the 1950s, was grand marshal of Burbank's centennial parade ... Continue reading →

LOS ANGELES | Wed May 23, 2012 5:27pm EDT LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former first lady Nancy Reagan is recovering from fractured ribs she suffered in a fall at her Los Angeles home, her spokeswoman said on Wednesday. The injury forced Reagan, 90, to miss a speech by U.S. Representative Paul Ryan at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Tuesday, spokeswoman Joanne Drake said in a statement emailed to Reuters."Weeks ago Mrs. Reagan took a fall at her home and fractured a number of ribs," Drake said.She said Reagan was "adding a few appointments back to her schedule" but has been advised by her doctor not to attend large events too far from home yet."She personally invited Congressman Paul Ryan to speak at the Reagan ... Continue reading →

By Ioan Grillo VALLECILLO, Mexico | Wed May 23, 2012 7:06am EDT VALLECILLO, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexican government forces had bottled up a band of enemy fighters in this tiny village late last year, but feared they would escape into the dusty, rock-strewn hills. So more than 600 soldiers and federal police closed in from all directions with armored Humvees and helicopters. The outlaws responded with a barrage of rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assault-rifle fire, tearing apart one federal police vehicle. For three days the fighting raged.In the end, according to military accounts of the battle, 22 members of the Zetas drug cartel, two police officers and a soldier were dead, and 20 Zetas were in custody. Dozens more escaped to fight another day.The battle ... Continue reading →

By Tabassum Zakaria FORT MEADE, Maryland | Tue May 22, 2012 2:39pm EDT FORT MEADE, Maryland (Reuters) - The National Security Agency is trying to expand U.S. cyber expertise needed for secret intelligence operations against adversaries on computer networks through a new cyber-ops program at selected universities. The cyber-ops curriculum is geared to providing the basic education for jobs in intelligence, military and law enforcement that are so secret they will only be revealed to some students and faculty, who need to pass security clearance requirements, during special summer seminars offered by NSA.It is not easy to find the right people for cyber operations because the slice of the hacker community that would make a quality cyber operator inside the government is only a sliver.The ... Continue reading →

SACRAMENTO (Reuters) - Border patrol agents found 13 illegal immigrants in the back of a fake UPS van after they noticed the brown vehicle with yellow insignia trying to circumvent a highway checkpoint, the agency said on Tuesday. The agents arrested the passengers, identified as Mexican citizens without legal immigration documents, at an inland checkpoint on Friday on the dusty Highway 111, about 50 miles by car from the U.S.-Mexico border. The driver of the replica mail delivery van, a 21-year-old U.S. citizen, was also arrested for attempting to smuggle illegal immigrants, the border patrol said. "After further investigation, agents determined that the van was not a legitimate UPS van," the agency said in a release. In recent years, increasingly crafty drug and people smugglers ... Continue reading →

GUATEMALA CITY | Mon May 21, 2012 10:06pm EDT GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt will face a second trial on genocide charges after a judge ruled on Monday he could be prosecuted for ordering a 1982 massacre that left 201 people dead. Rios Montt, 85, who ruled during a particularly bloody period in 1982 and 1983, is already facing trial on separate charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.Judge Patricia Flores said on Monday she found sufficient evidence tying Rios Montt to the Las Dos Erres massacre, one of the worst mass killings at the height of the country's brutal 36-year civil war.The massacre occurred after a group of about 20 soldiers was ordered to search the village for weapons. ... Continue reading →

By Dan Whitcomb LOS ANGELES | Mon May 21, 2012 7:48pm EDT LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A 22-year-old college student who went missing in Yosemite National Park in California two days ago has been found safe about five miles (eight kilometers) from the campsite where he was last seen, a park spokesman said on Monday. Authorities combing the nearly 1,200-square-mile (3,100-square-km) park spotted John Paul Chaufan Field by helicopter at about 3:15 p.m. on Monday and made contact with him, Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman said.The University of California at Santa Cruz senior was unharmed and in good health, Gediman said, and was being transported from the back-country to a ranger station in the park's Hetch Hetchy area.Chaufan Field had last been seen at mid-morning on ... Continue reading →