An Afghan official says an Afghan soldier opened fire on US troops, wounding three before he was shot dead.
	Gen. Fazel Ahmad Sherzad, police chief for eastern Nangarhar province, says the incident happened after a meeting between Afghan provincial leaders and a U.S. Embassy official in the compound of the provincial governor in Jalalabad.
	He says the Afghan soldier opened fire "right after the US official had left."
	He says the American troops immediately returned fire, killing the Afghan soldier. US officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
	It is the second insider attack this year. An Afghan soldier killed three American contractors on January 29.

Afghan soldier shoots, wounds 3 US troops in insider attack

PTI Automatic

A senior American diplomat says the US is committed to defending Saudi Arabia and has sped up the delivery of weapons to the Saudi-led coalition launching airstrikes in Yemen.
	Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in the Saudi capital of Riyadh that Washington also has increased its intelligence sharing and has set up a joint coordination and planning cell in the Saudi operations center overseeing the campaign.
	He made the comments yesterday after meeting with senior Saudi royals and Yemen's President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled his country due to Houthi rebel advances and is seeking refuge in Saudi Arabia for the time-being.
	Blinken says the US and the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council must coordinate closely and press all parties to seek a consensus political solution.

US speeding weapons deliveries to Saudi-led Yemen coalition

Police in northeastern Spain say they have arrested 10 people for suspected links to jihadi terror activity and the Islamic State armed group.
	A Catalan regional police statement said the arrests took place today in five northeastern towns, including the regional capital of Catalonia, Barcelona.
	It said some 360 Mossos d'Esquadra regional police officers took part in 13 raids in one of the region's biggest operations against jihadi activity. The operation was coordinated by the National Court in Madrid.
	Spain has arrested dozens of suspected jihadi militants and recruiters in recent years.
	Last week, police in Catalonia arrested four members of a family, including 16-year-old twin boys who were allegedly about to travel to Syria to become jihadi fighters.

Spain: Police arrest 10 people for suspected jihadi links

An Afghan official says two people have been killed and three wounded in an ambush aimed at police in eastern Kunar province, where the Taliban have a strong presence.
	Farid Dhekhan, the spokesman for the provincial police chief, says the attack yesterday in Narang district was aimed at a police vehicle, which escaped unharmed. He says the dead were a man and woman from the same family. Dhekhan spoke today.
	Kunar is on the eastern border with Pakistan and has long been an insurgent stronghold.
	The Western-backed government's nearly 13-year war against the insurgents has intensified as both sides seek to strengthen their positions ahead of possible peace talks.

Afghan official: Ambush aimed at police kills 2 civilians

A federal judge in Texas has refused to lift a temporary hold on President Barack Obama's executive action that could shield millions of immigrants from deportation.
	US District Judge Andrew Hanen turned down the request from the US Department of Justice today.
	Hanen issued a preliminary injunction on February 16 to halt the immigration action by Obama, who wants to spare from deportation as many as five million people who are in the US illegally.
	The injunction was sought by a coalition of 26 states, led by Texas, that argued Obama's executive action was unconstitutional.
	The Justice Department has already asked the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to step in. The appeals court is scheduled to hear arguments April 17. A decision could take months.

Request to lift hold of Obama immigration action denied

Canada-based McEwen Mining Inc. says armed robbers took USD 8.5 million in gold from a refinery at a mine in Mexico's western Sinaloa state.
	A company statement says the theft occurred Tuesday at the El Gallo 1 mine and involved 900 kilograms (1,984 pounds) of gold-bearing concentrate containing approximately 7,000 ounces of gold.
	The company said yesterday that the crime was being investigated by Mexican authorities.
	It said its insurance policies will not be enough to cover the losses. The statement said no one was injured and mining operations were not affected, but did not provide any more details about the robbery.
	The Toronto-based company has operations in Mexico, Nevada and Argentina.

Robbers take USD 8.5 million in gold from Mexican mine

The first revision of the US-Japan Defense Guidelines in 17 years will "transform" the bilateral alliance, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said today.
	The guidelines, expected to be formally approved in about three weeks, "will help us respond flexibly to the full scope to the challenges we face, both in the Asia-Pacific and around the globe," he said at a news conference after meeting his Japanese counterpart in Tokyo.
	Carter, who travels to South Korea later this week, is on his first trip to Asia since becoming defense secretary in February.
	Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said that he and Carter also agreed that relocating a US Marines base in Okinawa to another part of the island is the "only solution" to closing the existing base, which lies in a heavily populated area.
	Many in Okinawa, and their current governor, oppose the construction of the replacement base in a less populated area, arguing that the facility should be moved off Okinawa entirely.
	The defense ...

US defense chief seeks deeper ties in first Asia visit

Watergate historian Stanley Kutler, who successfully fought for the release of President Richard Nixon's secret tapes, died in Wisconsin. He was 80.
	Kutler, who had been in declining health, died in hospice care in the Madison suburb of Fitchburg, according to his son, Andy Kutler.
	Andy Kutler said his father "just had a love and a passion for the United States Constitution" and considered the Watergate scandal that drove Nixon from office in 1974 "an affront to the Constitution."
	"He wanted to make sure the whole story was heard," Andy Kutler said.
	Stanley Kutler taught for 32 years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, retiring in 1996, and remained a professor emeritus. He was the author of several books, including two on Nixon.
	In 1992, Kutler and Public Citizen, an advocacy group, sued the National Archives to force the release of thousands of hours of White House conversations recorded by Nixon's secret taping system. Kutler won the gradual release of 3,700 hours worth of 

Watergate historian Kutler dies; sued to release Nixon tapes

Nigerian-born Elmont High School senior Harold Ekeh had a plan he would apply to 13 colleges, including all eight Ivy League schools, figuring it would help his chances of getting into at least one great school.
	It worked. And then some. The teenager from Long Island was accepted at all 13 schools, and now faces his next big test: deciding where to go.
	"I was stunned, I was really shocked," the 17-year-old said during an interview yesterday at his home near the Belmont Park racetrack, his four younger brothers running around.
	He found out last week he had been accepted to Princeton University. That made him eight for eight in the Ivy League. He had already been accepted to Yale University, Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University and University of Pennsylvania. His other acceptances came from Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University, Stony Brook University and Vanderbilt ...

17-year-old US student accepted at all 8 Ivy League schools

A private plane returning from the NCAA basketball tournament in Indianapolis crashed in a central Illinois field, killing all seven people on board, including Illinois State University's associate head basketball coach and a deputy athletics director.
	Rescue personnel found no survivors at the site near the city of Bloomington, and a coroner pronounced the seven occupants dead, McLean County Sheriff Jon Sandage said at a news conference yesterday. The plane went down in a soybean field 2.5 miles from the Bloomington airport. All the victims, who were found strapped in their seats, died from blunt force trauma resulting from the crash, said Coroner Kathleen Davis.
	Illinois State University President Larry Dietz confirmed in an email to students, faculty and staff that associate head basketball coach Torrey Ward, 36, and Aaron Leetch, 37, the athletic department's deputy director for external relations, were o killed in the early-morning crash. The email was released to ...

Small plane crashes after NCAA title game, killing ISU coach

As tons of desperately needed medical supplies await clearance to be flown into Yemen, aid workers have warned of an unfolding humanitarian crisis, saying at least 560 people, including dozens of children, have been killed, mostly in a Saudi-led air campaign and battles between Shiite rebels and forces loyal to the embattled president.
	More than 1,700 people have been wounded and another 100,000 have fled their homes as fighting intensified over the past three weeks, the World Health Organisation said yesterday.
	The Red Cross shipment would be the first to reach Yemen since the start of the Saudi-imposed air blockade. Sitara Jabeen, a Geneva-based spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said a cargo plane with 17 tons of medical supplies was in the Jordanian capital, Amman, awaiting the go-ahead from coalition forces to land in Sanaa, hopefully today. Another 35 tons of supplies were also ready for shipment, she said.
	"If these medical supplies do not reach ...

560 dead amid fears of humanitarian collapse in Yemen

A car bomb blew up at a rebel base north of the Syrian city of Aleppo, killing at least seven people, two activist groups said.
	The attack targeted a compound of Islamist armed opposition fighters in the town of Marea, some 30 kilometres north of Aleppo yesterday. The town, long a stronghold for Syrian rebels, has been near the front lines since the Islamic State group advanced into the area several months ago.
	The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll in the bombing at seven people, including two rebel leaders. It said dozens were also wounded.
	The Aleppo Media Centre activist group said at least 12 people were killed and more than 15 wounded.
	The discrepancy could not be immediately reconciled, but differences in casualty figures are common in the chaotic aftermath of attacks in Syria.
	There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion fell on the Islamic State group, which frequently uses suicide attacks.
	Also yesterday, the Lebanese .

Car bomb hits Syrian rebel base, killing at least 7

Business travelers are bypassing the taxi queue with greater frequency, choosing instead ride-hailing services like Uber Technologies.
	A new report by expense management system provider Certify shows that 47 per cent of the ground transportation rides by its users in March were through Uber. That's more than tripled from the 14 percent of rides that Uber had just over a year ago in January 2014. In a few cities, Uber now tops taxi rides for business travelers.
	"While we often see noteworthy market shifts leading restaurant chains and hotels exchanging leadership positions, for example it is unprecedented to see one vendor grow to take such a commanding market share within one year's time," says Certify CEO Bob Neveu.
	While taxis, limousines and airport shuttles still dominate the ground transportation business, Certify's report shows ride-hailing services are rapidly on the rise among business travelers. Certify based its finding on the 28 million trip receipts its North American ..

Uber's popularity surges; business travelers avoiding taxis

Russia's budget for the 2018 World Cup is being cut by four per cent by scrapping luxury hotels that might otherwise lie empty after the tournament.
	The move would help to reduce the total cost from 664 billion rubles (USD 12 billion) to 637.6 billion, Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko told Russian news agency Tass today.
	"We don't want elite hotels built to FIFA's highest requirements to end up out of demand after the World Cup," he said, adding that Russia would be careful to keep to FIFA requirements requiring luxury hotels for teams and officials.
	"Bearing in mind the minimum requirements of the organisation (FIFA), we have worked with each region on programs for accommodating FIFA groups and we will optimise expenses."
	Mutko said 25 hotels would be cut from the organisers' program across the 11 host cities.
	As these hotels were to have been funded by regional government or by companies, Mutko said the savings will not reduce spending by the federal government on the ...

Russia trims World Cup budget by cutting hotels

Widespread power outages affected the White House, State Department, Capitol and other sites across Washington and its suburbs today -- all because of an explosion at a power plant in the adjoining state of Maryland.
	Many of the outages were brief, but others were longer and forced evacuations.
	At the White House, backup generators kicked on when the power went out, so the interruption lasted only a few seconds.
	The complex quickly went back onto regular power. Electricity in the press briefing room dipped around lunchtime, briefly darkening cubicles and blackening TV screens.
	Power also went out at the State Department during the daily press briefing, forcing spokeswoman Marie Harf to finish her comments to reporters in the dark.
	Power in the US Capitol Building twice shut down briefly, then came back on by way of a generator.
	The city's transport operator, Metro, tweeted that several train stations were on backup power. Some traffic lights were out.
	The Smithsonian tweeted ...

Official: Blast at power plant caused Washington outages

Iran could have the capabilities to build a nuclear bomb almost immediately after the first 13 years of the emerging nuclear deal, President Barack Obama acknowledged today.
	The Republican leader of the US House reacted tersely, arguing that Obama had just confirmed what critics of the deal have long feared.
	Under the framework for a final deal, Iran would be kept at least a year away from a bomb for the first decade, Obama said, as he pressed ahead in his campaign to sell the deal to skeptics. Pushing back on criticism that the deal allows Iran to keep enriching uranium, Obama told NPR News that enrichment isn't the prime concern because Iran will be capped for a decade at 300 kilograms not enough to convert to a stockpile of weapons-grade material.
	"What is a more relevant fear would be that in Year 13, 14, 15, they have advanced centrifuges that enrich uranium fairly rapidly, and at that point, the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero," Obama said.
	Breakout time 

Obama says Iran could cut nuke time to near zero in 13 years

The US and Saudi Arabia are taking joint action against a terrorist funding organization that the Treasury Department says is masquerading as a charity.
	Treasury announced today that the two nations teamed up to disrupt the financing and operations of Al-Furqan (al FUR-khan) Welfare Trust. The trust is suspected of funding al-Qaida, the Taliban and other extremist militant networks, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
	Treasury says the trust was formed when two groups, which were already targeted, merged and took on a new name in order to evade sanctions and keep financing terrorism.
	The joint action freezes any assets the trust has under US or Saudi jurisdiction and prohibits Americans and citizens of Saudi Arabia from doing business with it.

US, Saudi Arabia jointly sanction terrorist funding group

A 115-year-old Detroit-area woman now listed as the world's oldest living person still makes plans for a fishing trip each year and credits God for her longevity.
	Jeralean Talley tops a list maintained by the Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group, which tracks the world's longest-living people. Gertrude Weaver, a 116-year-old Arkansas woman who was the oldest documented person for a few days, died yesterday.
	Talley was born May 23, 1899. Asked for her key to longevity, the Detroit Free Press reports that she echoed previous answers on the topic.
	"It's coming from above," she told the newspaper. "That's the best advice I can give you. It's not in my hands or your hands."
	Michael Kinloch, 56, a longtime family friend of Talley's through their church, said Talley's mental state is "is very sharp."
	"It's unfortunate that other people passed away, but this has certainly elevated her. She's feeling no pain. She just can't get around like she used to," Kinloch said.
	Talley's ...

US woman, 115, now listed as world's oldest person

Europe's top human rights court ruled today that the unpunished police beating of a 62-year-old man during the 2001 protests at the G-8 summit in the Italian city of Genoa amounted to torture, vindicating hundreds of protesters who claimed they were brutally abused during a police raid.
	The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights awarded Arnaldo Cestaro 45,000 euros (USD 48,900) and said Italy must change its laws to criminalize torture.
	The 2001 summit was marked by violent confrontations between black-clad protesters and police, and resulted in the first shooting death of an anti-globalization activist by police fire.
	The night of July 21-22, Cestaro and a group of protesters were in a school housing the demonstrators when police stormed the building looking for members of the "black bloc" group of violent agitators.
	The human rights court said Cestaro raised his arms in surrender, but was beaten and kicked by officers, suffering fractures and other injuries. Dozens of ..

European court rules Italy responsible for protest 'torture'

The chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guard praised the work of the country's nuclear negotiators after they struck a deal with world powers, state television reported today, a major endorsement from the Islamic Republic's most powerful institution.
	The comments by General Mohammad Ali Jafari came as some 200 hard-liners protested in Tehran against the framework deal reached last week in Switzerland. Jafari's endorsement likely will isolate those still opposing the deal further amid the widespread support negotiators have received and may smooth any potential parliamentary vote over it.
	"With God's grace, the revolutionary children of Islamic Iran have succeeded in defending the rights of the Iranian nation and the Iranian nation and the Guard appreciate their honest political efforts," Jafari was quoted as saying on state TV's website.
	The Revolutionary Guard is the single most powerful institution in Iran. It exerts a strong behind-the-scenes role in Iranian affairs and likely would .

Report: Iran's Revolutionary Guard chief backs nuclear talks

The Dutch justice ministry says about 190 people have traveled from the Netherlands to fight in overseas "jihadi conflicts," some 35 have returned home and 30 have been killed.
	The ministry published the latest figures today without a specific breakdown of what countries the 190 had traveled to.
	Most are believed to have gone to Syria and Iraq. It also maintained its terror threat level at the second-highest: "substantial."
	The latest threat assessment says that, although there are no "concrete signs" of possible attacks, deadly terror incidents in Paris and Copenhagen and a foiled plot in neighboring Belgium "underscore ... The threat against Europe and therefore also against the Netherlands."
	The assessment says that not only retuning fighters pose a threat but also Islamic extremists who remain in the West.

AP

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