Former Arkansas Governor and possible presidential candiate Mike Huckabee has accused President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, of double standards in parenting, saying in an interview that the first family shelters its daughters from some things but allows them to listen to the music of Beyonce.
	The sharp rhetoric signals that, should he run for the Republican presidential nomination, Huckabee, a favorite of conservative Christians, would make cultural and social issues the cornerstones of his campaign.
	While promoting his new book, the former Baptist pastor told People magazine, "I don't understand how on one hand they can be such doting parents and so careful about the intake of everything -- how much broccoli they eat and where they go to school ... And yet they don't see anything that might not be suitable" in Beyonce's lyrics.
	He also said Beyonce's choreography is "best left for the privacy of her bedroom."
	In his book, Huckabee describes the Grammy Award-winning ...

Obama criticised for letting daughters listen to Beyonce

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In private, even the stylish former U.S. First lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis admitted to tiring of the all-black attire long considered chic in New York City.
	"I just love this suit & will wear it everywhere as I am SO sick of everyone constantly in black - like Mediterranean villages where everyone is in mourning for 20 years," she once wrote to Bill Hamilton, then the design director at Carolina Herrera.
	The handwritten note accompanied by her own sketch of a suit with a single-breasted jacket - is among a few dozen pieces of Onassis' personal correspondence making a rare appearance at auction Saturday in Florida.
	The notes about clothes and furniture she was buying show the human side of the widow of President John Kennedy and tycoon Aristotle Onassis, said Rico Baca, auctioneer and co-owner of Palm Beach Modern Auctions.
	"In these notes you get a sense of how someone famous can make the average person comfortable," said Baca, who is preparing the personal correspondence ...

Jacqueline Kennedy's notes to designers up for auction

A friend of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect is expected to plead guilty to a reduced charge of lying to the FBI.
	In a court filing yesterday, prosecutors amended the charges against Khairullozhon Matanov. He had been charged with lying and with deleting information from his computer. A judge scheduled a Jan 27 plea hearing.
	Matanov's lawyer, Paul Glickman, has not said if Matanov plans to testify against bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
	Jury selection began last week in Tsaraev's trial.
	Matanov is accused of lying about contact he had with Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, after the 2013 bombings. Three people were killed and more than 260 injured. Tamerlan died after a shootout with police days later.

Marathon bomb suspects' friend to plead guilty to lying

A man who fatally shot a sheriff's deputy who stopped him for speeding on a Georgia interstate was put to death for the 1998 killing, which was captured on the patrol car's video camera.
	Andrew Howard Brannan, 66, was pronounced dead at 8:33 pm yesterday after a single-drug injection. He was convicted of the January 1998 shooting death of Kyle Dinkheller, a 22-year-old sheriff's deputy.
	"I extend my condolences to the Dinkheller family, especially Kyle's parents and his wife and his two children," Brannan said in a statement moments before the injection was administered.
	Lawyers for Brannan, a Vietnam veteran, had unsuccessfully argued to authorities to spare the inmate's life, saying the shooting was tied to mental illness directly traced to Brannan's military service.
	Dinkheller had stopped Brannan for speeding and demanded he take his hands from his pockets during a traffic stop, officials said Brannan then began cursing, dancing in the street and saying "shoot me" before he ...

US state executes man for killing a deputy in traffic stop

A woman is accused of defrauding an insurance company of USD 2 million in her ex-husband's staged death and her son is accused of helping cover up the scheme.
	Irina Vorotinov, 47, is charged with one count of mail fraud and her 25-year-old son, Alkon Vorotinov, is charged with one count of concealing a felony. Both appeared yesterday in US District Court in St Paul.
	Prosecutors allege Vorotinov staged her ex-husband's death in the eastern European country of Moldova.
	According to the complaint, Igor Vorotinov bought a life insurance policy on his own life in April 2010 and listed Irina Vorotinov and their son as beneficiaries.
	In October 2011, police in Moldova were called about a dead body at the entrance of the Cojusna village. A passport, hotel cards and phone numbers recovered from the body identified the man as Igor Vorotinov. Irina Vorotinov traveled to Moldova and identified the body as her former husband, prosecutors said. At her request, the body was cremated in Odessa, ..

US woman charged in USD 2M fake death insurance scam

The two climbers trying to become the first in the world to use only their hands and feet to scale a sheer granite face in California's Yosemite National Park are almost to the top.
	A spokeswoman said yesterday that 30-year-old Kevin Jorgeson and 36-year-old Tommy Caldwell will likely finish the climb up El Capitan's Dawn Wall today evening.
	For 17 days, the two have been attempting what many thought impossible. The men are "free-climbing" to the 3,000-foot (914-meter) summit, meaning they don't use climbing aids other than ropes only to prevent deadly falls.
	Each trained for more than five years, and they have battled bloodied fingers and unseasonably warm weather. Plus, Jorgeson fell 11 times over seven days trying to get past one tough section.

2 Yosemite climbers closing in on historic feat

Republican Rep. Randy Weber has apologised for a tweet that compared President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler to make a point related to the Paris terrorist attacks.
	In a written statement, Weber said, "It was not my intention to trivialize the Holocaust nor to compare the president to Adolf Hitler."
	Yesterday night, the lawmaker tweeted that even "Hitler thought it more important than Obama to get to Paris," referring to Hitler's visit to the vanquished city during World War II.
	Obama is under criticism for failing to join other world leaders at a unity march in Paris on Sunday.
	The tweet was denounced as "vile" by congressional Democrats.
	Weber offered his apology to all who were offended, saying he only intended to criticize Obama's lack of action.

Lawmaker apologises for tweet comparing Obama to Hitler

A federal appeals court appears concerned that the New York Police Department may have spied on Muslim groups solely because of their religion.
	The three-judge panel in Philadelphia is reviewing a lawsuit that claims police conducted broad surveillance on Muslim businesses, mosques and schools in New Jersey.
	A lower court judge had thrown out the lawsuit.
	But the 3rd Circuit judges questioned today why the surveillance wasn't targeted. And they said any drop in business or mosque attendance would amount to real harm. The judges didn't immediately rule.
	The case drew an overflow crowd at the courthouse.
	Rutgers University sophomore Taqi Khan says he was born in Pakistan but grew up in New Jersey and considers himself "American by heart."
	He calls the alleged surveillance of a Muslim student group "unfair.

US judges review broad surveillance of Muslims by NYC police

Malawi's president says heavy flooding in the southern African country has killed 48 people and left another 23,000 displaced.
	President Peter Mutharika declared 10 out of 28 districts in the country disaster zones today.
	Planning officer Grey Mkwanda said some of the victims died when villages were flooded in the southern Mangoche district, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of the commercial capital, Blantyre. Livestock, crops and homes were swept away by floodwaters.
	Others died in Blantyre when their homes collapsed, according to Mkwanda.
	Mutharika has appealed to the international community for assistance for the impoverished country.
	Officials were unable to visit the affected areas due to continuing poor weather.

Flooding in Malawi kills 48, leaves thousands displaced

The Twitter and YouTube sites for the US military's Central Command are back online after being taken over by hackers claiming to support the Islamic State militant group, and Pentagon officials are reviewing some security protocols in the wake of the breach.
	Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said today that it is too soon to tell who the hackers are and where they got some of the official documents they placed on Central Command's Twitter feed Wednesday afternoon.
	The documents included some personal phone numbers and email addresses and a few slides that were prepared by an independent research group.
	The US Central Command covers 20 nations from the Persian Gulf to Central Asia.
	Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, visiting Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, said today that the hack "was a violation, it wasn't a big deal. But it shows you, it reminds you, once again, of how dangerous these different groups are and how capable they are."
	The hacker group, calling itself ...

Key US military command's Twitter, YouTube sites hacked

France's lower house of Parliament has approved extending French airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Iraq.
	The vote today came after France's worst terrorist attacks in decades last week. A man claiming allegiance to the Islamic State group killed four people in a kosher market and a policewoman in Paris while two brothers claiming ties to al-Qaida in Yemen killed 12 people at a Paris newspaper office.
	Prime Minister Manuel Valls, speaking to the National Assembly ahead of the vote, said "France is at war against radical Islam" but he insisted "France is not at war against Islam."
	France quickly joined the United States in conducting airstrikes against the Islamic State last year. French law requires a vote on extending such operations after four months.

France extends airstrikes in Iraq on Islamic State group

The price of oil has dipped below USD 45 a barrel following the latest sign from OPEC that the group doesn't plan to cut production.
	The comments from the energy minister for the United Arab Emirates, a member of OPEC, put more downward pressure on crude today. The comments reaffirmed the position of OPEC's Arab Gulf members that lowering production would only erode their market share and benefit rivals, such as shale drillers in the US.
	Last November OPEC decided to keep production levels steady. That decision came despite calls from some from within the 12-member bloc to curb output in an effort to boost prices.
	The price of US benchmark crude traded as low at USD 44.20 a barrel early, the lowest since April 2009. The price has dropped since last June, when it reached USD 107.
	In late morning trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, US crude was down 34 cents, or 0.8 per cent, to USD 45.72. Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell USD 1.41, or 2.9 per cent, to USD ...

Oil dips below USD 45 as OPEC signals no cuts

A Polish court today found a Roman Catholic priest guilty of sexually abusing underage boys and sentenced him to seven years in prison.
	In its ruling, the court in the western Polish city of Wroclaw also forbade the 44-year-old from working with young people for the rest of his life and ordered that he undergo psychological treatment.
	The priest was only identified as Pawel K., in line with Polish privacy laws.
	He was arrested in December 2012 in a Wroclaw hotel, where he had checked in with a teenage boy, something that aroused the suspicion of hotel workers.
	The judge, Maciej Skorniak, said his guilt was not in doubt due to the testimony of a large number of victims.
	Images of his victims were also found on his computer.
	The judge described the priest as a "seductive, provocative and dangerous type."
	The priest did not admit to any wrongdoing, according to Polish media reports from the court. "I didn't do anything wrong to anybody," he was quoted as saying by TVN24.
	The ...

Polish priest sexually abused boys, sentenced to 7 years

Authorities in the Dominican Republic have arrested a prosecutor and several police officers accused of not reporting the seizure of more than a ton of cocaine that has since disappeared.
	General Prosecutor Francisco Dominguez says the cocaine was seized in September near Santo Domingo but was never turned over to authorities.
	He told TV station Colorvision late yesterday that authorities are investigating whether the drug was returned for a bribe or whether the suspects sold it themselves.
	An arrest warrant is pending for a second prosecutor.
	Dominguez said the suspects were part of at least two other drug seizures that were never reported.
	The investigation began after Police Chief Manuel Castro noticed the missing drugs.

Dominican officials arrested after 1 ton of coke disappears

Newly empowered Republican senators today unveiled new restrictions on President Barack Obama's ability to transfer terror suspects out of the US prison at guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as he pushes to close the naval facility.
	Sen. Kelly Ayotte introduced the far-reaching legislation "to extend and enhance prohibitions and limitations with respect to the transfer or release of individuals detained" at Guantanamo, a measure certain to draw opposition from the Obama administration.
	Joining Ayotte in backing the measure were Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, Intelligence committee chairman Richard Burr and Sen. Lindsey Graham.
	The measure would bar the use of any government funds, whether in the budget for the Defense Department or in any other agency, to construct or modify facilities in the United States to house terror suspects.
	It also would repeal current law that has allowed the administration to transfer prisoners to foreign countries and reduce their number at ...

Top Republican senators look to restrict Obama on Guantanamo

Murder-for-hire allegations are central to a New York trial starting this week for a San Francisco man charged with running an online black market where drugs were sold as easily as books and electronics.
	US District Judge Katherine Forrest overruled defense objections in recent weeks as she concluded prosecutors could introduce evidence about six murder plots into Ross William Ulbricht's trial.
	Prospective jurors have filled out questionnaires and formal jury selection starts today when potential jurors will be questioned orally.
	Prosecutors say Ulbricht ran an underground website known as Silk Road, where hundreds of kilograms of cocaine, heroin and other drugs were sold to over 100,000 customers. Ulbricht has pleaded not guilty and is disputing that he operated online under a "Dread Pirate Roberts" alias, an apparent reference to a swashbuckling character in the 1987 comedy "The Princess Bride."
	The government maintains that Ulbricht attempted to protect his operation by asking 

US man faces NY trial in 'Silk Road' case

A US congressman with a history of making inflammatory remarks is drawing criticism for comparing President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler in a tweet related to the terror attack in Paris.
	Republican Rep. Randy Weber's Twitter account yesterday night said even Hitler "thought it more important than Obama to get to Paris."
	The tweet referred to the German leader's visit to the vanquished city after his troops invaded in World War II, and to Obama's failure to join dozens of world leaders at an anti-terror march through Paris on Sunday.
	Democratic Rep. Steve Israel denounced the tweet as "vile," saying Weber was "desecrating the victims of the Holocaust to make a political point."
	In a tweet last year Weber called Obama a "Socialistic dictator.

Lawmaker compares Obama to Hitler in tweet on Paris attack

The president of Afghanistan has held talks with the powerful crown prince of Abu Dhabi at the start of a two-day visit to the United Arab Emirates aimed at bolstering ties between the two countries.
	Emirati state news agency WAM says Afghan President Ashraf Ghani met Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan today at a palace in the Emirati capital of Abu Dhabi.
	The two men discussed ways to deepen bilateral ties, the Emirates' role in reconstruction and security efforts, as well as the Gulf state's support for health, educational and infrastructure projects.
	WAM says they also talked about efforts to combat violence, extremism and terrorism.
	Ghani is also expected to meet the Emirati prime minister, who is the ruler of Dubai, as well as businessmen and expatriate Afghans.

Afghan leader meets Abu Dhabi crown prince in Emirates visit

The energy minister for the United Arab Emirates said today there are no plans for OPEC to curb production to shore up falling crude prices, and instead put the onus on shale oil drillers for oversupplying the market.
	Oil prices have lost well over half their value since late June, with benchmark US crude trading below USD 45 a barrel.
	OPEC, which includes the Emirates, decided at its last meeting in November to keep production levels unchanged, despite calls from some from within the 12-member bloc to curb output to boost prices. The position of the cartel's Arab Gulf producers is that scaling back production would only erode their market share and benefit rivals, such as shale drillers in the US
	"I think the strategy will not change," Emirati Energy Minister Suhail Bin Mohammed al-Mazroui told the Gulf Intelligence energy conference in Abu Dhabi.
	"By not panicking and readjusting or cutting the output from the OPEC countries, we are telling the market and the other producers ...

UAE energy minister: No change in OPEC policy amid oil slide

Amazon Studios is delivering Woody Allen as creator of his first-ever TV series.
	The Oscar-winning filmmaker will write and direct all of the episodes of the half-hour series. A full season has been ordered for Amazon's Prime Instant Video, the company announced today. The series is expected to premiere in 2016.
	No details on casting were disclosed, nor was the series title announced.
	Amazon Studios vice president Roy Price called Allen "a visionary creator who has made some of the greatest films of all time," keeping him "at the creative forefront of American cinema" during a career that spans 50 years.
	"I don't know how I got into this," the 79-year-old Allen said in a wryly modest statement. "I have no ideas and I'm not sure where to begin. My guess is that Roy Price will regret this."
	Allen's signing adds another coat of luster to Amazon Studios, a recent entrant in the world of streaming video that is redefining what "television" means. On Sunday, Amazon gained new cachet ...

Amazon signs Woody Allen to create his first TV series

Britain has launched a trade mission to Egypt with more than 40 companies received in Cairo, the largest such effort in over a decade by the top foreign investor in the Arab world's most populous country.
	Today's meeting in a former-palace-turned-hotel focused on developing the energy, real estate and housing sectors, as well as drumming up foreign involvement to expand the Suez Canal zone and turn it into an international commercial hub.
	Tobias Ellwood, state minister with responsibility for the Middle East, says the mission demonstrates Britain's commitment to boost international investment in Egypt and increase trade between the two countries.
	He adds: "It is part of an ongoing program of economic cooperation which will include more trade visits and UK participation in the March investment conference.

AP

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