Obama: Brazil’s democracy an example to the Arab world
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — As U.S. warplanes pounded faraway Libya, President Barack Obama praised Brazil’s transition from dictatorship to democracy as a model for the Arab world, where decades of stability enforced by strongmen are giving way to an uncertain but potentially brighter future.
The president spoke from a theater in a historic Rio de Janeiro square where a 1984 protest set the stage for the eventual end of a 20-year military dictatorship.
Japanese villagers near nuclear plant told not to drink tap water
TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s Health Ministry says it has advised a village near a crippled nuclear plant not to drink tap water because of elevated levels of radioactive iodine.
Ministry spokesman Takayuki Matsuda said Sunday that radioactive iodine three times the normal level was detected in Iitate, a village of about 6,000 people northwest of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. That’s still one twenty-sixth of the level of a chest X-ray and poses no danger to humans, he said.
Two foreign journalists and one photographer missing in Libya
BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — Two journalists working for a French news agency and a photographer traveling with them have gone missing in Libya while reporting on the fighting between Moammar Gadhafi’s forces and rebels, the agency said Sunday.
Agence France-Presse said the journalists went missing Saturday morning while working near the eastern city of Tobruk, which is not far from the border of Egypt.
AT&T Inc. to purchase T-Moblie USA in a $39 billion deal
NEW YORK (AP) — AT&T Inc., the country’s second-largest wireless carrier in the United States, said Sunday it will buy T-Mobile USA, the fourth-largest, from Deutsche Telekom AG in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $39 billion.
AT&T will pay about $25 billion in cash and the balance in company stock in a deal that gives Deutsche Telekom about an 8 percent equity stake in AT&T.
T-Mobile is coming off of two years of flat revenue as it struggles to compete with much larger rivals.
Hillary Clinton: U.S. ambassador Carlos Pascual has resigned
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, who wrote a cable that questioned how Mexico coordinates the war against drug traffickers, has resigned.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in Paris to meet with U.S. allies on Libya, released a statement Saturday announcing Carlos Pascual’s departure.
Clinton said Pascual’s decision was “based upon his personal desire to ensure the strong relationship between our two countries and to avert issues” raised by President Felipe Calderon.
State may pay to move school away from Medical Center
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Instead of tearing down a historic New Orleans school, the state may move it.
Funds previously earmarked for acquiring and demolishing the McDonogh No. 11 School in New Orleans now have been earmarked to move the structure off the site of the new University Medical Center.
In a Friday news release, the state said the commitment comes after a request from the New Orleans City Council that the state incorporate the school into the plans for the Medical Center.
As an alternative, the state says it has offered to move the school, provided it can locate a piece of land.
Louisiana special session on redistricting begins Sunday
(AP) — Lawmakers opened their once-a-decade special session Sunday to redraw Louisiana’s political boundaries based on new population data, in a redistricting that will force some state lawmakers and two congressmen to run against each other if they want to keep their seats in the next round of elections.
Battles are brewing about district design after population shifts from Hurricane Katrina.