In the news

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Neil Eggleston, 60, a veteran corporate lawyer and longtime Democratic campaign contributor who served as an associate counsel in President Bill Clinton’s White House, was picked by President Barack Obama to succeed Kathryn Ruemmler as White House counsel.

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York announced on ABC’s The View that he is proclaiming “Barbara Walters Day” in New York City for May 16, the day Walters is retiring after a storied television reporting career that has spanned five decades.

Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey who has four children ranging from ages 10 to 20, was named a Father of the Year by the National Father’s Day/Mother’s Day Council.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan sent a religious offering to the Yasukuni Shrine, a Tokyo shrine that honors the dead, including executed war criminals, and has long been a source of tension with Japan’s neighbors China and South Korea.

Sama el-Masry, an Egyptian belly dancer who rose to fame for her videos spoofing Islamists and other politicians, was detained in Cairo over allegations that she is running an unlicensed satellite station.

Kizito Mihigo, a Rwandan genocide survivor and composer of songs about genocide and reconciliation, pleaded guilty to charges, including terrorism, that accused him of working with groups opposed to President Paul Kagame’s government.

Beulah “Billie” Toombs, 89, an Ohio woman who has been a smoker for about seven decades, is preparing to move out of her apartment of the past 10 years because the building has gone smokefree and she won’t give up cigarettes.

Joseph Lewis Miller, a disabled 78-year-old church deacon living in East Texas, was arrested by federal agents who said he killed a person 33 years ago and 1,300 miles away in Pennsylvania.

Elizabeth Spencer, 92, a Southern author best known for the novella Light In the Piazza, which has been adapted into a feature film and Broadway show, won the $30,000 Rea Award for lifetime achievement in short fiction, the Dungannon Foundation announced.

Tamica Jeffers, 33, a mother who police say was with her two children when she and her boyfriend overdosed on heroin at a McDonald’s play area near Cincinnati, pleaded guilty to a charge of child endangerment and could be released from jail in less than two months.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/22/2014