In the news

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, donated $1 million to Initiative 594, a Washington state campaign seeking to expand background checks on gun sales, saying the effort “will be an effective and balanced approach to improving gun safety.”

Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha of Thailand, who was unanimously elected prime minister by the junta-appointed legislature, officially assumed the post after accepting the endorsement of King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City announced a “full-scale review” of security at the Brooklyn Bridge, a day after Russian tourist Yaroslav Kolchin, 24, was charged with reckless endangerment, trespassing and disorderly conduct, accused of climbing to the top of the bridge in the landmark’s second security breach in a month.

Ri Tong Il, North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, criticized the U.N. Security Council for not accepting a request for an emergency session on U.S.-South Korean military exercises this month, warning that his country would intensify its response to the “gangsterlike war exercises.”

Michael Padnos, the father of reporter Theo Padnos, who was freed after two years as a captive of Nusra Front militants in Syria, said his son was “happy to be back in the civilized world and see some girls” and will return to the U.S. when he’s ready to travel.

Alice Uden, 75, of Chadwick, Mo., was sentenced in Cheyenne, Wyo., to life in prison for fatally shooting her husband, Ronald Holtz, in the mid-1970s and throwing his body down the shaft of an abandoned gold mine.

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said Josef Wesolowski, the church’s former ambassador to the Dominican Republic who is accused of sexually abusing boys in the Caribbean country, can be tried in court because he lost immunity after ceasing diplomatic activities with the Holy See.

Jim Matheney, the town marshal of Nederland, Colo., said he is resigning after six months on the job because he can’t adjust to the 8,400-foot elevation, adding that he wanted to dispel a rumor that he was leaving because of a space alien attack.

Timothy Gambin, a University of Malta researcher, said artifacts found at the site of an ancient shipwreck near Malta’s Gozo island date from about 700 B.C., likely placing them among the oldest discovered Phoenician relics.