7 SEALs punished
for disclosing
classified information
WASHINGTON — Seven members of the secretive Navy SEAL Team 6, including one involved in the mission to get Osama bin Laden, have been punished for disclosing classified information, senior Navy officials said Thursday.
Four other SEALs are under investigation for similar alleged violations, one official said.
The SEALs are alleged to have divulged classified information to the maker of a video game called “Medal of Honor: Warfighter.”
Each of the seven received a punitive letter of reprimand and a partial forfeiture of pay for two months. Those actions generally hinder a military member’s career.
The deputy commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, Rear Adm. Garry Bonelli, issued a statement acknowledging that nonjudicial punishments had been handed out for misconduct, but he did not offer any details.
Frustration, anger mount over lingering power outages
FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Vincent Pina finally saw a couple of utility trucks coming down his street Thursday and started to wave in anticipation. But they just cruised past his house and kept on going.
He hung his head in resignation.
“The thing that gets me the most is that there is no flood damage. I don’t have any branches down. I have no wires down,” said the Long Islander, who put a hand-painted sign out front that read: “Still No Power.”
So why, he wondered, was it taking so long to get electricity?
A week and a half after Superstorm Sandy slammed the coast and inflicted tens of billions of dollars in damage, hundreds of thousands of customers in New York and New Jersey are still waiting for the electricity to come back on, and lots of cold and tired people are losing patience. Some are demanding investigations of utilities they say aren’t working fast enough.
Syrian children most common sight at refugee camp
ATMEH, Syria — Most of the displaced people in the tent camp rising near this village on the Syrian-Turkish border are children.
All have fled the violence of Syria’s civil war farther south. Many have seen violence themselves. Some have lost relatives, and most have trouble sleeping and panic when they hear loud noises or airplanes, their parents say.
Fighting between the forces of President Bashar Assad and rebels seeking to topple him has sent hundreds of thousands Syrians streaming into neighboring countries.
Rebel organizers say the Atmeh camp was born of necessity some three months ago when Turkey began drastically reducing the number of Syrians allowed to enter that country, leaving tens of thousands stranded in the border area.
Turkey says that more than 112,000 Syrian refugees are sheltering in Turkish camps.
Syria opposition
to pick chief
DOHA, Qatar — Syrian opposition leaders say they have made progress toward forging a broad-based leadership group sought by the international community.
Riad Seif, the author of the proposal, says the main opposition bloc, the Syrian National Council, deferred a decision until after a final round of internal elections Friday. Seif says some of the SNC members present during day-long talks Thursday signaled they accept the idea of setting up a new 60-member leadership group.
The leadership group is to serve as a conduit for foreign support for those trying to oust President Bashar Assad.
The SNC is hesitant because it would receive only 22 seats to make room for activists inside Syria. Seif says the SNC will make a final decision Friday afternoon, after picking a new chief and executive committee.
By wire sources
