American, Italian hostages killed in US drone strike
WASHINGTON — Blaming the “fog of war,” President Barack Obama revealed Thursday that U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan inadvertently killed an American and an Italian, two hostages held by al-Qaida, as well as two other Americans who had leadership roles with the terror network.
Obama somberly said he took full responsibility for the January CIA strikes and regretted the deaths of hostages Warren Weinstein of Rockville, Maryland, and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian aid worker. The president cast the incident as a tragic consequence of the special difficulties of the fight against terrorists.
The incident is likely to spark fresh scrutiny of Obama’s frequent use of drones to target terrorists and his pledge to strike only when there is “near certainty” that no civilians will be harmed.
Ex-CIA chief Petraeus gets 2 years’ probation
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Former CIA Director David Petraeus, whose career was destroyed by an extramarital affair with his biographer, was sentenced Thursday to two years’ probation and fined $100,000 for giving her classified material while she was working on the book.
The sentencing came two months after he agreed to plead guilty to a federal misdemeanor count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material.
The plea agreement carried a possible sentence of up to a year in prison. In court papers, prosecutors recommended two years’ probation and a $40,000 fine. But Judge David Keesler increased the fine to “reflect seriousness of the offense.” He said Petraeus committed a “grave and uncharacteristic error in judgment.”
Appearing calm and wearing a business suit, Petraeus made a brief statement before he was sentenced, apologizing “for the pain my actions have caused.”
Petraeus attorney Jake Sussman said this was not a case about the public dissemination of classified information, but the wrongful removal of materials.
New DNA codes from the extinct beasts
NEW YORK — Scientists are getting their best look yet at the DNA code for the woolly mammoth, thanks to work that could be a step toward bringing back the extinct beast.
Researchers deciphered the complete DNA code, or genomes, of two mammoths. The new genomes are far more refined than a previous one announced in 2008.
One new genome comes from a mammoth that lived about 45,000 years ago in northeastern Siberia. The other comes from a creature that lived about 4,300 years ago on Russia’s Wrangel Island in the Arctic Circle.
The results are announced in a paper released Thursday by the journal Current Biology. The DNA was extracted from a tooth and a sample of soft tissue.
Woolly mammoths, which were about as big as modern African elephants, sported long curved tusks and thick hairy coats. They are the best-known species of mammoth, with information coming from frozen and often well-preserved carcasses in Siberia.
By wire sources