Saudis cut ties with Iran following Shiite cleric execution
TEHRAN, Iran — Saudi Arabia announced Sunday it was severing diplomatic relations with Shiite powerhouse Iran amid escalating tensions over the Sunni kingdom’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric.
The move came hours after protesters stormed and set fire to the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and followed harsh criticism by Iran’s top leader of the Saudis’ execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Iranian diplomatic personnel had 48 hours to leave his country and all Saudi diplomatic personnel in Iran had been called home.
The mass execution of al-Nimr and 46 others — the largest carried out by Saudi Arabia in three and a half decades — laid bare the sectarian divisions gripping the region as demonstrators took to the streets from Bahrain to Pakistan in protest.
It also illustrated the kingdom’s new aggressiveness under King Salman. During his reign, Saudi Arabia has led a coalition fighting Shiite rebels in Yemen and staunchly opposed regional Shiite power Iran, even as Tehran struck a nuclear deal with world powers.
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Oregon standoff latest in dispute over Western lands
BURNS, Ore. — The remote high desert of eastern Oregon became the latest flashpoint for anti-government sentiment as armed protesters occupied a national wildlife refuge to object to a prison sentence for local ranchers for burning federal land.
Ammon Bundy — the son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who was involved in a 2014 standoff with the government over grazing rights — is among the people at the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. It was unclear exactly how many people were taking part in the protests.
Ammon Bundy posted a video on his Facebook page asking for militia members to come help him. He said “this is not a time to stand down. It’s a time to stand up and come to Harney County,” where Burns is located.
Bundy and other militia members came to Burns last month, a small town about 280 miles southeast of Portland, Oregon. They were upset over the looming prison sentences for local ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond. They went to the wildlife refuge Saturday evening following a peaceful rally in Burns to support the ranchers.
Dwight Hammond, 73, and Steven Hammond, 46, said they lit the fires on federal land in 2001 and 2006 to reduce the growth of invasive plants and protect their property from wildfires.
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Mexico mayor slain a day after taking office
MEXICO CITY — Three people, including a minor, were being held Sunday in the slaying of a newly inaugurated mayor in a gang-troubled central Mexican city.
Morelos Gov. Graco Ramirez ordered flags on state buildings flown at half-mast and called for three days of mourning following the murder of Temixco Mayor Gisela Mota.
He blamed organized crime for killing the 33-year-old Mota, a former federal congresswoman who had been sworn in as mayor less than a day before she was gunned down in her home Saturday morning.
Ramirez ordered security measures for all of the state’s mayors, though he gave no details on what that involved.
Ramon Castro Castro, Roman Catholic bishop of Cuernavaca, celebrated Mass at Mota’s home Sunday and later spoke critically of a state where some areas are in control of organized crime.
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A year of political pregame gives way to a sprint into Iowa
DES MOINES, Iowa — It’s been a year of town halls and weekend forums and lunchtime meet-and-greets for those who would be president, with nights spent sparring in televised debates and endless days fundraising to pay for TV ads, direct-mail fliers and organizers to get out the vote.
All of it is aimed at people like Jocelyn Beyer, a Republican from the small town of Sully in rural central Iowa, who says despite the many months of political clamor, she’s only just now starting to think about her vote for the White House.
“I can’t say I’ve paid much attention,” Beyer said. “The moral issues are what I focus on. If I had to vote today, I’d vote for Ted Cruz.”
While that’s not a solid “yes” for the Texas senator, at least he’s doing better with Beyer than he is with Brian Metcalf, a Republican from nearby Pella. Metcalf is thinking about Cruz, but also former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
That is, when he’s spending any time thinking about the race.
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Trump brushes off militant recruiting video citing his words
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump won’t be dissuaded from saying what he thinks simply because Islamic extremists use his words to recruit Muslims to their cause.
The Republican presidential contender brushed off the appearance of an African militant group’s video to recruit Americans that shows him calling for Muslims to be banned from coming to the U.S. On Sunday news shows, Trump said it’s no surprise America’s enemies would exploit comments of a presidential front-runner like himself.
“The world is talking about what I’ve said,” Trump told CBS’ “Face the Nation” in an interview taped Friday. “And now, big parts of the world are saying, Trump is really right, at least identifying what’s going on. And we have to solve it. But you’re not going to solve the problem unless you identify it.”
The 51-minute video is by al-Shabab, al-Qaida’s East Africa affiliate, and showed up Friday on Twitter.
Hillary Clinton claimed in the last Democratic presidential debate that another extremist group, the Islamic State, has been using video of Trump in its propaganda. But she had no evidence that that group, also known as ISIS, had done so. Trump told “Fox & Friends” the emergence since then of the al-Shabab video doesn’t change the fact she was wrong: “It wasn’t ISIS and it wasn’t made at the time, and she lied.”
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Israel charges 2 Jewish extremists in deadly arson
JERUSALEM — Israel on Sunday charged two Jewish extremists in an arson attack that killed a Palestinian toddler and his parents last July — culminating a drawn-out investigation into a case that has helped fuel months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
The indictments came as Israel said it had broken up a ring of Jewish extremists wanted in a series of attacks on Palestinian and Christian targets. While Israel’s prime minister trumpeted the arrests as a victory for law and order, the charges drew criticism from Palestinians, who said they were too little and too late, and from the suspects’ relatives, who claimed their loved ones had been tortured by Israeli interrogators.
While Israel has been dealing with a wave of vigilante-style attacks by suspected Jewish extremists in recent years, the deadly July 31 firebombing in the West Bank village of Duma sparked soul-searching across the nation. The attack killed 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh, while his mother, Riham, and father, Saad, later died of their wounds. Ali’s 4-year-old brother Ahmad survived and remains in an Israeli hospital.
The attack was condemned across the Israeli political spectrum, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged “zero tolerance” in the fight to bring the assailants to justice. Investigators placed several suspects under “administrative detention,” a draconian measure typically reserved for Palestinian militants that allows authorities to hold suspects for months without charge.
“Enforcing the law is the life’s breath of democracy, of the rule of law. We are not restricting it to one sector and we are not focusing on only one sector,” Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday.
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Vacation over, Obama looking at ways to reduce gun violence
WASHINGTON — Hawaiian vacation over, President Barack Obama says he is energized for his final year in office and ready to tackle unfinished business, turning immediate attention to the issue of gun violence.
Obama scheduled a meeting Monday with Attorney General Loretta Lynch to discuss a three-month review of what steps he could take to help reduce gun violence. The president is expected to use executive action to strengthen background checks required for gun purchases.
Republicans strongly oppose any moves Obama may make, and legal fights seem likely over what critics would view as infringing on their Second Amendment rights. But Obama is committed to an aggressive agenda in 2016 even as public attention shifts to the presidential election.
Obama spent much of his winter vacation out of the public eye, playing golf with friends and dining out with his family. He returned to the White House about noon Sunday.
“I am fired up for the year that stretches out before us. That’s because of what we’ve accomplished together over the past seven,” Obama said his weekly radio and Internet address.
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6.7 magnitude quake hits India’s northeast
GAUHATI, India — A 6.7 magnitude earthquake hit India’s remote northeast region before dawn on Monday, causing damage to some buildings but there was no immediate word on casualties.
There were reports of damage to a popular market in Imphal, the capital of Manipur state. The tremor left large cracks in several walls and a portion of the building collapsed, police said.
India’s Meteorological Department said the epicenter of the quake was in Tamenglong region of Manipur state. It struck before dawn on Monday at a depth of 17 kilometers (about 10 miles) in the India-Myanmar border region. The U.S. Geological Survey said the depth was 55 kilometers (about 34 miles).
The epicenter of the earthquake was 35 kilometers (20 miles) northwest of Imphal.
People panicked and rushed out of their homes in Gauhati, the capital of neighboring Assam state, as they felt massive shaking at least twice within 60 seconds.
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Illinois, Missouri assess damage, cleanup after flooding
KINCAID, Ill. — The Mississippi River and many of its tributaries continued their retreat Sunday from historic and deadly winter flooding, leaving amid the silt a massive cleanup and recovery effort likely to take weeks if not months.
The flood, fueled by more than 10 inches of rain over a three-day period that began Christmas Day, is blamed for 25 deaths in Illinois and Missouri, reflecting Sunday’s discovery of the body of a second teenager who drowned in central Illinois’ Christian County.
The Mississippi River was receding except in the far southern tip of both states. The Meramec River, the St. Louis-area tributary of the Mississippi that caused so much damage last week, already was below flood stage in the hard-hit Missouri towns of Pacific and Eureka and dropping elsewhere.
But worries surfaced anew Sunday along the still-rising Illinois River north of St. Louis, where crests near the west-central Illinois towns of Valley City, Meredosia, Beardstown and Havana were to approach records before receding in coming days.
In Kincaid, a 1,400-resident central Illinois town near the South Fork Sangamon River, Gov. Bruce Rauner toured flood-damaged homes Sunday as Sharon Stivers and other residents piled ruined furniture, appliances and clothes along the street for disposal crews to pick up. Mike Crews, Christian County’s emergency manager, said the worst of the inundation appeared to be past, “until the new weather comes,” citing the prospect of potentially heavy rain later in the week.