Climate negotiators say global deal is close in Paris ADVERTISING Climate negotiators say global deal is close in Paris LE BOURGET, France (AP) — Talks on a global pact to fight global warming appeared to make progress late Friday, with
Climate negotiators say global deal is close in Paris
LE BOURGET, France (AP) — Talks on a global pact to fight global warming appeared to make progress late Friday, with some negotiators telling The Associated Press a deal was close.
Negotiators emerged from meetings with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, the host of the talks, amid an air of optimism that had been lacking just hours earlier.
Fabius was expected to present a new, potentially final draft of the elusive accord Saturday morning at 9 a.m. (0800 GMT).
“We are pretty much there,” Egyptian Environment Minister Khaled Fahmy, the chairman of a bloc of African countries, told the AP late Friday. “There have been tremendous developments in the last hours. We are very close.”
A negotiator from a developed country was equally positive. “I think we got it,” said the negotiator, who was not authorized to speak publicly as the talks were not over yet.
Putin: Russia provides air cover to Syrian opposition group
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia has provided air cover to a leading Western-backed opposition group in Syria, President Vladimir Putin said Friday, calling for closer coordination with the U.S.-allied coalition — comments that may reflect Moscow’s desire to narrow its differences with the West over the Syrian crisis.
At the same time, Putin vowed to further modernize Russia’s military and said its forces in Syria will “immediately destroy” any target threatening them, a strong warning to Turkey following its downing of a Russian warplane at the Syrian border.
Speaking at a meeting with top Defense Ministry officials, Putin said while supporting the Syrian government forces, Russia has backed some units of the Free Syrian Army, a Western-backed opposition group fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad’s army.
“Several (FSA) units totaling more than 5,000 people, along with regular troops, are conducting offensive operations against terrorists in the provinces of Homs, Hama, Aleppo and Raqqa,” Putin said. “We have provided air support for them as well as the Syrian army, helping them with weapons, ammunition and supplies.”
While Putin sounded unequivocal, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a few hours later that the president meant to say that Russia is sending weapons and supplies to Syrian government forces and not the FSA, but provides air cover to both. Peskov’s statement could be an attempt to assuage Assad, who calls the FSA and other moderate opposition groups “terrorists.”
Fired officer’s convictions a rare triumph for rape victims
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The rape convictions that could put a fired Oklahoma City police officer behind bars for life are vindication for some of the women he targeted, and also a reminder of how difficult it is to achieve justice in such cases.
Most victims never report sexual assaults, and those who accused ex-officer Daniel Holtzclaw were even more vulnerable as poor black women, many with checkered histories of crime and addiction.
A grandmother’s bravery in telling her story made all the difference this time. After Holtzclaw pulled her over, forced her to expose herself and perform oral sex, she filed a complaint that triggered a search for other victims.
In this case at least, it changed a narrative all too common in sex crimes: The jury found him guilty of rape.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” the grandmother said Friday, showing her face on camera and revealing her name as Jannie Ligons. “So all I can say is, I was innocent and he just picked the wrong lady to stop that night.”
APNewsBreak: 4 bikers shot in Waco with gun type police use
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Four of the nine people killed in a melee between rival biker gangs outside a Texas restaurant were struck by the same caliber of rifle fired by Waco police, according to evidence obtained by The Associated Press that provides the most insight yet into whether authorities were responsible for any of the deaths and injuries.
The latest trove of potential grand jury evidence reviewed by the AP depicts a chaotic, bloody scene in which police swarmed into the shootout between rival biker gangs on May 17 outside the Twin Peaks restaurant that left about 20 wounded and nearly 200 people arrested.
Hours of audio and footage and hundreds of documents including ballistics reports show that four of the dead and at least one of the wounded were struck with bullets from .223-caliber rifles — the only type of weapon fired by police that day.
Two of the four dead had wounds from only that kind of rifle; the other two were shot by other kinds of guns as well. The ballistics reports show that the rest of the people killed were shot by a variety of other guns.
It was not clear whether any bikers had similar guns to the police that day. Among the hundreds of weapons authorities recovered from the scene were 12 long guns, which could include rifles.
Armed ‘patriots’ turn protests toward Muslim Americans
DALLAS (AP) — They are known as “Three Percenters,” followers of a movement that has rallied against gun control efforts nationwide, patrolled the U.S. border with Mexico and recently begun confronting Muslim Americans.
Followers describe themselves as armed “patriots.” But some of their leaders have been blamed for threats and vandalism against lawmakers, police and Muslims. One prominent member from Phoenix prompted an FBI alert in November after posting an expletive-filled Facebook video saying he was headed to upstate New York with guns to challenge a Muslim group. A Three Percenter in suburban Dallas led a mosque protest by armed, masked men that same month.
Texas has been the scene of several other incidents this year that have raised anti-Muslim unease. Two Muslim gunmen in May were shot outside a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland. Police in Irving arrested a 14-year-old Muslim whose teachers thought his homemade clock was a bomb in September.
All this comes at a time when Texas has led a number of states trying to block the resettlement of Syrian refugees and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called for a “complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the U.S.
(I don’t think we need this anymore, given the rewrite of the Trump reference. I wrote this so that people wouldn’t get confused and think Trump was overly influential in the anti-Muslim efforts: The Three Percenters have expressed concerns about national security in waging anti-Muslim activities this year.)
DuPont, Dow Chemical seek merger, then 3-way split
DOVER, Del. (AP) — Dow Chemical and DuPont are merging to form a company valued at about $130 billion as they try to counter falling commodities prices and weakness in some key markets that have pressured their giant agriculture and chemicals businesses.
The two companies, whose research has brought the world products ranging from Ziploc bags and Saran wrap developed by Dow to DuPont’s Teflon coatings and Nylon and Kevlar fibers, will first form DowDuPont, then separate into three independent publicly traded companies focused on agriculture, material science and specialty products.
The proposed merger, announced Friday, would temporarily create the world’s second-largest chemical company, behind BASF. It comes as both Dow and DuPont Co. have seen recent declines in agricultural performance and been pressured by activist shareholders to control spending and shift away from commodities to faster-growing parts of their businesses.
“Overall, this transaction represents a tectonic shift in an industry that has been evolving over the last many years,” said Dow Chairman and CEO Andrew Liveris, calling the merger a seminal event for employees and customers of the two companies, which have a combined workforce of more than 110,000.
DuPont Chairman and CEO Edward Breen said the “industrial logic” behind the deal was compelling.
