World

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A judge in Los Angeles yesterday turned down prosecutors’ motion to jail R&B singer Chris Brown because of his arrest on an assault charge in Washington, DC, last year.

JOHANNESBURG,  (Reuters) – Former South African president and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela left his $4.1 million estate to family members, the ruling African National Congress, former staff and several local schools, according to a reading of his will on Monday.

MOSCOW,  (Reuters) – A Moscow high-school student shot a teacher and a police officer dead and held more than 20 other students hostage in a classroom on Monday before he was disarmed and detained, police said, just days before Russia hosts the Winter Olympics.

SAN SALVADOR, (Reuters) – A former left-wing guerrilla leader took a strong early lead in El Salvador’s presidential election yesterday, early results showed, but he could still face a run-off against a conservative rival who wants to deploy the army to fight powerful street gangs.

NEW YORK, (Reuters) – Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of the leading actors of his generation, who won an Academy Award for his title role in the film “Capote,” was found dead in his Manhattan apartment yesterday in what a New York police source described as an apparent drug overdose.

BANGKOK,  (Reuters) – Anti-government protesters planned to forge ahead today with efforts to topple Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, a day after a disrupted election that is unlikely to settle Thailand’s long-running political conflict.

SAN JOSE, (Reuters) – Costa Rica’s centrist ruling party hopeful Johnny Araya had a strong early lead in yesterday’s presidential contest, but could still face a run-off, preliminary election results showed.

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thai voters go to the polls under heavy security today in an election that could push the divided country deeper into political turmoil and leave the winner paralysed for months by street protests, legal challenges and legislative limbo.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Aid agencies in Syria have evacuated hundreds of people from the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Yarmouk, a government-aligned Palestinian group said yesterday, in a rare moment of coordination between the government and rebel forces.

MUNICH (Reuters) – The top US defence official yesterday underscored the Obama administration’s intention to shift the focus of its foreign policy away from military might toward diplomacy.

(Trinidad Guardian) A mandatory penalty of 25 years in jail, meant to send a powerful message to would be drug traffickers, was yesterday deemed unlawful by the Appeal Court in long-awaited decision.

VIENNA (Reuters) – Aus-trian actor Maximilian Schell, who won an Academy Award for his role as a German defence attorney in the acclaimed 1961 courtroom drama Judgment at Nurem-berg, has died at age 83.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – The tents are gone and clean up crews are grooming the grounds of the Petionville country club golf course, which served as a camp for 60,000 people made homeless by Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake.

NEW DELHI, (Reuters) – Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal  yesterday named a string of high-ranking Indian politicians he described as corrupt and said his anti-graft Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) would target them in an upcoming general election.

NEW ORLEANS, (Reuters) – A Louisiana businessman and a former city hall insider told a federal court yesterday they repeatedly bribed then-New Orleans Mayor C.

LONDON, (Reuters) – A British businessman accused of arranging for his wife to be murdered while they were on honeymoon in Cape Town has lost an appeal against his extradition to South Africa to face trial.

FLORENCE, Italy,  (Reuters) – American student Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were found guilty yesterday for the second time of the 2007 murder of Briton Meredith Kercher, in a retrial that reversed an earlier appeal judgment.

NEW YORK,  (Reuters) – New York City’s new mayor yesterday announced a settlement with a civil liberties group that sued the city over its stop-and-frisk practices, which he fiercely challenged as a candidate, paving the way for court-ordered reforms to take effect.

BRUSSELS/MADRID,  (Reuters) – The European Union will agree next month to deepen relations with Cuba in its most significant overture to the communist nation since diplomatic sanctions were lifted in 2008, people close to the matter told Reuters.

CAMBRIDGE, Md.,  (Reuters) – Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday took their first step toward reforming an outdated immigration system as they floated a series of principles intended to guide a possible legislative effort this year.