Israeli PM courts opposition
Kadima leader is wary of invite to join government
JERUSALEM — The Israeli prime minister has asked moderate opposition leader Tzipi Livni to join his government — a move that could boost efforts to restart negotiations with the Palestinians if she accepts or rip apart her rival party if she refuses.
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The offer, made late Thursday after a Cabinet meeting, came amid reports that Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to persuade lawmakers from Livni’s Kadima Party to bolt to his Likud. On Friday, one lawmaker announced she would join Likud if Livni rejected the offer.
Livni did not turn down the offer.
“I’m not closing the door,” she said. If the offer is serious, Livni said, she wants to explore how far Netanyahu is willing to go in negotiations with the Palestinians.
However, she said she wouldn’t be part of a maneuver to split Kadima, and earlier this week accused Netanyahu of trying to break up her party by courting its lawmakers.
Livni, a former foreign minister and chief negotiator with the Palestinians, refused to join Netanyahu’s government in March because he would not embrace the notion of Palestinian statehood at the time.
Netanyahu has since endorsed the idea, albeit with stipulations the Palestinians have rejected, such as continued Israeli control over east Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as the capital of their future state.
He also recently announced a slowdown in West Bank settlement construction, bucking the hawkish Jewish settlers who form an important component of support. The Haaretz newspaper on Friday quoted Netanyahu as saying that if he can’t coax Livni to join, “I’ll take at least part of Kadima.”
Kadima’s presence in the coalition could dilute the power of the hard-line parties that currently dominate the coalition.
After hammering Midwest, storms bear down on East
LAWRENCE, Kan. — A fierce Christmas storm dumped more snow and ice across the nation’s midsection Friday after stranding travelers as highways and airports closed. Meteorologists predicted the slow-moving storm would glaze highways in the East with ice through Christmas night and that gusty thunderstorms would hamper the South. An ice storm warning was issued for parts of West Virginia and the Blue Ridge mountains in North Carolina and Virginia.
NATION
Salvation Army worker killed on Christmas Eve
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A Salvation Army worker was shot and killed Christmas Eve in front of his three young children during an attempted robbery outside the charity’s community center in North Little Rock, a Salvation Army official said Friday.
North Little Rock police said they were looking for the two men who accosted Salvation Army Maj. Philip Wise outside the community center about 4:15 p.m. Thursday. No arrests have been made.
The two men ran into a nearby housing development, police Sgt. Terry Kuykendall said Friday. Police don’t know whether Wise, who was active in the community, knew his attackers, he said.
Tug spills in Alaska sound
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A diesel sheen spread across Alaska’s Prince William Sound on Friday where a tugboat had run aground near the site of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, the Coast Guard said.
Officials had hoped to remove the fuel from the tugboat’s tanks early Friday before towing it back to Valdez, but diesel removal was halted after about 10 minutes when workers noticed a new sheen on the surface of the water, said Coast Guard Lt. Erin Christensen, a spokeswoman for the joint information center. Helicopter flights measured the sheen at 50 feet wide by 1 mile long, Christensen said.
The 136-foot tug Pathfinder had just finished checking for dangerous ice and was heading back to port in Valdez when it hit Bligh Reef at 6:15 p.m. Wednesday.
WORLD
2 more bishops resign in Irish church-abuse probe
DUBLIN — Two Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland resigned on Christmas Day in the wake of a damning investigation into decades of church cover-up of child abuse in the Dublin archdiocese.
Dublin Bishops Eamonn Walsh and Ray Field offered an apology to child-abuse victims as they announced their resignations during Christmas Mass. Priests read the statement to worshippers throughout the archdiocese, home to a quarter of Ireland’s 4 million Catholics.
Two other bishops, Donal Murray of Limerick and Jim Moriarty of Kildare, quit this month following the Nov. 26 publication of a three-year investigation into why so many abusive Dublin priests escaped justice for so long.
Bomb kills 6 in Iraq
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BAGHDAD — A roadside bomb killed six Shiite Muslim pilgrims on Friday during a procession, the latest violence targeting the group during observances of a religious holiday, officials said.
The deaths followed heightened tensions in a northern Iraqi town after security troops were deployed following a scuffle between Christians and Shiites over holiday decorations.
Observances of the 10-day Shiite festival of Ashoura coincided Friday with Christian celebrations of Christmas. The government has been trying to assure people it can protect both Shiites and Christians during the two holidays. During Ashoura, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims converge on the holy city of Karbala.
In the days leading up to the event, large processions of men march in Shiite neighborhoods, beating their chests and using chains to flay their backs in a show of grief over the 7th century killing of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Imam Hussein.
Mexican journalist killed
MEXICO CITY — A journalist was gunned down this week as he left a holiday party in the Mexican Caribbean resort town of Tulum, human rights officials and an international media group said Friday, bringing to 12 the number of reporters killed this year in the country.
Alberto Velazquez of the newspaper Expresiones de Tulum was killed Tuesday.
Velazquez had written articles critical of local officials, and his paper had received threats, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The Newsmaker
Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born radical cleric, is alive and well following reports he may have been killed in a Yemeni airstrike against suspected al-Qaida hide-outs, friends and relatives said Friday. The government said it targeted a meeting of high-level al-Qaida operatives in Thursday’s airstrike in the remote Shabwa region. It claimed at least 30 militants were killed, possibly including al-Awlaki, a radical cleric who has been linked to the shooter in last month’s attack at the Fort Hood military base in the U.S.