NEW YORK
Bangladeshi student pleads guilty to plot Bangladeshi student and Al-Qaida aspirant Quazi Mohammed Nafis pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn to attempting to bomb the Federal Reserve bank in Manhattan last year, but he said he was sorry for what he did. "I no longer support violent jihad," said Nafis, 21, speaking in a meek, boyish voice. Nafis allegedly sought partners on the Internet to join in a terrorist act and began planning an attack with an undercover FBI agent. Federal sentencing guidelines call for him to get from 30 years to life.
Alabama
Coroner: Man who took boy shot many times The man who held a 5-year-old boy hostage in an underground bunker for nearly a week before dying in a shootout with the FBI received "multiple gunshot wounds," a county coroner said. The body was removed from the bunker Wednesday night, FBI agent Jason Pack said, hours after the FBI announced that it had found no more explosives on the property besides those that were discovered in a PVC pipe leading into the bunker and inside the bunker itself.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Panetta testifies on attack in Libya Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said it would take two to three years to add 35 new Marine detachments the United States plans to deploy to improve the security of U.S. diplomatic compounds. "We are working ... to identify specific locations for the new detachments," Panetta said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. The Marines have guard units at 152 diplomatic compounds, but not in Benghazi.
SOLOMON ISLANDS
Tsunami death toll increases to 9 victims The death toll in tsunami-ravaged villages in the Solomon Islands rose with more bodies found in wrecked homes and debris in the South Pacific island chain. At least nine people, including a child, were killed when a powerful earthquake set off a small tsunami that sent 4-foot, 11-inch waves roaring inland on Santa Cruz Island. Five elderly villagers and a child who weren't fast enough to outrun the rushing water were killed, said a spokesman for the prime minister. Three more bodies were found Thursday, but details surrounding those deaths were not yet available.
INDIA
Report says sexual abuse is widespread India needs to tighten child- protection laws and improve oversight of orphanages to curb sexual abuse of minors amid soul-searching over the scale of rape and assault in the country, Human Rights Watch said in a new report. Sexual abuse is widespread in homes, schools and residential care facilities in India, the investigation found, and existing child protection programs fail the most vulnerable. More than 7,200 children, including infants, are raped every year, while many more cases go unreported, the New York-based advocacy group said in its 82-page report.
RUSSIA
Putin fires official over Olympic ski jump The vice president of Russia's Olympic Committee was fired after a public roasting and ritual humiliation by President Vladimir Putin, who was upset because the Olympic ski jump was behind schedule. With one year to go before the opening of the 2014 Olympic Games, Putin was showing off Russia's progress to Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, and Jean-Claude Killy, chairman of the coordination commission. He was not pleased to find that there were no signs of spectator stands at the Russia Gorky ski jump.
Mexico
Workers reluctantly return to site of blast Workers at Mexico's state-run oil company have begun returning to the job -- some apprehensively -- amid official declarations of back-to-normal conditions at the headquarters that suffered a deadly work-hours blast last week. Some workers expressed doubt about the government's initial explanation that the blast was caused by an accumulation of gas ignited possibly by an electrical spark. Wednesday was the first full day of operations at the Mexico City headquarters of Petroleros Mexicanos, or Pemex, since the Jan. 31 explosion that killed 37 people.
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