1. HOUSE TO VOTE ON BILL TO END AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER FURLOUGHS
With flight delays continuing to plague airlines, the Senate passed legislation Thursday night to end the air traffic controller furloughs that were blamed for inconveniencing large numbers of travelers. A House vote is expected Friday. The measure would grant the FAA authority to transfer up to $253 million from healthy accounts into other programs, to "prevent reduced operations and staffing" through the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year. Officials said that would likely be enough to restore full staffing for the furloughed controllers, as well as prevent the closure of small airport towers. [Washington Post]
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2. BOMBING SUSPECTS' FATHER DELAYS TRIP TO U.S.
Tamerlan and Dzhokhar's parents have left their home in Dagestan for another part of Russia, the Boston Marathon bombing suspects' mother Zubeidat Tsarnaev said Friday. She said the suspects' father, Anzor Tsarnaev, is delaying his trip to the United States indefinitely for health reasons, but wouldn't elaborate. He was to fly to the U.S. as soon as Friday to cooperate in the investigation into the attacks, but his wife called an ambulance for him Thursday. Russian authorities have previously expressed suspicions that his wife, Zubeidat Tsarnaev, and their elder son, Tamerlan, the deceased suspect in the attacks, were following radical ideologies. According to the U.S. Marshals Service, Dzhokhar was transferred from the hospital in which he was recovering to a prison on Friday morning. [CNN]
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3. ISRAEL SHOOTS DOWN SUSPECTED HEZBOLLAH DRONE
Israel shot down a drone Thursday as it approached its northern coast from neighboring Lebanon, raising suspicions that the Hezbollah militant group was behind the infiltration attempt. Hezbollah denied involvement, but the incident was likely to heighten Israeli concerns that the Shiite militant group is trying to take advantage of the unrest in neighboring Syria to strengthen its capabilities. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in a helicopter in northern Israel at the time of the incident, said he viewed it with "utmost gravity." [New York Times]
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4. BANGLADESH DEATH TOLL CONTINUES TO SOAR
Crews near Dhaka, Bangladesh, bored deeper Friday into the wreckage of a garment-factory building that collapsed on Wednesday, hoping for miracle rescues that would prevent the staggering death toll of 290 from rising much higher. Some 2,200 people have been rescued alive. Angry outbursts from relatives of the injured and deceased have raised concern over the general welfare of employees in similar factories. The Rana Plaza building manufactured items for companies including Walmart, Children's Place, Dress Barn, and Benetton. [Washington Post, Huffington Post]
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5. U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL AUTHORIZES MALI PEACEKEEPERS
The U.N. Security Council signed off Thursday on a 12,600-member peacekeeping force in Mali that will be authorized "to use all necessary means" to protect civilians and cultural artifacts. "We know it's going to be a fairly volatile environment," Herve Ladsous, the U.N. undersecretary for peacekeeping operations, said. The resolution was proposed by France, which deployed about 4,000 troops to Mali in January to drive out Islamist militants who attempted to take control of the country. The peacekeeping force will take over July 1. [Wall Street Journal]
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6. SOUTH KOREA WITHDRAWS STAFF FROM ZONE IN NORTH
Shortly after North Korea rejected an offer of talks Friday morning, South Korea announced it is withdrawing its remaining workers from a jointly-run industrial complex in North Korea. North Korea blocked access to the Kaesong zone — once a symbol of inter-Korean cooperation — earlier this month and later pulled its workers out. The move followed weeks of high tension in the wake of North Korea's third nuclear test in February. "Because our nationals remaining in the Kaesong industrial zone are experiencing greater difficulties due to the North's unjust actions, the government has come to the unavoidable decision to bring back all remaining personnel in order to protect their safety," Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae said. [BBC]
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7. TEXAS EXECUTES MAN FOR ABDUCTION AND MURDER
Richard Cobb, a Texas inmate, was executed Thursday night for fatally shooting one of three people he and a partner abducted during a convenience store robbery in 2002. Cobb didn't deny using a 20-gauge shotgun to kill Kenneth Vandever in an East Texas field where two women were also shot. One of the women was raped. Cobb was convicted of capital murder. About two hours before Cobb's lethal injection, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for him to be executed, rejecting his appeal. It was Texas' fourth execution this year. [ABC News]
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8. MISSING BROWN UNIVERSITY STUDENT, BLAMED BY REDDIT, FOUND DEAD
The body of Sunil Tripathi, a Brown University student missing since March 16, has been found. After the announcement, Tripathi's family released a statement saying, "This last month has changed our lives forever." Tripathi's body was positively identified by the Rhode Island Department of Health, according to NBC Philadelphia. Tripathi was in the news last week when Reddit users misidentified him as one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, before the real suspects were named. [Huffington Post]
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9. YAHOO TO STREAM FULL SNL ARCHIVES
Starting Sept. 1, the archives of Saturday Night Live — including clips dating from 1975 to the most recent season, musical performances, behind-the-scenes clips, rehearsal clips and new episodes — will all be available streaming on Yahoo. With the exception of new episodes, the content will be exclusive to the web portal. This means no more SNL for Hulu or NBC.com. The terms of the deal, which is for just one year, were not announced, but the Times also speculates that 12 months of exclusive access to the archive is worth more than $10 million. [TIME]
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10. CHIEFS KICK OFF NFL DRAFT BY CHOOSING AN OFFENSIVE TACKLE
On Thursday night, the first night of the NFL draft, the Kansas City Chiefs took offensive tackle Eric Fisher of Central Michigan as their number one pick. Immediately after, Jacksonville chose Texas A&M's Luke Joeckel. It was the first time since 1970 that offensive tackles went 1-2. None of the teams making the first 32 selections went for Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o. Te'o's poor performance in Notre Dame's loss to Alabama in the national championship game was likely more of a factor than his fake girlfriend hoax. [ESPN]
