No progress seen despite intense UN talks on Syria aid
AFP, United Nations
UN Security Council members held an intensive round of meetings Friday on the humanitarian crisis in Syria’s embattled Idlib province amid calls to reauthorize urgently needed cross-border aid.
Humanitarian aid currently flows into northwestern Syria – a last rebel stronghold – through UN-designated checkpoints in Turkey and Iraq without Damascus’s formal permission.
Cambodia building collapse toll
rises to 7
AFP, Cambodia
Hundreds of soldiers and rescuers frantically picked through the rubble of a collapsed building in southern Cambodia on Saturday looking for bodies as the death toll from the disaster rose to seven.
They used excavators, drills and power saws to clear concrete the morning after the seven-storey hotel under construction in seaside Kep province crumbled to the ground with an estimated 30 workers inside, prompting an all-night rescue.
Women win $13m in lawsuit against porn site in California
AP, San Diego
The owners and operators of a San Diego-based porn website must pay $12.7 million after a judge found them liable for fraud and breach of contract for lying to women about how their explicit videos would be distributed, according to a court ruling Thursday.
The site, GirlsDoPorn, was sued by nearly two dozen women who claimed they were deceived and coerced into making sex videos without knowing the footage would be posted on the internet, the Union-Tribune reported.
Suspect surrenders after taking hostage at Illinois bank
AP, Rockford
An armed robbery suspect surrendered to police after holding a woman hostage at an Illinois bank for more than six hours. Rockford Police Chief Dan O’Shea said at a news conference that the suspect “willingly” walked out of the Heritage Credit Union around 9 p.m. CST Friday. The hostage came outside with the suspect and was quickly ushered away by officers.
