Ukraine ( A picture is worth a thousand words )

KRASNOARMEISK, Ukraine (AP) — Armed men identified as Ukrainian national guard opened fire Sunday on a crowd outside a town hall in eastern Ukraine, and an official for the region's insurgents said there were fatalities.

The bloodshed in the town of Krasnoarmeisk occurred hours after dozens of armed men shut down voting in a referendum on sovereignty for the region. One of them identified the group as being national guardsmen.

An Associated Press photographer who witnessed the shooting said two people were seen lying unmoving on the ground and insurgent leader Denis Pushilin was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying there were an unspecified number of deaths.

Several hours earlier, the men came to the town about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the regional capital, Donetsk, and dispersed referendum voting that was taking place outside the town hall and they took control of the building. In the evening, more arrived in a van and a scuffle broke out with people who were gathered around the building. Then they fired shots.

Yemen ( Two Americans shot "gunmen " while getting haircut )

SANAA: One of the two officers at the US Embassy in Yemen who shot and killed a pair of suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen was getting a haircut at a barbershop when the attempted abduction took place, Yemeni security officials said Sunday.

The attempted kidnapping April 24 is the latest evidence of Al-Qaeda’s expanding presence in the capital, a serious challenge to the authority of the already weak central government. 
The barbershop, owned by a longtime Indian resident, is on Heda Street, a commercial road in the southern part of the city where some of Sanaa’s best restaurants, supermarkets and high-end boutiques are located. The Yemeni officials said the armed militants arrived in a battered SUV and burst into the shop shouting: “Police! Police!” The officials said one of the two Americans was having his hair cut, while the second waited for his turn.
They said one of the Americans killed both militants before the pair jumped into their waiting SUV and drove off. Owners of nearby stores rushed to the barbershop on hearing the gunshots but the Americans already had left, the officials said.
Yemeni authorities questioned the two Americans and later gave them permission to leave the country, the officials said. The two fully cooperated with the Yemeni government investigation, they said.
The US State Department said the two Americans, whom it did not identify, were at a Sanaa business at the time of the attack and have since left Yemen. Citing unidentified US officials, The New York Times has reported that the Americans were a CIA officer and a lieutenant colonel with the elite Joint Special Operations Command.
Meanwhile, A suicide car bomber killed six Yemeni army officers and wounded many others on Sunday after targeting a military police building in the southern coastal city of Mukallah, a local security official said.
The blast appeared to be a revenge attack by Al-Qaeda over the Yemeni Army’s campaign to crush insurgents in two large southern provinces.

Tucson AZ ( Police looking for missing 19 year old girl ) FOUND

TUCSON- Tucson Police are searching for 19-year-old Clarissa Romero.
TPD Sergeant Pete Dugan says Romero went missing from her home in the 5800 block of South 12th Avenue around 10 p.m. Saturday.

Romero functions at a much lower mental capacity and takes daily medication for medical conditions. She is currently without that medication.
TPD says Romero has left in the past and knows how to use public transportation.
Romero is 4 feet 11 inches tall, 165 pounds, with brown eyes and medium length brown hair.
She was last seen wearing a multi-colored shirt, black or grey capri-style pants and sandals.
Anyone with information on Romero's whereabouts is asked to call 9-1-1

CONCORD, N.H ( 10 years later - Maura Murray still missing " no answers " )

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Ten years ago, Maura Murray packed her car, lied to professors about a death in the family and left Massachusetts. That night, on a rural road in the northern part of New Hampshire, the 21-year-old nursing student crashed her car.
Then she vanished, leaving a tormented family, vexed investigators and a case rife with rumor and innuendo. Lead investigators say there hasn't been a single, credible sighting of her since minutes after her car spun into trees and a snowbank along Route 112 in North Haverhill just before 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 9, 2004.

The disappearance of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst student is one of the most intriguing among scores of New Hampshire cold cases.
"No one knows for sure where Maura is or what happened to her," said Jeffery Strelzin, senior assistant attorney general.
Fred Murray believes his daughter is dead, the victim of a crime. But he wants to keep her case in the public eye in hopes of finally knowing what really happened that night on the threshold of the White Mountain National Forest.

"There's no letting go," said Murray, a medical technician in Bridgeport, Conn. "My daughter wouldn't want me to quit on her. She'd want me to keep trying to find out who grabbed her."
Her father and some investigators believe she just wanted to get away for a few days. It had been a rough stretch for the standout student who had attended — and quickly left — the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. She had recently resolved a criminal matter involving use of a stolen credit card and caused extensive damage to her father's car during a late night crash.

Then there was a mysterious and traumatizing call four days before she disappeared. She was working her security job at UMass-Amherst when the phone rang, and she burst into tears. A supervisor ended up walking her home. The caller — and the subject of the call — remain unknown.

But two days before she vanished, Maura was in good spirits as she and her father shopped for a used car for her and then went out to dinner.
Before she left that Monday, she had already called several lodgings, including one in Bartlett, N.H., that her family regularly visited. In her car were directions to Burlington, Vt., said retired state police Lt. John Healy, who has continued to investigate the disappearance.
Headed east on 112, she lost control of the 1996 Saturn, tagged a tree and spun around so the car was facing west.
A couple who live within sight of the scene called police. Butch Atwood, a school bus driver who lived nearby, told police he stopped by and asked Murray if she wanted him to call police. She said no. Atwood, who has since died, called anyway and appears to be the last person known to have spoken to Maura.
A police report says the windshield was cracked on the driver's side, both air bags deployed and the car was locked. There was a box of wine on the back seat and a strong odor of alcohol.
Healy, one of many investigators who have volunteered countless hours on the case, thinks Maura was the victim of a "crime of opportunity."
"She got into the wrong car. She went to the wrong house," Healy said last week. "One minute she's there, 10 minutes later she's not."
"In Maura's case, we're one step away from thinking alien abduction, it happened so fast," Healy said.
Theories abound that Maura fled, possibly to Canada.
Strelzin said it's unlikely — but not impossible — that the young woman had gone off to start a new life, but he and Healy agree that kind of disappearing takes careful planning, help and resources.
Her father doesn't believe it.
"I don't think she'd put us through this," he said. "She would have called me. I can't imagine her not calling. We were close, you know?"
Murray is frustrated and angry, convinced New Hampshire state police didn't call in the FBI 10 years ago and still won't for fear of exposing their own foibles.
"She was out there helpless," her father said. "Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. No one to ask for help. I think some local dirt bag grabbed her."
He fought in vain all the way to the New Hampshire Supreme Court to get the investigation's records.
"If I saw the case records, I would know what I have to chase myself," Murray said. "You get frustrated and it gnaws at you. You can't get rid of it."
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WASHINGTON ( Two officers at the U.S. Embassy in Yemen shot and killed a pair of armed gunmen )

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two officers at the U.S. Embassy in Yemen shot and killed a pair of armed Yemeni civilians during an attempted abduction of the Americans at a Sanaa business last month, the State Department said Friday.

The officers have left Yemen, Marie Harf, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said in a statement. No other details were provided.

Citing unidentified U.S. officials, The New York Times reported that the Americans were a CIA officer and a lieutenant colonel with the elite Joint Special Operations Command who were visiting a barber shop in an upscale district in Yemen's capital.

Within days of the shooting both Americans left Yemen with the approval of the Yemeni government, the newspaper reported. It said the shooting occurred on April 24.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa closed temporarily because of attacks on Westerners. A day before Tuesday's closure, gunmen opened fire on three French security guards working with the European Union mission in the Yemeni capital, killing one and wounding another.

The U.S. has waged a heavy campaign of drone strikes in Yemen against the group al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. This month the Yemeni government has been waging an offensive against the militant group, and violence around the country has been on an upswing.

On Friday, gunmen believed to be al-Qaida militants ambushed the motorcade of Yemen's defense minister in the Mahfad region, officials said. The assassination attempt failed.

Later in the day, a security checkpoint near the presidential palace in Sanaa came under attack and at least two policemen died. A night earlier in Sanaa, two al-Qaida militants from Marib province were killed in clashes with security men, the Interior Ministry said.

Ecuador ( More Than 1 Ton of Cocaine Seized in Ecuador )

QUITO – Ecuadorian authorities seized more than a ton of cocaine in an operation in which they arrested six people, the Attorney General’s Office reported Thursday.

The operation, in which personnel from the police and the AG’s office participated, was carried out early Thursday morning in the southwestern province of Guayas.

“The prosecutor in charge of the operation said that the drug was apparently ready to be sent by sea to Central America,” said the AG’s office.

In the operation, the AG’s office added, the prosecutor ordered a preliminary field test of the drug which came back positive for cocaine.

The AG’s office did not say what the nationalities of the six arrested people were.

Ecuador is not a drug-producing country, but its neighbors Colombia and Peru are the principal producers of cocaine.

Venezuela ( UN Slams Excessive Use of Force Against Protests in Venezuela )

 The UN has received direct complaints from demonstrators, their families and attorneys, some referring to the lack of information about the whereabouts of those arrested when the protesters’ camps were wiped out over the past two days

GENEVA – The United Nations criticized Friday the excessive use of force by the Venezuelan government to break up peaceful protests in Caracas.

“We unequivocally condemn all violence by all sides in Venezuela. We are particularly concerned at the reported excessive use of force by the authorities in response to protests,” said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.

Security forces removed, among others, a movement camped peacefully in front of the UN Development Program office in Caracas, he said.

He said the UN repeated its petition to the government “to ensure that people are not penalized for exercising their rights to peaceful assembly and to freedom of expression.”

The United Nations has received direct complaints from demonstrators, their families and attorneys, some referring to the lack of information about the whereabouts of those arrested when the protesters’ camps were wiped out over the past two days, Colville said.

Since Feb. 12, Venezuela has been experiencing a series of anti-government protests, which on occasion have become violent and so far have left more than 40 people dead and hundreds arrested.

The dead include both opponents and supporters of the government, as well as police and bystanders.

Among the hundreds of people in custody are members of the security forces accused in connection with two of the deaths.