Brian Williams may have just lucked into the perfect job: On the same day NBC announced it was suspending the Nightly News anchor for claiming to have been aboard a helicopter downed by RPG fire during the Gulf War, the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart announced he would be leaving his post. Williams, who has been a frequent guest on the Daily Show, reportedly told NBC five years ago that he was interested in Jay Leno’s job as host of the Tonight Show. The idea reportedly alarmed network heads at the time -- for god’s sake, man, you’re a journalist, not a common comedian! But showbiz may just be in his blood, He spoofed himself on 30 Rock and can be seen slow-jamming the news with Leno’s replacement, Jimmy Fallon.

Then Stewart, who a large swatch of the population trusts, can read the straight news while Williams waxes ironic on Comedy Central. It’s a game of musical anchor chairs!

And what is trust, aside from an Elvis Costello album, anyway? How come the smooth-talking, clean-cut Williams had it so much of it (he ranked among the 23rd most trusted people in the country, according to The New York Times -- until the helicopter story unraveled and his ranking plunged to No. 835) and former Meet the Press host David Gregory never connected (prompting NBC to oust him last year with no warning or fanfare)?

I would assume that part of Williams’ charm was that he was… unassuming. He and I corresponded briefly for a period -- I was covering the media for Salon when he was hosting an excellent 10 pm newscast for MSNBC (this before that network had become the lefty version of Fox News) -- and I called him a few times for quotes or background on stories. He struck me as exactly what you see on TV: smart, self-deprecating, funnier than you imagine a news anchor can be or should be. A network publicist I knew called him “Brain” and among those in the business, his rise, as Tom Brokaw prepared his own exit from the NBC Nightly News’ anchor’s chair, seemed preordained.

Williams said just the sorts of things about taking Brokaw’s job then that you might imagine -- that he was happy doing what he was doing and he hoped Tom would stay as long as he wanted -- even as the value of being a news anchor on one of the Big Three was diminishing (along with the value of the Big Three). It’s worth remembering that in the U.K. they call people with Williams’ job “news readers;” for the most part they don’t report, or even produce, the stories they set up. It’s their job to convey a summation of the day’s events with a straight face and a modicum of gravitas. But the idea of the trusted anchor -- Walter Cronkite concluding that the Vietnam War was a losing hand is one of the iconic moments in American TV news history, precisely because his viewers trusted him -- is sort of an anomaly. Before there was Ron Burgundy there was the fatuous anchor played by William Hurt in 1987’s Broadcast News, and before him it was Ted Baxter on the Mary Tyler Moore Show. For decades now our perception of a news anchor has steadily declined -- thanks in part to people like Williams appearing on TV and making fun of themselves, and people like Stewart sending up the whole network news business as crass, simplistic and hopelessly broken.

Now NBC is reportedly grinding through every story Williams told about himself over the years; his memory of events in New Orleans post Katrina has been called into question, even the number of puppies he rescued as a volunteer fireman in his youth. And if they find a clear pattern of “misremembering” and self-aggrandizement, he’ll probably be gone for good.

But let’s assume the worst has already been revealed: how much do you need to trust the man reading a teleprompter? For 99% of his work, Williams was not reporting on himself. And maybe he got some facts wrong about less consequential events. But there is no evidence that he was less than diligent reporting any other story -- any story that didn’t involve himself. He committed the sin of inventing past peril (think Hillary and the imaginary sniper in Bosnia) and lying about being under fire when you weren’t is tantamount to saying you served when you didn’t.

The news media, and the nation at large, has a huge disconnect from the military. Whether its guilt about having not put on a uniform or having done such a piss poor job of reporting on the build-up to the Iraq war, a lot of national news people seem hypnotized by camouflage. Williams acted awestruck by some of the  “brave men and women of our armed forces” (as they must be called by TV convention) and he crossed the line when he recalled being in danger when he wasn’t.

That anxiety didn’t exist for the previous generation of newscasters because they had served, if not in uniform then in reporting the truth (or what they could see of it) about earlier wars, most especially World War II. Cronkite covered the Battle of the Bulge from the ground, and reported on the Nuremberg Trials after the war; Edward R. Murrow covered Hitler’s rise for CBS, and transfixed Americans with his coverage of the Blitz in a series called London After Dark. One could argue that the events of ‘30s and ‘40s were more earth-shattering (literally) than Vietnam and Woodstock, and opportunities for big stories -- like the Holocaust, or McCarthyism, which Murrow helped unmask with his reporting and editorializing -- were greater.

Or maybe it’s just that those guys never mistook themselves for the story. If they reported from the battlelines it was to give you a sense of what it was like for the soldiers, not the reporter. With the lines blurred by reporting like Williams’ (and CNN’s Anderson Cooper led the charge in New Orleans, wading about in galoshes long before his counterparts got the memo that the city was broken) they  make the mistake of thinking the anchor is part of the story, and we’ve come to share that delusion.

None of which should keep Brian Williams from being an excellent news reader. Sportscaster Marv Albert was considered dead meat when a sex-scandal in 1997 revealed his taste for BDSM. Could a man who witnesses claimed liked to wear women’s lingerie and bite his partners keep calling games for the Knicks? Almost 20 years later the answer is an unqualified “Yesss!”

One difference being that Albert never said he had dunked on Ewing. 

Three Muslim students were discovered fatally shot at residences at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Tuesday afternoon, according to the Chapel Hill Police Department.

The three students have been identified as 23-year-old Deah Shaddy Barakat; his wife, 21-year-old Yusor Mohammad and her sister, 19-year-old Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, according to the Chapel Hill Police Department. Police responded to reports of gunshots at 5.15 p.m. on Tuesday and the victims were pronounced dead at the scene.

Officers have so far declined to state a motive for the crime. The shooting occurred at the Finley Forest condominium complex  news site WRAL reports, home to a number of college and graduate students.

The gunman has been identified by Chapel Hill police as Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, who turned himself in to police on Tuesday evening. He was arrested and is being held without bond at Durham County jail on three counts of first-degree murder, AFP reports. Hicks is expected to make his first court appearance on Wednesday morning.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the leading Muslim civil advocacy organization in the U.S., issued a statement on Wednesday calling on law enforcement to declare a motive. Media reports have quoted a widely-shared Facebook post from Hicks

in which he quotes prominent religious critic Richard Dawkins on the Sept.  11  terrorist attacks. Dawkins condemned the shootings in a subsequent tweet, according to The Guardian.

"Based on the brutal nature of this crime, the past anti-religion statements of the alleged perpetrator, the religious attire of two of the victims and the rising anti-Muslim rhetoric in American society, we urge state and federal law enforcement authorities to quickly address speculation of a possible bias motive in this case," Nihad Awad, national executive director of CAIR, said in a statement.

#MuslimLivesMatter#ChapelHillShooting Deah Barakat, 23, Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, Razan Abu-Salha, 19  pic.twitter.com/ghkpSvSFMo

— CAIR-New York (@CAIRNewYork) February 11, 2015

United Muslim Relief, a U.S.-based humanitarian organization, said they mourn the “tragic loss” of the three students. Barakat and Mohammad were the founding members of the group’s North Carolina Triangle chapter, athe organization said.

“As we mourn their tragic loss, we are also inspired to see how much these young people accomplished in their short lives. In an increasingly individualistic world, their lives stand as a shining example to young people all over the world,” Abed Aoub, president of United Muslim Relief, said in a statement.

Barakat was a second-year student in the UNC dental school, where Yusor Abu-Salha was planning to start classes in the fall, AFP reports. Razan Abu-Salha was a student at North Carolina State University.

A Facebook group, Our Three Winners, has been set up to remember the three students and features photos of them, including wedding photos of Barakat and Yusor Abu-Salha. The group also includes a link to a YouTube video for Refugee Smiles, an organization Barakat was involved in that provides urgent dental care to Syrian refugees.

A former Iraqi Airways captain has resigned due to the threat of Islamic State (ISIS) militants shooting at flights arriving and departing from Baghdad International Airport, it has been revealed.

The pilot, speaking on condition of anonymity and who is now working for a rival airline, explained the reasons for his resignation in an email seen by Newsweek, which was sent to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) on 31 December. In the subject line he warns that there is threat of “fatality due to landing in Baghdad”, and in the email says that he resigned because flying to and from the airport “represents a great danger for passengers, aircrew and for the aircraft” as militants, who control territory to the west of the capital, shoot at low-flying aircrafts.

He told the civil aviation authority that he had witnessed several attacks by militants on civilian flights from a number of airlines, including Iraqi Airways, “while approaching, departing and landing” at the airport.

The pilot claimed that in August last year, an Iraqi Airways plane’s “middle fuel tank was hit” by militant fire and “it was lucky to be empty otherwise it would have exploded”. The director of the airline denied the report to the New York Times, saying the story was a rumour spread by ISIS.

The Iraqi Airways pilot adds that two colleagues have also complained of incidents when their aircrafts have been shot at and that Iraq’s aviation authorities were downplaying incidents of militant fire to prevent airlines suspending their operations to the city.

However, the heightened security risk from militant fire has led to a number of airlines, such as Dubai-based Etihad Airways and Air Arabia, suspending flights to the airport.

Dutch chief of defence Tom Middenorp confirmed last week that Dutch F-16 fighter jets have been struck “once or twice” by fire when they were flying low over Iraq, in comments made to Dutch TV channel NOS. The Dutch Ministry of Defence confirmed there was a shooting incident over Iraqi territory but emphasised that the pilot landed safely at a Jordanian airbase.

Iraq expert and director of research at independent research consultancy Integrity, Sajad Jiyad, said that flights approaching or leaving Baghdad airport mostly avoid the areas controlled by ISIS by flying in from the south but, due to the US-led coalition’s deployment of aircraft, helicopters and drones to the region, flight patterns of some commercial aircrafts are altered at the last minute and are forced to travel near areas where militants are active.

“If someone is in town, for example [John] Kerry, they obviously change the flight patterns, or because the coalition has helicopters, jets or drones in the sky,” says Jiyad.

“Every now and then, the flight pattern changes and sometimes a plane is forced to come in over the side next to Abu Ghraib, next to [ISIS-controlled] Anbar province. When [a plane] is in its landing phase, it’s relatively easy to hit if you know where to be at the right time.”

Michael Pregent, adjunct lecturer at the College of International Security Affairs at the National Defense University, believes that the militants situated to the west of Baghdad take the opportunity to fire on the aircraft to show their presence, demonstrate their capabilities and to instill fear. He adds that gunfire is likely emanating from Sunni neighbourhoods where the presence of Iraqi security forces is minimal.

“Right outside of the airport are Sunni neighbourhoods that right now are probably not being secured by Iraqi-Shia security forces. The majority of the area around the complex are Sunni areas. It would not surprise me that they are able to take pot-shots at the airfield from there.”

The pilot’s warning and resignation came before Flydubai Flight 215, which was carrying 154 passengers, was hit by small arms fire while landing at Iraq’s main airport last month, injuring a six-year-old girl, according to Iraqi officials.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the shots fired at Flydubai flight 215 and the Iraqi transportation minister, Baqir Jabr Al Zubaidi, brushed off the incident as “an accident” and “a simple scratch to a little girl” caused by celebratory gunfire from a nearby wedding in what could be an attempt to play down security fears.

David Learmount, aviation expert and operations and safety editor of Flightglobal, said that while the ICAO has taken on the role of “assembling global intelligence on risk zones” following the downing of MH17 in eastern Ukraine, it can only pass on intelligence of shooting incidents to the relevant airlines, leaving the decision - to fly in and out of areas near to militant activity - to the airlines themselves.

“That is the only thing that ICAO can do, pass on the information. Any airline that accepts to operate in Baghdad knows that there is a risk. It’s up to the airlines,” he said.

An ICAO spokesman confirmed that “It is the responsibility of each ICAO member state to make these assessments of its airspace” and to “distribute that risk information to other states and airlines”. The representative added that a proposal is on the table for the ICAO to host a “centralised portal where multiple sources” can share “risk information and assessments” on conflict zones.

Last year, ISIS captured large swathes of territory in western Iraq, such as the city of Fallujah and parts of the city of Ramadi, advancing to within miles of the Iraqi capital. However, Newsweek was unable to independently verify the pilot’s claims that ISIS militants were responsible for the shooting. Sunni insurgents also operate in the regions west of Baghdad, such as Abu Ghraib.

Iraqi Airways was unavailable for comment when contacted. G4S, who manage the security for Baghdad airport, was not immediately available for comment.

The leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine began peace talks in Belarus on Wednesday, while in Ukraine pro-Moscow separatists tightened the pressure on Kiev by launching some of the war's worst fighting.

The Kiev army said 19 of its soldiers were killed in a day of pro-Russian separatist assaults near the railway town of Debaltseve, some of the worst losses it has reported in nine months of war.

Rebels who tore up a five-month-old truce in January are trying to encircle government forces in Debaltseve, a strategic location that would let them link up their main strongholds.

Fighting has already killed more than 5,000 people, and Washington is now openly talking of arming Ukraine to defend itself from "Russian aggression", raising the prospect of a proxy war in the heart of Europe between Cold War foes.

A surge in fighting in the 24 hours before the summit, including a rocket attack that killed 17 people deep in government-held territory on Tuesday, could be intended to force Ukraine to accept a deal recognising the rebel advance.

The summit is being held in neighbouring Belarus under a Franco-German proposal to try to halt the fighting. Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Francois Hollande began talks with Ukraine's Petro Poroshenko and Russia's Vladimir Putin.

The four leaders met alone at about 1715 GMT and were due to go into a full summit with their delegations later.

A Belarussian representative said the four leaders meeting alone was an unexpected break with diplomatic procedure and it was not clear whether they would meet with their delegations as planned. The four were joined by their foreign ministers but had not yet moved into the official negotiating room.

On arrival, Poroshenko said that without a de-escalation of the conflict and a ceasefire the situation would get "out of control". Russian television showed him shaking hands with Putin.

Hopes for a breakthrough appear slim and would depend on Ukraine making most of the concessions, with advancing rebels unlikely to agree to halt and go back to previous positions.

Still, Moscow expressed optimism. A Russian diplomatic source said it was 70 percent likely that an agreement would be reached.

"The presidents aren't travelling (to Minsk) for no reason," the source said.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said there had been progress in the run-up to the summit but Kiev could be holding back a deal by insisting on control of the Russian-Ukrainian border, part of which is held by the separatists.

The talks are taking place while an International Monetary Fund mission is trying to negotiate a bailout to save Ukraine from bankruptcy brought on by corruption and mismanagement as well as war. Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said he hoped for a loan deal within days.

ADVANTAGE

Kiev and NATO accuse Russia of supplying separatists with men and weapons. Moscow denies it is involved in fighting for territory Putin calls "New Russia".

If the French and German leaders were hoping their peace initiative would be met by conciliatory moves on the ground, the prospect of talks appears to have triggered the opposite, with the pro-Russian rebels determined to drive home their advantage.

Armoured columns of Russian-speaking soldiers with no insignia have been advancing for days around Debaltseve. Last week they captured the small town of Vuhlehirsk next to Debaltseve, and a reconnaissance unit was there on Tuesday salvaging equipment from abandoned Ukrainian trenches.

The squad's commander said his men did not want a truce while they had government forces on the run.

On the Russian side of the border, Moscow announced war games on Tuesday on the eve of the talks.

The United States has been openly discussing arming the Ukrainian government, a move that is opposed by European allies who say it would escalate the conflict while falling far short of giving Kiev the firepower needed to win.

President Barack Obama says he has yet to make up his mind on the question of sending weapons. He spoke by phone overnight to Putin, and the White House said he warned the Russian leader that the costs would rise if Moscow kept aiding the separatists.

A decision by the West to provide arms to Ukraine could prompt a rapid escalation of Russian support for the separatists, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a global security think tank, said on Wednesday.

Kiev military spokesman Vladyslav Seleznyov, briefing journalists on rebel attempts to encircle government forces holding Debaltseve, said the 19 soldiers had been killed "in shelling, rocket attacks and military clashes".

In separatist-held territory, rebel authorities said six people were killed and eight seriously hurt when a shell hit a bus station in the city of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine.

Reuters journalists saw the body of a man behind the wheel of a minibus after the shell fell through the roof of the station, burning up the vehicle and another beside it.

A sandstorm sweeping across the Middle East is causing disruption at several of the region's travel hubs, raising air-pollution levels and coating things with a layer of sand.

The storm was caused by a cyclone that moved across the Atlas Mountains in northeastern Africa, dragging sand eastward from the Sahara Desert, according to ABC News reports. 

On Tuesday, the storm forced Cairo's airport to briefly close to arrivals, the Associated Press reports. For more than an hour, vision at Cairo's airport was limited to around 150 meters, or just under 500 feet. The sandstorm has turned the city into something resembling a yellow-hued alien landscape.

The sandstorm also grounded flights at Israel's Eilat Airport. Israel's Environmental Protection Ministry reported record-high air-pollution levels and said the sandstorm was the largest to hit the country in four years.

Posts on social media Wednesday showed parts of Jordan caked in sand. 

Big sandstorm sweeping through Cairo. Dust sticks to skin, all colors fade to beige. pic.twitter.com/vdqrTm9AVg

— Louisa Loveluck (@leloveluck) February 11, 2015

As if being in displacement is not hard enough: High winds causing sandstorm & huge dust clouds over #Zaatari this pm pic.twitter.com/kvoKUftJsv

— Za'atari Camp (@ZaatariCamp) February 10, 2015

It's sand, so sand, such a sand, sand situation in #Cairo, #Egyptpic.twitter.com/gE0xW9uPUd

— Borzou Daragahi (@borzou) February 11, 2015

NASA scientist Colin Seftor told ABC News that it was "quite unusual" to see sand traveling so far away from its origin in the desert. Winds from the storm surpassed 60 miles per hour, the BBC reports.

The storm is expected to last into Wednesday night. Sandstorms are typically seen in Egypt around this time of the year, the AP reports.

I think sometimes doctors forget what it’s like to be patients. But I’ve been there, and I know how frustrating and scary it can be.

I remember one night, I was lying in a hospital bed, resting peacefully. I heard a noise and opened my eyes to a room full of chaos. Nurses everywhere. A crash cart. Someone holding paddles.

I tried to speak, but couldn’t. And then I got it out: “Please don’t.”

Here’s my story. Before the whole medical thing, I was in the Navy and training to serve as a submarine officer. Just as I completed my nuclear power training, I was handed a one-page medical history form to complete—just to make sure I’d be OK driving their submarines around.

I started checking “no” to every answer, just like you do, without really paying much attention. And then one question grabbed my attention: “Have you ever lost consciousness or passed out?”

I had, in fact, passed out—twice that week. And several times the month before. (This was before I had any medical training whatsoever, and I had no idea how scared I should have been.) I took the form home with me and talked to my wife about it. Although I hadn’t thought anything of it before I saw that question, I knew what checking “yes” would mean.

When I turned it in the next day, my suspicion was confirmed: “Well, Sir, looks like you won’t be driving submarines.”

And so began a long and stressful period of doctors’ visits and waiting. (I’m not good at waiting.) I fired my first two cardiologists, both of whom told me I needed a pacemaker. I was 23 years old and would run 10 plus miles for fun, and that just wasn’t going to happen. The third one tried three different medicines, two of which had intolerable side effects, and another one that just didn’t work.

And despite numerous visits and a week on a portable monitor, nobody was ever able to capture one of these episodes. One day, cardiologist #3 decided to admit me to the hospital to test for a condition called Brugada syndrome (look it up if you want; it doesn’t matter to the story). The test involved giving a medicine and repeating electrocardiograms (EKGs) to see if anything changed. It didn’t.

I spent the whole day lying in a hospital bed, just waiting. (I’m not good at waiting.) My wife was at home with our daughter, who had already gone to bed by the time they were ready to send me home. I wasn’t allowed to eat while I was there, and I was starving.

Moe’s was on my way home, and it was closing in half an hour. I wasn’t happy, and I was ready to leave. (Really, I’m not good at waiting.) The nurse finally got discharge orders from the cardiologist—I’m not sure where he had been all night. It was too dark for golf. Finally, she came in to take out my IV, which her predecessor had been thoughtful enough to secure with eight layers of tape.

And then I heard a noise and opened my eyes to a room full of chaos. Nurses everywhere. A crash cart. Someone holding paddles. I tried to speak, but couldn’t. And then I got it out: “Please don’t.”

The room full of nurses stopped moving. The one with the paddles slowly put them down. Another said, “Are you OK? I’ve never seen that before.”

I was confused. “I just passed out. I’m fine. What’s going on?” The nurse formerly known as “the one with the paddles” ran out of the room and came back with this:

Apparently, when I passed out, my heart stopped beating for about 13 seconds. Weird, right? But it started back—no big deal. And then I thought: What if it didn’t? What if that had been it?

I gave my wife a call to let her know I wouldn’t be coming home that night—evidently, they like to “observe” people after a stunt like that. She pressed me for details, and when I explained what had happened, I think her heart may have stopped briefly, too.

The next week, I got a pacemaker.

Here’s what I learned:

1. Life is uncertain. If there’s something that you need to do before you die, do it. If your life has no meaning, do something meaningful. If you dream of a better life, take the next step to make it happen. Enjoy your family, and be sure they know how much you love them. If you’re not comfortable with what will happen when you die, now is the time to figure it out.

2. Life is great. My family is amazing. I have big plans for the future. I can make other people’s lives better. I’m glad to be alive.

3. Sometimes, you have to wait. Medicine is imperfect. Doctors are imperfect. Life is imperfect. Waiting is hard. Get over it.

4. The path to your future can include unexpected detours. Ten years ago, I had no idea where my road would lead. Unexpected things happen. Roll with them. Find the path you’re supposed to be on, and keep on walking.

Chad Hayes writes a blog, Chad Hayes, MD, which is where this article first appeared. Follow Hayes on Facebook and Twitter @chadhayesmd   

The English Premier League is set to dominate its European rivals for years to come in terms of the amount it can pay and pay for players, after a record deal for domestic television rights that leaves continental leagues in the dust.

The deal with Sky and BT Sport for the domestic broadcasting rights of Premier League games, comes to more than £5.1 billion. Sky paid £4.17 billion for 126 live games, while BT Sport will air 42 matches for the price of £960 million, making the deal worth more than £1.7 billion per year and £10 million per game.

In comparison the next most lucrative league, the German Bundesliga secured just €2.5 (£1.85) billion for the four league seasons 2013-14 through to 2016-17, or just €625 (£463) million per year, almost a quarter of the Premiership’s haul.

Broadcast revenues for Serie A in Italy and Ligue 1 in France are much lower, while in Spain clubs negotiate individually, meaning a good deal for the likes of Barcelona and Real Madrid, but poor returns of most of La Liga.

Simon Chadwick, Professor of Sport Business Strategy at Coventry University, says that the trend of English dominance looks set to continue: “It’s difficult to see it ending at the moment, going back to 1992 and following on to now we’ve seen Sky dominate by building its business around sport and football. For domestic rights at least it should continue.”

“One of the reasons Premier League rights keeps moving upwards is that it’s in an unassailable position at the moment”, added Professor Chadwick.

“If you look at its rivals, in Spain they don’t have the collective sale of rights which makes Spanish football must less attractive to broadcasters.”

“Look at the Italians, who are globally an attractive property but incredibly disorganised and going through immense economic difficulties.”

“The Germans and the French, their clubs are not the most appealing or attractive in the world.

In reality this creates a competitive imbalance, which means Premier League clubs can buy better players, more players, and pay them more. It’s a migration of top players to the Premier League.”

Austin Houlihan, a specialist in rights deals for Deloitte said in a statement that it’s likely broadcasting revenue will continue to rise in the Premier League: “With this latest round of Premier League deals we see no signs that the ‘media rights bubble’ is going to burst any time soon, as some have predicted regularly over the last 20 years.”

This auction was for Domestic Television rights, and it doesn’t include the huge figure that international sales will contribute to the Premier League’s pot. The current three year deal for all overseas broadcasting rights is more than £2bn, according to the Premier League.

It is expected that a record deal will be reached when overseas rights to air premier League games is renegotiated over the summer.

The BBC also paid £179m for their highlights package over the 2013-14/2015-16 period.

And the 20 Premier League clubs - all of which were already in the top 40 richest clubs in the world before the auction - will benefit hugely from the new deal, largely because of the way the money will be distributed. 

The Club, an in-depth ebook on life at the bottom of English football by Simon Akam, is available now from Newsweek Insights.

ROME (Reuters) - An Italian court convicted the former captain of the Costa Concordia cruise liner on Wednesday for his role in the 2012 shipwreck that killed 32 people and sentenced him to 16 years in prison.

Francesco Schettino was commanding the vessel, a floating hotel as long as three football pitches, when it came too close to shore and hit rocks off the Tuscan holiday island of Giglio.

Schettino was charged with multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship in one of the highest-profile shipping disasters in recent years.

However it is far from certain whether he will actually go to jail before the end of Italy's long appeals process, which can take years.

Apple has set its sights on the sun as a power source in the past, and another big project is on the horizon. CEO Tim Cook announced Tuesday at a Goldman Sachs technology conference that the company is investing roughly $850 million in the California Flats Solar Project, a solar farm to be built by First Solar in Monterey County in California.

"We know in Apple that climate change is real. The time for talk is passed," Cook said. "The time for action is now."

The technology company has partnered with First Solar to create a solar farm that can provide energy to run its new headquarters in Cupertino (currently being built), all of its California retail stores and a data center, as well as 60,000 homes in the state.

According to a press release from First Solar, Apple will receive 130 megawatts of the project under a 25-year power purchasing agreement, calling it “the largest agreement in the industry to provide clean energy to a commercial end user.” Pacific Gas & Electric will buy the rest of the project’s output under a separate long-term power purchasing agreement.

Construction on the 2,900-acre solar farm is set to begin sometime in mid-2015 and should be completed by the end of 2016, First Solar says. The project was approved unanimously by the Monterey County Planning Commission in January.

"Apple's commitment was instrumental in making this project possible and will significantly increase the supply of solar power in California,” Joe Kishkill, chief commercial officer for First Solar, said in the press release. “Over time, the renewable energy from California Flats will provide cost savings over alternative sources of energy as well as substantially lower environmental impact."

The technology company, which recently posted the highest quarterly profit any publicly traded company has ever recorded, already relies on solar energy to power its corporate campuses in Austin, Texas, and Sacramento, California. In 2013, Apple said that all of its data centers were running on 100 percent renewable energy, such as solar, wind and geothermal. Earlier this month, it announced a $2 billion investment to turn a former sapphire glass plant into a data center in Mesa, Arizona, that would be powered entirely by renewable energy.

“Apple still has work to do to reduce its environmental footprint,” Greenpeace said in a statement after Cook’s announcement. “But other Fortune 500 CEOs would be well served to make a study of Tim Cook, whose actions show that he intends to take Apple full-speed ahead toward renewable energy with the urgency that our climate crisis demands."

In the past, environmental groups like Greenpeace criticized Apple for lack of transparency regarding its carbon footprint and the environmental impact of its products.

But in its April 2014 report, “Clicking Clean: How Companies are Creating the Green Internet,” Greenpeace called Apple “the most improved company since our last full report,” saying it “has shown itself to be the most innovative and most aggressive in pursuing its commitment to be 100% renewably powered.”

Some people in Kansas may be at risk of losing their jobs because of their gender identity or sexual orientation. Yesterday, Republican Governor Sam Brownback issued an executive order removing workplace protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender state employees.

Kansas was one of seven states in which executive orders provided state employees with protection against discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Four states have executive orders that protect against employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation but not gender identity. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have laws preventing employment discrimination for sexual orientation and gender identity, while three others have laws protecting sexual orientation but not gender identity in the workplace.

The protections Brownback rescinded Tuesday were put in place in 2007 by his Democratic predecessor, Kathleen Sebelius, who went on to serve as secretary of health and human services in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2014.

LGBT rights groups are upset. “Any employees who were protected under Governor Sebelius’s order could be fired simply for being LGBT if they work for a boss who doesn’t like LGBT folks,” says Doug Bonney of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas.

Kansas now has no workplace protections for any LGBT workers. In fact, it has always been legal for most Kansas employers to fire people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, despite the fact that the state issues marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Brownback said that if Kansas voters want sexual orientation and gender identity to qualify as protected categories for the purposes of workplace discrimination, the Legislature should pass a law to that effect.

That seems unlikely, given the state’s legislative record when it comes to LGBT rights. In 2014, the Kansas House of Representatives approved 72-49 House Bill No. 2453, which would have allowed individuals, groups and businesses to deny goods and services to same-sex couples on religious grounds. That bill never made it out of committee. According to Human Rights Watch, state legislators introduced five laws in 2015 that would have reduced protections for LGBT people and three that would have improved them. None of those bills made it out of the Legislature.

As Akai Gurley lay dying in the unlit stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project Nov. 20, of last year, the New York Police Department rookie who fired the fatal shot "just stood there" for four minutes and worried about his job instead of helping him, prosecutors argued Wednesday at the officer's arraignment in State Supreme Court. 

Peter Liang said to his partner "I'm going to be fired," Marc J. Fliedner, Chief of the Brooklyn District Attorney's Civil Rights Bureau, alleged. Fliedner also alleged that Liang refused to call in the shooting and argued with his partner as Gurley bled to death several stair landings below him. Gurley, a 28-year-old father, was unarmed. 

Liang, who faces charges of manslaughter in the second degree, criminally negligent homicide, assault in the second degree, reckless endangerment in the second degree, and two counts of official misconduct, pleaded not guilty.

Fliedner said that Liang doesn't pose a significant flight risk and suggested to Justice Daniel Chun that he be released on his own recognizance. Judge Chun agreed. The maximum sentence for the manslaughter charge is 15 years imprisonment, prosecutors said.

Liang walked out of the courtroom without cuffs, prompting outrage in the packed courtroom. Some of Gurley's supporters yelled: "Indict! Convict! Send Peter Liang to jail! The whole damn system is guilty as hell!" Another shouted that "we would have been in shackles!"

Stephen Worth, Liang's lawyer, slammed the charges as unfair.

"The charges of official misconduct are a reach at best, and an attempt to prejudice Officer Liang," he told Newsweek. "This was an accident, plain and simple." 

"It's regrettable that the District Attorney chose to make such a brief and one-sided presentation to the grand jury," he added.  

Liang was patrolling the Louis H. Pink Houses in Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood, with a Glock handgun in one hand and a flashlight in his other hand. Liang pushed open a stairwell door with his shoulder, prosecutors said, pulling the trigger by accident. The bullet ricocheted off a wall and hit Gurley's chest.  

Prosecutors did say, however, that prior reports Liang texted his union rep during the incident were untrue. 

After the shooting, New York Police Commisioner Bill Bratton called Gurley "total innocent" and said the incident was an "unfortunate accident," according to multiple media reports on his comments.

Gurley's death came as tens of thousands across the country protested grand jury decisions in Staten Island, New York and Ferguson, Missouri not to indict the officers who fatally shot Eric Garner and Michael Brown, respectively. 

Grand juries are generally recognized―and criticized―for their willingness to indict. Sol Wachtler, former New York state chief judge told reporters in 1985 that these bodies were so easily swayed by prosecutors that they would "indict a ham sandwich." But police officers are rarely indicted in cases of alleged wrongdoing and the few who are indicted rarely face conviction or jail time.

The American and British embassies in Yemen have shut down operations amid growing tensions and concerns over the safety of staff, with France planning to follow suit and shut down its embassy on Friday.

The State Department on Wednesday issued a travel warning for American citizens, urging those in Yemen to leave and those planning to go not to travel. There are no government-sponsored plans to evacuate U.S. citizens and anyone wishing to leave must do so as soon as possible, the State Department said, adding that there are ongoing risks of kidnapping for Americans and Westerners.

Yemen President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi was forced to resign in late January, along with the country’s prime minister and cabinet, after being ousted by Houthi Shiite militiamen, who effectively put him under house arrest. Last week, the Houthis took over power from the Yemeni government.

The Houthis, who have controlled the capital, Sanaa since last year, oppose the influence of Al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, who control much of the country’s south and claimed responsibility for the shooting attacks in Paris last month that left 20 dead, including the gunmen.

Before leaving the U.S. embassy on Wednesday morning, staff members destroyed weapons, computers and documents, Reuters reports. Since January, the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa has been operating with minimal staff, CNN reports.

U.S. Embassy employees also told Reuters that members of the militia took Embassy vehicles after diplomats left the country. The Houthis said they were taking the vehicles and weapons inside them for “safekeeping until embassy officials returned,” The New York Timesreports.

The deteriorating security situation in Yemen also led the U.K. to suspend operations at its embassy. The ambassador and other diplomats left the embassy on Wednesday morning and British nationals are being urged to leave, the embassy said.

“Regrettably we now judge that our embassy staff and premises are at increased risk. We have therefore decided to withdraw diplomatic staff and temporarily suspend the operations of the British Embassy in Sanna’a,” the British Embassy said in a statement.

The French Embassy in Yemen will close on Friday and a statement posted on its website urged French nationals to leave the country “as soon as possible.”

On Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the U.S. “will not hesitate to act in Yemen” to protect American citizens.

It’s a daunting task, replacing a beloved television personality who has hosted Comedy Central’s flagship news show longer than its younger viewers have been alive.

Except Daily Show higher-ups don’t have to stray far to find Jon Stewart’s replacement. Just give the show to correspondent Jessica Williams. Not because she’s the most veteran contributor to the show (at 25, she obviously isn’t) or has household-name recognition and experience hosting her own show (nope, of course not). Because she’s the funniest—and if Comedy Central doesn’t bump her up, she may well pull a John Oliver and decamp to another network.

Williams’s star power has risen immeasurably since she started on The Daily Show in early 2012, becoming its youngest correspondent ever (she was 22). Her comedic talent is both outrageous and incisive, as are the inventive ways she’s taken on topics ranging from the Rob Ford scandal (quite literally asking Toronto citizens if they too are on crack) to stop-and-frisk (suggesting NYPD start profiling white-collar Wall Street types).

But Williams, who has already dabbled in film with a role in the forthcoming People, Places, Things, makes an appealing replacement not because she’s so much like Stewart, but because she’s so different. Her sharp, aggressive comedy is the effective foil to Stewart’s suspended sneer. She’s fun—ruthlessly so, however serious the subject matter. Plus, she is a woman of color whose lived experiences help her to tackle the infuriating absurdities of racism and sexism (See: her brilliant segment on tips for Black Friday shopping while black) and whose presence on the show has improved The Daily Show’s reputation as a boys’ club. (That’s not to mention the overwhelmingly white landscape of late-night television.) She’s ready, and even if she weren’t, neither was Jon Stewart when he took over the still-nascent show in 1999.

Guardian writer Amanda Holpuch floated the idea as early as 2013, when Daily Show heir apparent John Oliver jumped ship for the HBO deal that is now Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. “I think The Daily Show has another obvious heir to the throne: correspondent Jessica Williams,” Holpuch told me then, considering the show’s future. (Stewart’s Daily Show exhaustion was already starting to show—he’d spent that summer on leave to direct the 2014 film Rosewater while Oliver ably filled the host seat.) “She's hilarious, a woman, and young—she started at the show [in 2012] when she was 22 and carries segments with the ease of correspondents nearly twice her age.” The show could use a relatively fresh face to compete with Oliver's Last Week Tonight, and under Williams it will continue filling bloggy headlines with words like "Destroyed,""Annihilated" and "Disemboweled."

In its nearly two-decade history, The Daily Show has at its best functioned as a talent factory—for Stewart, obviously, but also for the revolving door of talented correspondents who’ve deservedly come to prominence under him, including Oliver, Aasif Mandvi and Samantha Bee. No contributor, though, has made a name for herself as swiftly and deservedly as Williams. Just give her the show already.

Ten episodes from the third season of House of Cards, Netflix’s original political thriller starring Kevin Spacey, appeared for about half an hour on Netflix today before being taken down. Netflix has said the full season contains 13 episodes, so the fact that only 10 were uploaded points to an accident rather than an intentional leak.

This is Washington. There's always a leak. All 13 episodes will launch February 27.

— House of Cards (@HouseofCards) February 11, 2015

House of Cards was nominated for 13 Emmys in 2014, including Outstanding Drama Series, but won only one, Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series.

A screenshot of the now-removed list of episodes from “House of Cards,” Season 3, on Netflix.Stav Ziv/Newsweek

The series was the network’s second foray into producing original content. The first, Lilyhammer starring Steven Van Zandt, was not as well received.

This week, the U.S. Department of State designated Denis Cuspert, alias Abu Talha al-Almani, a global terrorist. “As a result of the designation, all property subject to U.S. jurisdiction in which Cuspert has any interest is blocked and U.S. persons are prohibited from engaging in transactions with him or to his benefit,” the department said in a statement.

The Berlin-born 39-year-old joined the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2012 and has appeared in a number of videos released by the terrorist organization. In one notorious video, Cuspert is seen holding the severed head of a man ISIS claims opposed actions of the group.

Before ISIS, Cuspert was already well known among some circles, as a rap singer under the name of “Deso Dogg.” After joining the terrorist group, young jihads traveled to meet him and took celebrity style photographs with him. Though ISIS does not allow Western music, like rap, it does allow Cuspert to record Islamic chants and distribute them amongst members. The chants are set to videos of ISIS fighting and are relatively fast-paced, with a cadence similar to his former work as a rapper.

Because he is well liked in the jihadist community, a “celebrity” of sorts, Cuspert is responsible for recruiting foreign fighters into ISIS. He focuses primarily on recruiting Germans and foreigners with criminal backgrounds. It is unknown how many people Cuspert has successfully recruited.

In one recruitment video intercepted by the SITE Intel Group, a jihadist watchdog, Cuspert encourages his “brothers and sisters” to look at the “fun” side of Syria. “It is not so creepy here as all say. It is not a horror movie here... That's jihad, jihad makes fun... and we have fun here with the children... Come on, we invite you to jihad! Come!,” he says. Other recruitment videos also focus on children, in one instance Cuspert donates clothes and food to little boys.

In another video, Cuspert pairs his former career as a rapper with ISIS recruitment. Recorded in German with the styling’s of an Islamic chant, the video “Why Don’t You Stand Up?” encourages Muslims to travel to Syria.

In addition to being wanted by the American government for his ties to ISIS, the German government has listed him as wanted “on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities.”

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemenis in the capital Sanaa and the central city of Taiz held the largest protests yet against a takeover by a Shi'ite Muslim militia group on Wednesday after the United States, Britain and France shut their embassies over security fears.

Hundreds massed in the capital against the Houthi fighters, who manned checkpoints and guarded government buildings they control. The militants, bedecked in tribal robes and automatic rifles, shot in the air and thrust daggers at the crowds opposing their rule.

Tens of thousands of people also carried banners and chanted anti-Houthi slogans in Taiz, which the militants have not taken.

The Iranian-backed Houthi movement has called its seizure of power a revolution and says it wants to rid the country of corruption and economic peril -- though Yemen's rich Sunni MuslimGulf Arab neighbors say it is a coup.

Yemen had long been at the forefront of the U.S.-led war against al Qaeda, but the long-standing alliance between Washington and Sanaa appears to have ended for now.

The U.S. ambassador and diplomatic staff left the embassy on Wednesday, local workers said, a day after Washington announced it was closing the mission. Embassy workers had already destroyed weapons, computers and documents, they added.

"Recent unilateral actions disrupted the political transition process in Yemen, creating the risk that renewed violence would threaten Yemenis and the diplomatic community in Sanaa," U.S. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said.

Despite the embassy shutdown, White House Spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Wednesday that the United States was continuing to carry out counter-terrorism operations inYemen in cooperation with Yemeni officials.

"There continue to be ... U.S. Department of Defense personnel on the ground in Yemen that are coordinating with their counterparts in Yemen," he said.

France and Britain announced the closure of their embassies on Wednesday, and German embassy employees said the mission was getting rid of sensitive documents and would close soon..

The Houthis, who overran Sanaa in September and formally took power last week, are stridently anti-American, and chant "death to America" at rallies.

Abdel Malik al-Ijri, a member of the Houthi movement's political bureau, said on Facebook the decision to close the embassies was "not justified at all and comes in the context of pressure on our people".

"Governments of brotherly and friendly countries in the near future will realize that it is in their interest to deal with the will of our people with due respect," al-Ijri wrote.

He also dismissed a report from U.S. embassy workers that the militants had seized more than 20 of their vehicles, saying they had been taken by airport authorities.

HOUTHI ADVANCE

Houthi forces advanced far into the south on Tuesday night, according to local officials, continuing their expansion of recent months which is raising fears of an all-out civil war.

Leaders and Sunni tribesmen in the southern and eastern regions, which the group has so far not seized, are arming themselves against their push and are in some cases making common cause with Yemeni Al Qaeda militants.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), one of the global militant group's most powerful arms, has repeatedly bombed and attacked Houthi targets.

Other tribes from Yemen's formerly independent south, which has clamored for secession for almost a decade, vowed on Wednesday to repel any Houthi attack.

The Houthi forces are bolstered by army units widely believed to maintain loyalty to ex-presidentAli Abdullah Saleh -- though he denies any link.

Saleh ruled the country for 33 years, balancing the competing interests for Yemen's kaleidoscope of armed tribes, political bosses and militants - a feat he called "dancing on the heads of snakes."

But he was eased out of power after "Arab Spring" protests against his rule in 2011 under a delicate transition plan drawn up by Yemen's rich Sunni Gulf Arab neighbors - all of them opponents of the Houthis.

Those neighbors have called the Houthi takeover a coup. Saleh and his former ruling party have denied an attempt to settle old scores and reassert its control over the country through the Houthis.

The tenure of Saleh's successor, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, was defined by gridlock amongYemen's array of feuding parties. Hadi resigned last month along with his whole government after Houthi gunmen attacked his home.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis played down a failure to reach a common position with the rest of the euro zone and said he believed a "healing deal" on Greece's finances could be reached on Monday.

Looking calm and composed after seven hours of talks in Brussels that lasted into Thursday morning, Varoufakis told reporters that the emergency Eurogroup meeting had never been intended to produce an accord but had been a good discussion.

EU diplomats said a broad common statement on finding a way forward for Greece and the euro zone had been drafted but that the Greek delegation, which consulted Athens by telephone, had not agreed to it. The radical new government insists it will not extend an international bailout that expires in two weeks but its EU partners say it must accept some conditional financing.

The leaders of Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine have agreed a deal to end fighting in eastern Ukraine, participants at the summit talks said on Thursday.

The deal reached after all-night negotiations in the Belarussian capital Minsk included a ceasefire that would come into effect on Feb. 15, followed by the withdrawal of heavy weapons.

The news came as Ukraine was offered a $40-billion lifeline by the International Monetary Fund to stave off financial collapse.

The Minsk summit agreement offered hope for eastern Ukraine, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman said.

"After 17 hours, negotiations in Minsk have finished: ceasefire from Feb. 15 at zero hours, then withdrawal of heavy weapons. Therein lies hope," Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Twitter.

"We have managed to agree on the main issues," Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

The four leaders had committed to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, according to a joint declaration distributed by the Kremlin.

"The main thing which has been achieved is that from Saturday into Sunday there should be declared without any conditions at all, a general ceasefire," Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told journalists.

French President Francois Hollande said there was still much work to be done on the Ukraine crisis, but the agreement was a real chance to ameliorate the situation.

He said pro-Russian separatists, who had at one point appeared to reject the deal, had signed up to it.

Merkel and Hollande joined Poroshenko and Putin for a marathon negotiating session that began early on Wednesday evening and continued into Thursday morning.

The summit discussions came as pro-Moscow separatists tightened the pressure on Kiev by launching some of the war's worst fighting on Wednesday, killing 19 Ukrainian soldiers in assaults near the railway town of Debaltseve.

As the fighting escalated, Washington has begun openly talking of arming Ukraine to defend itself from "Russian aggression", raising the prospect of a proxy war in the heart of Europe between Cold War foes.

The outcome of the Minsk talks is expected to influence discussions at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, when sanctions against Moscow will be on the agenda. A deal would likely mean a softer line toward Moscow.

Merkel and Hollande were expected to arrive late for the Brussels meeting but would urge the European Union to support the Minsk deal.

FUND BAILOUT

The talks took place as an International Monetary Fund mission agreed a bailout to save Ukraine from bankruptcy.

The Fund provisionally agreed a $17.5 billion facility with Ukraine, part of a $40 billion funding package, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said.

Kiev and NATO accuse Russia of supplying separatists with men and weapons. Moscow denies it is involved in fighting for territory Putin calls "New Russia".

As the French and German leaders peace initiative was announced, pro-Russian rebels appeared determined to drive home their advantage ahead of a deal.

Armored columns of Russian-speaking soldiers with no insignia have been advancing for days around Debaltseve, which has seen heavy fighting in recent days.

On the Russian side of the border, Moscow has begun military exercises in 12 regions involving more than 30 missile regiments, RIA news agency reported on Thursday, citing a Defense Ministry official.

The United States has been openly discussing arming the Ukrainian government, a move that is opposed by European allies who say it would escalate the conflict while falling far short of giving Kiev the firepower needed to win.

President Barack Obama says he has yet to make up his mind on the question of sending weapons. He spoke by phone to Putin on Tuesday, and the White House said he warned the Russian leader that the costs would rise if Moscow kept aiding the separatists.

"Let the strong wind of fish farming blow across the country!"

"Let the wives of officers become dependable assistants to their husbands!"

"Let us turn the whole country into a socialist fairyland by the joint operation of the army and people!"

North Korea released a list of more than 300 new political slogans on Thursday to mark 70 years since the foundation of the isolated state and its ruling Workers' Party.

The slogans, which ran to more than 7,000 words in translation and spanned two pages of the party's broadsheet newspaper, called for a wide range of improvements including "more stylish school uniforms" and "organic farming on an extensive scale".

North Korea is a highly centralized state where government policy is often dictated via vague party-level directives which are distributed as slogans to regional officials to be memorized and carried out.

The new slogans included some of the belligerent rhetoric North Korea frequently directs at its foes the United States and South Korea: "Should the enemy dare to invade our country, annihilate them to the last man so that none of them will survive to sign the instrument of surrender!"

Some of the slogans, which were jointly released by party political and military committees, gave industry-specific instructions such as "Let us turn ours into a country of mushrooms by making mushroom cultivation scientific, intensive and industrialized!"

Most, however, reflected state-wide needs like providing more food to children, a steady supply of electricity, and less bureaucracy.

The impoverished country has for years promised to raise living standards, but suffers from chronic food shortages, a lack of electricity and international isolation.

A magazine run by the Islamic State militant organization has published an interview with the French widow of a Paris hostage taker, its first official claim that Hayat Boumeddiene is in their territory, which spans parts of Syria and Iraq.

France launched a search for the 26-year-old after police stormed a Jewish supermarket where her partner Amedy Coulibaly had taken hostages, four of whom were killed along with Coulibaly. Authorities described her as armed and dangerous.

Turkish officials said last month that Boumedienne had been in Turkey five days before the shootout, and crossed into Syria on Jan. 8.

Wednesday's edition of Islamic State's online French-language magazine, Dar al-Islam, ran an edition on the attacks in Paris and included an interview with a woman who it said was Coulibaly's wife, although her name was not given.

Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the interview, which provided no photos or videos of Boumeddiene.

Asked how she felt when she entered the 'caliphate', the term Islamic State uses for the territory it controls, she was quoted as saying: "I did not encounter any difficulties (getting here), it is good to live in the land that is governed by the laws of God."

She also said her husband had been an Islamic State supporter; Coulibaly himself had said he was carrying out the attack in the name of Islamic State.

Seventeen people, including journalists and police officers, were killed in three days of violence that began with the storming of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, Jan. 7, and ended with the hostage-taking at a kosher supermarket.

Two other gunmen were killed.

An official French police photograph shows Boumeddiene as a young woman with long dark hair hitched back over her ears.

French media released photos purporting to be of a fully-veiled Boumeddiene, posing with a crossbow, in what they said was a training session in 2010 in the mountainous Cantal region.

French media described her as one of seven children whose mother had died when she was young, and whose delivery-man father had struggled to keep working while looking after the family. As an adult, she lost her job as a cashier when she converted to Islam and started wearing the niqab, the Muslim facial veil.