Kenyan army claims 52 kills

Court denies Blagojevich request

CHICAGO — A federal court took just three days to reject the appeal of imprisoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, dashing one of the Democrat’s last hopes of getting out of prison before he has served his full 14-year sentence for corruption.

The unanimous ruling on Friday by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago dismissed arguments that the trial judge should have reduced the 60-year-old’s prison term at an August resentencing because of his good behaviour during five years behind bars.

During the 2011 sentencing, Judge James Zagel berated Blagojevich, saying he had “torn and disfigured” Illinois, including by seeking to trade an appointment to former President Barack Obama’s old senate seat for campaign cash. The 14-year sentence imposed was the longest in Illinois history for public corruption.

In their written opinion, the threejudge panel rejected arguments made Tuesday that Zagel should have put greater weight on 100 letters from fellow inmates who described how Blagojevich taught history and served as a life coach to prisoners.

U.S. home sales hit 10-year high

WASHINGTON — Americans purchased homes in March at the fastest pace in more than a decade, a strong start to the traditional spring buying season.

Sales of existing homes climbed 4.4 per cent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.71 million, the National Association of Realtors said Friday.This was the fastest sales rate since February 2007.

The U.S. housing market faces something of a split personality: A stable economy has intensified demand from would-be buyers, but the number of properties listed for sale has been steadily fading.The result of this trend is prices rising faster than incomes, homes staying on the market for fewer days and a limit on just how much home sales can grow. It’s a situation that rewards would-be buyers who can act quickly and decisively.

“The pace of sales we saw in March is unsustainable,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at the brokerage Redfin. “Sales may be soaring, but inventory isn’t.”

Sales have risen 5.9 per cent over the past year, but the inventory of homes for sale has fallen 6.6 per cent to 1.83 million properties.This means there are essentially more buyers chasing fewer properties.

NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya’s military said Friday it killed 52 fighters with the extremist group al-Shabab during an early morning attack on a camp in neighbouring Somalia.

The army destroyed the camp in Badhadhe region of Lower Jubba using ground troops and artillery fire, said military spokesman Col. Joseph Owuoth. An assortment of weapons was recovered at the scene, he said.

Kenyan troops are part of a multinational African Union mission supporting Somalia’s weak central government against the homegrown alShabab insurgency. Kenya sent troops to Somalia in 2011, and alShabab has vowed retribution on Kenya for that.

Kenya’s government previously has made claims of battlefield victories against al-Shabab that were disputed by Somali residents.

There was no immediate statement from the extremist group, which Kenya has seen as a growing threat.

Al-Shabab has been blamed for more than 100 attacks inside Kenya since it sent troops to Somalia, including the Garissa University attack in April 2015 that killed 148 people.

Officials flip-flop on Coulter speech

BERKELEY, Calif. — University of California, Berkeley officials said they have a “grave concern” of violence on campus if Ann Coulter follows through on her vow to speak next week at the university.

Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks instead proposed an alternate May 2 date for the conservative author, reversing a decision from a day earlier when officials cancelled the event.

Coulter took to Twitter to reject the offer, saying she will appear next Thursday as originally planned.

“I’m speaking at Berkeley on April 27th, as I was invited to do and have a contract to do,” tweeted Coulter, who was invited to speak by campus Republicans. In a separate tweet she said she’s not free May 2.

Coulter’s rejection potentially sets the stage for another political brawl at Berkeley, where violent protesters forced the cancellation of a speech by former Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos in February.

Dirks told a news conference that police have “very specific intelligence regarding threats that could pose a grave danger to the speaker,” her audience and protesters if the event goes ahead next week. He urged her to speak at the later date instead.

Trump’s wall to be part of spending bill

WASHINGTON — Money for the wall President Donald Trump wants to build along the U.S. border with Mexico must be part of the massive spending bill Congress is preparing, the White House budget director says.

Additional funding also must be included to hire more immigration agents, Mick Mulvaney said in an interview in which he laid out the top priorities of the president.

Lawmakers hope to unveil the catchall spending bill next week. Democratic negotiators are likely to resist providing the down payment that Mulvaney says Trump wants for construction of the wall, but the former GOP congressman from South Carolina adds that “elections have consequences.”

Mulvaney said the White House delivered an offer to negotiators on Wednesday night, with funding for the border wall a top demand. Other items on the White House priority list, Mulvaney said, are a $30 billion request for a cash infusion for the military and a controversial provision to give the administration greater latitude to deny certain federal grants to “sanctuary cities” that refuse to cooperate with immigration enforcement by federal authorities.

“We want wall funding. We want (immigration) agents. Those are our priorities,” Mulvaney said. “We know there are a lot of people on the Hill, especially in the Democratic Party, who don’t like the wall, but they lost the election. And the president should, I think, at least have the opportunity to fund one of his highest priorities in the first funding bill under his administration.”

U.S. prosecutors weighing charges against WikiLeaks

WASHINGTON — Two reports say prosecutors are preparing or closely considering charges against the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks, including its founder Julian Assange, for revealing sensitive government secrets.

CNN reported Thursday that authorities are preparing to seek Assange’s arrest. The Washington Post reports prosecutors are weighing charges against the organization’s members after the Obama-era Justice Dept. declined to do so.

Possible charges include conspiracy, theft of government property and violating the Espionage Act, the newspaper said, though any charges would need approval from high-ranking officials in the Justice Department.

The move comes after WikiLeaks last month released nearly 8,000 documents that it says reveal secrets about the CIA’s cyberespionage tools for breaking into computers, cellphones and even smart TVs.

It previously published 250,000 State Department cables and embarrassed the U.S. military with hundreds of thousands of logs from Iraq and Afghanistan.