NO CEASE-FIRE IN SYRIA, BUT RUSSIANS CALL FOR A PAUSE

As a U.N. cease-fire failed to take hold in Syria, Russia on Monday ordered a daily “humanitarian pause” to allow civilians to evacuate an embattled rebel-held enclave near Damascus, while airstrikes continued and Syrian ground forces fought to push into the besieged area from the west.

But civilians caught in the violence mocked Russian President Vladimir Putin’s order of a limited, five-hour daily truce.

“They will be so kind to grant us a mere five hours when they will not bomb us. Then the rest of the day, they will bomb us as usual. It is like a permission to kill,” said activist Firas Abdullah.

Cosby’s daughter Ensa, 44, dies.

BOSTON» Bill Cosby’s 44-year-old daughter, Ensa, died in Massachusetts of kidney disease, a spokesman for the comedian said Monday.

Cosby lost another of his five children in 1997 when his 27-year-old son, Ennis, a graduate student at Columbia University, was shot to death while changing a flat tire near a freeway off ramp in Los Angeles. A 22-year-old man was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

U.S. anti-discrimination law covers sexual orientation, court rules.

NEW

Ruling in the case of a gay skydiving instructor, a federal appeals court in New York on Monday became the second one in the country to declare that U.S. anti-discrimination law protects employees from being fired over their sexual orientation.

The decision could set the stage for an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to settle the question once and for all.

In a 10-3 ruling, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that although it and other courts around the U.S. previously found that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act didn’t cover sexual orientation, “legal doctrine evolves.”

The decision involved Donald Zarda, who was fired in 2010 from a skydiving job in Central Islip, N.Y., that required him to strap himself tightly to clients so they could jump in tandem from an airplane. To put one female student at ease about the contact, he said, he told her not to worry — he was gay. The school fired Zarda after the woman’s boyfriend called to complain.

Arrest made more than two years after Zombicon shooting.

The man responsible for a shooting at a Florida Zombie-themed festival more than two years ago was arrested Monday, police said.

Jose Raul Bonilla, 23, faces a charge of seconddegree murder, along with five counts of aggravated battery with a firearm and one count of tampering with evidence, Fort Myers police Capt. Jay Rodriguez said.

The event, which attracted about 20,000 people in October 2015, was winding down when authorities say Bonilla started shooting into the downtown crowd. —AP