WORLDINBRIEF
No evidence of Trump wiretap
WASHINGTON — The top two lawmakers on the House intelligence committee said Sunday that documents the Justice Department and FBI delivered late last week offered no evidence that the Obama administration had wiretapped Trump Tower, but the panel’s ranking Democrat says the material offers circumstantial evidence that American citizens colluded with Russians in Moscow’s efforts to interfere in the presidential election.
“There was circumstantial evidence of collusion; there is direct evidence, I think, of deception,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said. “There’s certainly enough for us to conduct an investigation.”
The House intelligence committee is to begin hearings today into Russia’s role in cybersecurity breaches at the Democratic National Committee, as well as President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that his predecessor had authorized a wiretap of Trump Tower. FBI Director James Comey and Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, are slated to testify.
Titanic expedition planned for 2018
WOODS HOLE, Mass. — Researchers are planning what they say is the first manned submersible expedition to the Titanic since 2005.
OceanGate Expeditions recently announced that the seven-week research mission will depart from Newfoundland, Canada, in May 2018.
Experts from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts are also taking part.
Everett, Washington-based OceanGate says the goal of the mission is to assess the condition of the wreck and document — but not collect — artifacts at the protected site.
The doomed British luxury liner sank on April 15, 1912, after striking an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, killing more than 1,500 people.
Drugs found in attacker’s blood
PARIS — Blood tests determined Sunday that a suspected Islamic extremist consumed drugs and alcohol before a frenzied spree of violence that ended when he took a soldier hostage at Paris’ Orly Airport and was shot dead by her fellow patrolmen.
The Paris prosecutors’ office said toxicology tests conducted as part of an autopsy found traces of cocaine and cannabis in the blood of the suspect, Ziyed Ben Belgacem.
He also had 0.93 grams of alcohol per litre of blood when he died Saturday, the prosecutors’ office said.
The 39-year-old Frenchman with a long criminal record of drugs and robbery offences stopped at a bar in the wee hours Saturday morning, around four hours before he first fired bird shot at traffic police. Then, 90 minutes later, he attacked the military patrol at Orly.
Police find thief stuck in window
PARIS — Arrests can’t come any easier than this.
French gendarmes called to a robbery found the suspected thief stuck in a hole he’d made with a hammer in a shop window.
The national gendarmerie on Sunday published a photo appearing to show the man half-in and halfout of the hole.
The 46-year-old man was arrested Thursday morning in the Pyrenees town of Mauleon-Licharre in southwest France, a duty officer for the regional gendarmerie told The Associated Press.
New rocket engine tested in N. Korea
TOKYO — North Korea has conducted a ground test of a new type of high-thrust rocket engine that leader Kim Jong Un is calling a revolutionary breakthrough for the country’s space program, the North’s state media said Sunday.
Kim attended Saturday’s test at the Sohae launch site, according to the Korean Central News Agency, which said the test was intended to confirm the “new type” of engine’s thrust power and gauge the reliability of its control system and structural safety.
The report indicated that the engine is to be used for North Korea’s space and satellite-launching program.
North Korea is banned by the United Nations from conducting long-range missile tests, but it claims its satellite program is for peaceful use, a claim many in the U.S. and elsewhere believe is questionable.