WEEK IN REVIEW
SUNDAY 1: Raul Castro says new term will be last
HAVANA — Raul Castro announced Sunday that he will step down as Cuba’s president in 2018 following a final five-year term, for the first time putting a date on the end of the Castro era. He tapped rising star Miguel Diaz-Canel as his top lieutenant and first in the line of succession.
The 81-year-old Castro also said he hopes to establish two-term limits and age caps for political offices including the presidency.
The 52-year-old Diaz-Canel, an electrical engineer by training and a former minister of higher education, is now a heartbeat from the presidency and has risen higher than any other Cuban official who didn’t directly participate in the heady days of the revolution.
TUESDAY 2: Storm paralyzes parts of Midwest
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — For the second time in a week, a major winter storm paralyzed parts of the nation’s midsection Tuesday, dumping a fresh layer of heavy, wet snow atop cities still choked with piles from the previous system and making travel perilous from the Oklahoma panhandle to the Great Lakes.
The weight of the snow strained power lines and cut electricity to more than 100,000 homes and businesses. At least three deaths were blamed on the blizzard.
The Missouri Department of Transportation issued a rare “no travel” advisory, urging people to stay off highways except in case of a dire emergency.
WEDNESDAY 3: Pope Benedict XVI gives final address
ROME — More than 100,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday to cheer as Pope Bene- dict XVI gave his final general audience before resigning.
Addressing the crowd where many toted banners saying “Grazie!” (“Thank you!”), the pope said: “I’d like to thank everybody for the help I have received.” He said he has experienced both joyful and difficult moments as pope.
THURSDAY 4: Small cancer risk near nuke accident
FUKUSHIMA — Two years after Japan’s nuclear plant disaster, an international team of experts said Thursday that residents of areas hit by the highest doses of radiation face an increased cancer risk so small it probably won’t be detectable.
Experts calculated that increase at about 1 extra percentage point added to an infant’s lifetime cancer risk.
“The additional risk is quite small and will probably be hidden by the noise of other (cancer) risks like people’s lifestyle choices and statistical fluctuations,” said Richard Wakeford of the University of Manchester, one of the authors of the report. “It’s more important not to start smoking than having been in Fukushima.”