The Crimean Parliament on Tuesday said it would declare itself independent if its residents approve a referendum on March 16, which would split off the peninsula from Ukraine, and be under Russian auspices. The legal maneuver has been viewed as illegitimate by the U.S. and the European powers, but may de-escalate simmering tensions in the region in recent weeks.
Two men who used stolen travel documents on the Malaysia Airlines jet that disappeared last Saturday were caught by surveillance cameras, and were not Asian in appearance as initially suggested by authorities.
New York Mayor De Blasio revoked the city's offer of free classrooms for Success Academy Harlem Central Middle School, arguing it would displace crucial programs for displaced students, as reported by The New York Daily News. This move puts the mayor at odds with Governor Andrew Cuomo as well Eva Moskowitz, the Success Academy's founder.
Eight Democrat senators joined with their Republican counterparts to vote against Debo Adegbile, Barack Obama's nominee to head the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. The opposition - a huge rebuke to the president - was so strong largely from Adegbile's participation in an appeal filed on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the internationally known prisoner who had been convicted for the 1981 slaying of Daniel Faulkner, a Philadelphia police officer.
