In the news

President Barack Obama signed into law separate measures suspending the federal debt limit and restoring full cost-of living benefits for military retirees while he was on a weekend golf vacation with friends at the Sunnylands retreat in Southern California.

Zhang Jialong, a Chinese blogger and reporter, joined three of his colleagues in a Beijing visit with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, where they asked Kerry to pressure the Chinese government over restrictions on expression and to help “tear down the great Internet firewall.”

Joseph Andrew Dekenipp, a 40-year-old Arizona jail inmate, is back in custody and set to receive treatment for serious cuts after reportedly climbing two walls and crawling through razor wire to meet his sweetheart on Valentine’s Day at a saloon and grill.

Dmytro Bulatvo, a Ukranian opposition activist, said he believes a pro-Russia group was behind his kidnapping and torture in which part of his right ear was cut off, saying his captors “spoke Russian, with Russian accents.”

Julian Castro, the mayor of San Antonio, will join 14 members of the Lanier High School varsity basketball team in having their hair dyed blond at Tina Ruiz’s salon House of Styles after promising the athletes that he would do so if they made the playoffs.

Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, announced that security forces are looking for hard-line opposition leader and demonstration organizer Leopoldo Lopez, who Maduro said ordered “violent kids, which he trained, to destroy the prosecutor’s office and half of Caracas.”

Billie Jean King, the openly gay former tennis star, will attend the closing ceremony of the Sochi Olympics in Russia after missing the opening ceremony to be with her mother in Arizona when the 91-yearold woman died.

Silvio Berlusconi, the ex-Italian premier and leader of Forza Italia, said his party will be a “responsible opposition” to any new government led by Democratic Party leader Matteo Renzi, who engineered the ouster of rival Democrat Enrico Letta.

Riley Richards, the suburban Houston caretaker of a pet peacock named Meanie, shot and killed the bird after it spread its feathers and used its talons to attack several women while they were being questioned by a sheriff’s deputy regarding a complaint over the bird.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/16/2014

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