Fighting for Misurata, Ajdabiya continues
TRIPOLI, Libya, April 18 (UPI) -- Pro-democracy forces fought troops loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on two fronts, in Misurata and Ajdabiya, witnesses said Monday.
In Misurata, under siege for at least six weeks, rebels withstood heavy shelling and gunfire Sunday to take control of one crossroad, a skirmish in which 10 people died during a day of fighting across the city, Franc 24 reported.
In an artillery attack elsewhere in Misurata, at least six people were killed and about 47 people were injured, witnesses said.
Rebel leaders said they captured Ajdabiya but government forces reportedly were pounding the town, al-Jazeera reported. The rebels earlier advanced from Ajdabiya to the oil town of Brega.
Gadhafi's forces have been fiercely attacking Misurata for six weeks, raising fears of a humanitarian crisis in the last rebel-held city in western Libya. Western diplomats have accused the government of cutting off food, water and electricity supplies to force residents into submission.
A sandstorm Sunday prevented NATO aircraft from flying missions against government forces near Ajdabiya, providing Gadhafi's troops a chance to move on highways because they don't have to worry about airstrikes, al-Jazeera said.
Control of Ajdabiya and Brega has changed hands between pro- and anti-Gadhafi forces several times since demonstrations that began in February degenerated into civil war.
Court delays action on healthcare request
WASHINGTON, April 18 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court Monday apparently delayed action on a request for expedited action on Virginia's challenge to federal healthcare reform.
The justices considered Virginia's request behind closed doors Friday, but in an orders list issued Monday took no action. The lack of action does not mean the court will not respond to Virginia's request eventually, at the least granting or denying the request.
A federal judge in Virginia struck down as unconstitutional the law's requirement that everyone has to pay for health insurance, and a federal judge in Florida ruled the same thing, adding that since the individual mandate cannot be severed from the entire law, then the entire law must go.
At least three federal judges have ruled against separate challenges on strictly technical grounds.
Besides the Virginia suit, 25 states have joined Florida's healthcare reform challenge and Oklahoma has filed its own suit.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a victorious challenger at the trial court level, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case directly, skipping the federal appeals court level.
Cuccinelli is racing Florida to get the first challenge to the Supreme Court.
Robotic probes find high radiation levels
FUKUSHIMA, Japan, April 18 (UPI) -- Remote-controlled robots recorded high radiation levels in and by two reactor buildings in the crippled nuclear power plant in Japan, officials said Monday.
Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the U.S.-built robots measured radiation doses as high as 57 millisieverts inside the housing for the No. 3 reactor at Fukushima Daiichi and up to 49 millisieverts inside the No. 1 reactor building, CNN reported.
Levels found between the double doors of the airlocks of the reactor buildings were higher: 270 millisieverts in the reactor No. 1 and 170 millisieverts in the No. 3, the safety agency said.
The average resident of an industrialized country gets about 3 millisieverts per year. Emergency standards for plant workers battling the nuclear disaster caused by the March 11, 9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami limit the workers' annual exposure to 250 millisieverts. However, doses above 100 millisieverts can increase the long-term risk of cancer.
Agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama did not provide an explanation for the higher radiation levels in the airlocks.
The robots began their probes Sunday to try to determine the conditions inside the reactor buildings, blown apart in hydrogen explosions in the first days of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
The robots were inserted the same day that plant owner Tokyo Electric Power Co. announced a six- to nine-month plan to restore normal cooling systems and shut down the damaged reactors at Fukushima Daiichi.
Syrian troops fire into crowd; 13 killed
DAMASCUS, Syria, April 18 (UPI) -- Security forces fired into a crowd of demonstrators during pro-democracy protests in Syria, killing at least 13 people, activists said.
The shootings Sunday ended a day in which thousands of people marched in cities and towns across the country, calling for an end to President Bashar Assad's autocratic rule, a day after he vowed to lift emergency laws that have been in place for nearly a half-century, The Washington Post reported.
Nine people were killed in and around Homs, where security forces opened fire without warning in two areas, Razan Zeitouneh, a human rights activist and lawyer who talked to witnesses, told the Post.
"The army suddenly started to shoot the people," she said. "There was no use of fire or anything by the people. We talked to many eyewitnesses, and they were peaceful protests."
Witnesses said four people died in Latakia after protesters tried to take over a main square.
"First, security shot in the air," said Wissam Tarif, director of Insan, a human rights organization. "Then snipers took out people from a distance. Security used electrifying tools, sticks and [beat] people with rifles on the head."
Tarif said his organization confirmed 86 arrests. He said he expected the number of detainees to be in the hundreds.
Demonstrations also took place in Aleppo, Daraa and Baniyas.
