World/Nation

New York mayor attends wake of officer shot dead in ambush

NEW YORK - Mayor Bill de Blasio, heavily criticized by police for his handling of protests critical of them, on Friday attended the wake of an officer shot to death with his partner in a brazen daytime ambush.

Hundreds of police officers, politicians and community members attended the daylong remembrance for Officer Rafael Ramos at the Christ Tabernacle Church.

Ramos, a 40-year-old married father of two sons, was studying to be a pastor. His body was carried into the church in a flag-draped casket and was displayed in full dress uniform.

Pastor Ralph Castillo said Ramos was a beloved member of the church.

"Whether he was helping a mom with a carriage or bringing someone to their seats, he did it with so much love and so much vigor and so much joy," Castillo said.

10th anniversary of Indian Ocean tsunami is marked

PERELIYA, Sri Lanka - A packed train in Sri Lanka was swept off the tracks by waves as big as elephants. A boat patrolling off Thailand's shore was hurled more than a mile inland. Streets in Indonesia turned into roaring rivers that carried people to their deaths.

Vivid and terrifying memories such as these were recalled Friday at ceremonies marking the 10th anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami that left nearly a quarter-million people dead in one of modern history's worst natural disasters.

The Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami was triggered by a magnitude-9.1 earthquake - the region's most powerful in 40 years - that tore open the seabed off Indonesia's Sumatran coast, displacing billions of tons of water and sending waves roaring across the Indian Ocean at jetliner speeds as far away as East Africa.

Weeping survivors and others took part in beachside memorials and religious services across Asia, while some European countries also marked the anniversary, remembering the thousands of Christmastime tourists who died in the disaster.

Pain and hope alike were harvested from the tragedy.

Putin signs new doctrine declaring NATO as Russia's No. 1 threat

MOSCOW - Russia identified NATO as the nation's No. 1 military threat and raised the possibility of a broader use of precision conventional weapons to deter foreign aggression under a new military doctrine signed by President Vladimir Putin on Friday.

NATO flatly denied it is a threat to Russia, and accused Moscow of undermining European security.

The new doctrine, which comes amid tensions over Ukraine, reflected the Kremlin's readiness to take a stronger posture in response to what it sees as U.S.-led efforts to isolate and weaken Russia.

The paper maintains the provisions of the previous, 2010 edition of the military doctrine regarding the use of nuclear weapons.

It says Russia could employ nuclear weapons in retaliation for the use of nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction against the country or its allies, and also in the case of aggression involving conventional weapons that "threatens the very existence" of the Russian state.

Woman taken off life support after court rules fetus can't survive

DUBLIN - A brain-dead pregnant woman was taken off life support Friday after a court ruled that her 18-week-old fetus was doomed to die - a case that exposed fear and confusion among doctors over how to apply Ireland's strict ban on abortion in an age of medical innovation.

The three-judge Dublin High Court said that all artificial support for the woman should end more than three weeks after she was declared clinically dead. Her relatives gathered at a hospital in the Irish Midlands to bid farewell to the unidentified woman, who was in her late 20s and had two young children.

In their 29-page ruling, the judges accepted testimony from seven doctors who said the fetus couldn't survive for the extra two months of development needed to be delivered safely. The doctors detailed how the woman's body was becoming a lethal environment rife with infections, fungal growths, fever and high blood pressure.

The nation's Supreme Court was put on standby for an appeal, given the constitutional questions at stake. But lawyers representing the rights of the woman and of the fetus said they accepted the ruling from the country's second-highest court.

Ireland has the strictest abortion ban in Europe, a reflection of the country's heavily Roman Catholic population. But Dublin's archbishop had suggested before the decision came down that he would have no objection to removing life support.

Baby gorilla shunned by mother will switch zoos

CINCINNATI - A baby gorilla raised by human keepers wearing hairy vests is ready to be placed with other gorillas and will move to the Columbus Zoo, the Cincinnati Zoo said Friday.

Kamina, a young, female Western lowland gorilla, was born in August at the zoo in Oklahoma City but was shunned by her mother, so she was sent to Cincinnati in September. The human surrogates taught her to act like a gorilla and then placed her with two female gorillas.

When they didn't bond with her, keepers decided Kamina's best option was moving to Columbus. The Cincinnati Zoo's curator of primates said the rejection was surprising but such introductions are delicate and don't always work.

"Kamina has learned all of the behaviors she needs to know in order to be successful in a gorilla group," Ron Evans, primates curator, said in a statement. "Unfortunately, neither of the adult females that we hoped would bond with her did."

But Kamina's future is bright, as officials are working out details of her transfer to the Columbus Zoo, which has previous experience with surrogacy placements.

- The Associated Press