nation

CALIFORNIA

Quake was region’s largest in three years

Monday morning’s magnitude 4.7 earthquake in Riverside County along the San Jacinto Fault Zone was the largest temblor to hit the Los Angeles region in three years and has produced more than 100 aftershocks. It caused no major damage, but it was felt over what seismologists said was an unusually large area. The quake was first recorded as three separate quakes because a foreshock tricked seismographs, said Susan Hough of the U.S. Geological Survey.

OHIO

SUV in crash that killed teens was stolen

Investigators on Monday tried to piece together what eight teenagers crammed into a stolen SUV were up to before the vehicle flipped over into a pond, killing six of them. Authorities gave few details on where the group had been and why they were out around daybreak Sunday, speeding down a two-lane road. The SUV’s owner met with police and filed a stolen-car report on Monday; police said none of the teens was related to the owner or had asked to use the vehicle. Whether all the teens knew the SUV was stolen wasn’t clear.

WASHINGTON

White House calls out China on cyberattacks

The White House demanded Monday that the Chinese government stop the widespread theft of data from U.S. computer networks and agree to “acceptable norms of behavior in cyberspace.” The demand, made in a speech by National Security Adviser Tom Donilon was the first public confrontation with China over cyberespionage and came two days after its foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, rejected a growing body of evidence that his country’s military was involved in cyberattacks on U.S. corporations and some government agencies.

U.S. expels two Venezuelan diplomats

The Obama administration has expelled two Venezuelan diplomats in retaliation for Venezuela’s expulsion of two U.S. military attaches. Shortly before Chavez died last week, Venezuela expelled two U.S. Air Force attaches in Caracas for alleged espionage. The Obama administration waited until after Chavez’s funeral on Friday to announce any reciprocal action. Junior diplomats Orlando Jose Montanez Olivares and Victor Camacaro Mata were ordered to return home on Saturday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Monday.

THAILAND

Five shark species face regulated trade

Delegates at a major international meeting on wildlife trade voted Monday in Bangkok to add several shark species to a list of plants and animals whose international trade is regulated — a move that was welcomed by conservationists but that remains subject to final approval later this week. The decisions on the five species — the Oceanic Whitetip, the porbeagle and three types of hammerhead sharks — were among the major proposals at the meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

PAKISTAN

Bomb kills 3 soldiers in northwest

A roadside bomb killed three Pakistani soldiers in a northwestern tribal area near the Afghan border Monday, a local government official said. Another soldier was wounded by the explosion near an army vehicle in Dogar village in the Kurram tribal area, said Javed Khan, a local administrator. No one has claimed responsibility. The Pakistani Taliban often attack soldiers deployed there.

IRAQ

Al-Qaida group says it killed Syrian soldiers

A Sunni jihadist group in Iraq claimed responsibility for killing dozens of Syrian soldiers who had sought safety on the Iraqi side of the border last week, boasting about the massacre in an Internet posting that used demeaning references to Shiites and President Bashar Assad’s Alawite sect. The message from the Islamic State of Iraq, which is affiliated with al-Qaida, reflected the hardened animus spreading from the Syrian conflict.

NEWS SERVICES