Britain
Immigration minister resigns
The British immigration minister has resigned after revealing that his house cleaner of six years was living in the country illegally. Apologizing for the "embarrassment," Mark Harper stepped down Saturday after submitting a resignation letter to Prime Minister David Cameron. Harper, who had been leading a crackdown on illegal immigration in Britain, was an important part of a "go home" campaign, which included posters pasted on vans across the country encouraging illegal immigrants to leave the country.
Barclay's bank reports data breach
Barclays, Britain's second-largest bank by assets, has spoken with regulators, customers and British authorities about what appears to be a criminal leak of customer account information. A Barclays probe into the leak suggests the data is from 2008 or earlier and is linked to a financial planning unit that was shut in 2011, a company spokeswoman said in an e-mailed statement. As many as 27,000 customer files containing personal and financial information were taken, the Mail on Sunday reported Sunday, citing an unidentified whistleblower.
Bangladesh
Factory owners surrender to police
A husband and wife whose factory in Bangladesh was consumed by fire in 2012, a disaster that killed 112 employees, surrendered to the police in Dhaka, the capital. In December, the police filed charges of culpable homicide against the owner of the Tazreen factory, Delowar Hossain; his wife, Mahmuda Akther, and 11 associates, including the factory's manager and an engineer.
Japan
Tokyo elects ruling-party governor
Yoichi Masuzoe, a former health minister backed by Japan's ruling party, won Tokyo's gubernatorial election, defeating two candidates who had promised to end nuclear power. Masuzoe, 65, with his supporters shouting "Banzai," promised to make Tokyo "the No. 1 city in the world." The ballot was widely seen as a test for Japan's public opinion on atomic power after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
New York
AOL reverses benefits change
Tim Armstrong, the chief executive of AOL, did an about-face, reversing an unpopular change in the media company's employee benefits program and apologizing for publicly singling out two families' health care issues as a cause of those changes. AOL had switched its matching payments to one lump sum at year-end instead of throughout the year. The change would have disadvantaged AOL employees, especially those who left the company before Dec. 31.
Louisiana
Whooping cranes killed
North America's tallest bird, with a population of about 600, has lost three adults to gunfire in recent months, undercutting breeding plans for the whooping crane, whose population shrank to 23 in 1954, wildlife authorities say. The deaths in Kentucky and Louisiana bring the number of intentional killings of the endangered birds to at least 19 since 2001. That exceeds the average number of cranes — 13 — released into the wild each year by conservationists, according to Operation Migration.News services
