April 14, 2014 Edition

Facing elimination from the upper echelon of the sport, Manny Pacquiao on April 13 went out and tore into Timothy Bradley with a fury that hasn’t been observed in him in many years, winning the WBO welterweight title by unanimous decision to avenge his controversial loss in 2012. Bradley came out with a more offensive-minded approach in round one, catching Pacquiao and team by surprise. His aggression left him vulnerable to Pacquiao’s artillery. Try as he may, Pacquiao couldn’t put Bradley away, driving the previously undefeated fighter into a defense-first posture as he struggled to keep up with the firepower of the two-term Sarangani congressman from the Philippines.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Read on Rappler how Mommy Dionisia and social media erupted during the fight here.

Militant lawmakers are threatening to go to the Supreme Court (SC) to block the new military agreement that the Philippines is negotiating with the US. The Philippine panel negotiating an agreement with the US said it was ready to submit to President Benigno Aquino III a draft of their agreement following the conclusion of their 8th round of talks April 11. The deal will allow increased presence of American troops in the Philippines, give them more access to the country’s military bases, and allow them to build facilities inside the bases. It is apparently timed for the visit of US President Barack Obama late April. But it appears unconstitutional and may be questioned before the SC, military lawmakers said.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Read the panel’s announcement on Rappler.

The UN Security Council held an emergency session April 13 on the Ukraine crisis as Kiev vowed to launch an military operation after pro-Russian forces seized government buildings in the east. It is the 10th time that the Security Council has met on Ukraine since pro-Western leaders rose to power in Kiev in February on the back of bloody protests against the old regime’s decision to reject an EU alliance and turns toward Moscow. Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said he was very concerned about threats from Kiev to use military force against pro-Russian separatists. At least one Ukrainian officer had been killed in a gun battle and numerous other people had been reported injured during skirmishes in eastern Ukraine.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Read about Sunday’s bloody battle on Rappler.

At least 3 people were killed April 14 (Manila time) during separate shootings at a Jewish community center and a retirement community in Kansas on the eve of Passover, a rabbi said. Police took a man into custody at an elementary school in Overland Park outside Kansas City. He was heard yelling “Heil Hitler” as officers escorted him away. The suspect, who is in his 70s, asked people whether they were Jewish before opening fire, according to Mandl. The man killed two people, including a teenager. About 75 people were inside the center’s theater, most of them children, during the shooting, though the center stressed the incident took place inside the parking lot.

Read the full story on Rappler.

The panel tasked to craft a draft law for the creation of a new Bangsamoro region is finished with its task and is scheduled to meet with President Benigno Aquino III on April 14. The President will certify the Bangsamoro Basic Law as an urgent administration bill. Congress will debate it and even after it’s passed as a law, the creation of the Bangsamoro region would still be subjected to plebiscite in affected areas. The draft law is part of the historic peace agreement signed earlier by the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr is back in the country from his two-week trip in Israel, and he said he’s ready to face the plunder charges filed against him before the Sandiganbayan. Revilla – along with two other senators, Janet Lim Napoles, and 6 others – is facing plunder charges over his alleged involvement in the multi-billion-peso pork barrel scam. The Office of the Ombudsman filed the case two days after Revilla and his family flew to the Holy Land on March 30. Rumors that he was not coming back persisted. But on April 13, upon arrival at the airport, Revilla said he’s ready for a legal battle and that he was expecting to be arrested.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Conflict in South Sudan has triggered a serious risk of famine that will kill up to 50,000 children within months if immediate action is not taken, the UN warned April 11. The African country has experienced high levels of malnutrition since it gained independence in 2011, and conditions have worsened since ethnic conflict broke out between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and supporters of his former deputy Riek Machar. The Unicef estimates that 3.7 million people in South Sudan are at risk of “food insecurity.” The worse is yet to come, Unicef added.

Read the full story on Rappler.

“I feel compelled to personally take on all the evil which some priests –  quite a few in number, obviously not compared to the number of all the priests – to personally ask for forgiveness for the damage they have done for having sexually abused children,” Pope Francis said in remarks quoted by Vatican Radio. CNN said this is the Pope’s strongest condemnation of cases of sexual abuse involving Catholic priests. “The church is aware of this damage, it is personal, moral damage carried out by men of the church, and we will not take one step backward with regards to how we will deal with this problem, and the sanctions that must be imposed,” Francis was quoted as saying.


Read the full story on CNN.

For at least 2 years now, the US National Security Agency (NSA) has been privy to a security flaw in many websites, now known as the Heartbleed bug. But rather than alert Americans about it, the agency used it to gather intelligence, Bloomberg reported, citing two people familiar with the issue. Last week, computer security specialists raised alarm about a freshly discovered bug in online data-scrambling software that hackers can turn to their advantage. Heartbleed lets attackers illicitly retrieve passwords and other bits of information from working memory on computer servers, according to cyber-defense specialists at Fox-IT. The NSA denied it had prior knowledge of Heartbleed.

Read the full story on Bloomberg.

The arrival of Captain America: Winter Soldier last March 26 unofficially kicked off the pre-summer Hollywood rollout. Although the North American summer doesn’t quite line up with our country’s hotter months, Filipino audiences can always expect Hollywood to spread their biggest releases from early April all the way to the end of August. Here are our picks for 20 of Hollywood’s most anticipated summer releases all the way until August.

Read the full story on Rappler.