SANAA, Yemen

Shiite rebel leader refuses to surrender despite attacks

A Shiite rebel leader in Yemen vowed to not surrender Sunday amid Saudi-led airstrikes in a rambling speech that rejected U.N. efforts to halt violence there.

The speech by rebel leader Abdul-Malek al-Houthi, his first since the Saudi campaign began, offered signs of cracks appearing in his alliance with Yemen’s one-time President Ali Abdullah Saleh. However, his speech signaled no sign of his rebels backing down from their offensive after earlier seizing the capital, Sanaa, and forcing President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi into exile.

“The great Yemeni people will never surrender and never be subjugated,” al-Houthi said.

Meanwhile Sunday, pro-Hadi forces regained control of part of the Aden coastline that had been held by the Houthis and their allies, security officials said. The gained positions allow them to attack the rebel-held airport and cut off supplies to anti-Hadi forces, they said.

WARSAW, Poland

Poland demands apology for FBI director’s remarks

Poland’s Foreign Ministry urgently summoned U.S. Ambassador Stephen Mull on Sunday to “protest and demand an apology,” saying the head of the FBI suggested that Poles were accomplices in the Holocaust.

FBI director James Comey made the remarks in an article about the need to educate about the Holocaust that was published by The Washington Post on Thursday. It was adapted from a speech he gave Wednesday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

In the article, Comey said, “In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn’t do something evil. They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do.”

The words raised a storm among politicians in Poland, where the elderly still remember the brutality of the German occupation during World War II, in which more than 6 million Polish citizens were killed.

HAVANA

Two dissident candidates concede local election loss

Both dissident candidates in Cuba’s first local elections since a historic thaw in U.S. relations have conceded defeat after preliminary results Sunday showed them losing.

Hildebrando Chaviano, 65, and Yuniel Lopez, 26, had been chosen by a show of hands in Havana neighborhood nominating meetings and hoped to win two of the 12,589 seats at stake in 168 municipal councils, which deal with services such as street repair, water supplies and insect fumigation.

A win by either would have been symbolically significant but would have had little immediate practical implication for the one-party communist system.

DENVER

Celebrations for legal pot continue without incident

Police said there were no major problems as marijuana celebrations continued for a second day on Sunday, but police tweeted a reminder that while recreational use of marijuana is legal in Colorado, people still can’t use it in public.

Police spokeswoman Raquel Lopez said there was no estimate on the number of people who turned out on Saturday and Sunday, including many tourists who flocked to Colorado to take advantage of legal marijuana.

“We’d prefer not to be buzzkills this 4/20 weekend. Consume responsibly, and designate a sober driver now,” police tweeted on Sunday.

On Saturday, police issued about 60 citations. Police said most were for public consumption.

– From news service reports

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