Globe Trot: The State Department has some explaining to do

The second-highest serving officer at the U.S. mission in Libya is set to testify today in Congress against the White House version of events surrounding the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. If you don’t read anything else, scroll through the article linked above to see Gregory Hicks’ scheduled testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee: “I never reported a demonstration; I reported an attack on the consulate.”

The U.S. Air Force has stripped an unprecedented 17 officers of authority to control the launch of nuclear missiles over their failure to meet standards. “We are, in fact, in a crisis right now,” the commander, Lt. Col. Jay Folds, wrote in an internal email obtained by The Associated Press and confirmed by the Air Force.

Russians demonstrating for the ouster of President Vladimir Putin—by the tens of thousands in Moscow—are regrouping after a massive government crackdown. Secretary of State John Kerry, who arrived in Moscow to meet with Putin on Tuesday, is making the case for Putin to take a tougher stance on Syria President Bashar al-Assad’s refusal to step aside.

“The total number of people who have fled their homes to seek safety elsewhere rises to about a quarter of Syria’s population,” reports UN emergency relief coordinator Valerie Amos. “What we need is an end to the violence.”

State authorities may be underreporting an outbreak in Saudi Arabia of a SARS-like virus. Officials say they’ve had 13 cases in a recent outbreak of a new strain of coronavirus that has emerged from the Gulf and spread as far as Britain and France, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday. Seven of those sickened have died.

Malaysians rallied today to protest results from elections earlier this week that returned to power the ruling coalition that has controlled the government for 56 years. Prime Minister Najib Razak’s coalition has won 13 elections.