WORLD
* The United States may have committed war crimes in its campaign of drone strikes on targets in Pakistan and Yemen over the past four years, killing civilians indiscriminately in its stated pursuit of terrorist targets, two prominent human rights groups said in reports released Tuesday
* Ukraine and Georgia will not accede to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) next year, its top official said Tuesday, dismissing speculation that two of Russia’s most strategically important neighbors might be joining
* Syrian President Bashar Assad has said he might run in next year’s presidential election
* Police in Russia have detained a fugitive wanted in the United States on suspicion of murdering two women in New York in 2011, officials said
RUSSIA
* President Vladimir Putin signed a law Tuesday giving local authorities more responsibility for handling relations between ethnic communities in a sign the government is growing nervous at evidence of a surge in nationalist-tinged discontent
* A bomb with an explosive equivalent of 12 kilograms of TNT was found Tuesday near a shopping mall in the restive southern republic of Dagestan, security officials said