World: Cyprus is now planning to seize 20% of all bank deposits above 100,000 Euros at the Bank of Cyprus to pay off a $7.6 billion debt to the European Union due Monday. Accounts at foreign-owned banks would be taxed at 4%. If Cyprus does not pay the debt and reach a bank bailout deal, the banks will likely fail and the government would go bankrupt, with repercussions for the whole Euro Zone.

• Secretary of State John Kerry was in Baghdad to urge Iraq to stop Iranian weapons shipments from flying through Iraqi airspace to re-supply the embattled regime in Syria. Iraq is reluctant to pick a side in the Syrian conflict which, like Iraq, has an element of religious struggle between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
• Russian billionaire Boris A. Berezovsky , once an ally and later an enemy of president Vladimir Putin, was found dead in his bath near London. Berezovsky was one of the oligarchs who rose after the fall of the Soviet Union. He had just lost a $6 billion court case. Despite some reports that Berezovsky may have committed suicide, police are still calling the death unexplained.

National: NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg has personally bankrolled a $12 million national gun control commercials that target senators who might swing toward voting for tougher regulations. The commercials push comprehensive background checks but don’t mention an assault weapons ban, which is considered politically hopeless.

Dunked: Arizona crushed Harvard 74-51 ending its NCAA b-ball hopes.

Passings: Jim Barrett, whose Chateau Montelena put American wine on the map winning the “Judgment of Paris”, died this week at 86. The 1976 international wine tasting was staged by a British wine merchant who wanted to introduce the world to wines not made in France. Chateau Montelena came in first among the whites. Barrett built a broken down winery into what became an internationally known winery and his story was featured in the 2008 movie “Bottle Shock”.

• Peter Scott, England’s prolific cat burglar who was believed to have robbed Shirley MacLaine, the Shah of Iran, Judy Garland and even the Queen Mother, has died at age 82. Fleet Street newspapers labeled him “King of the Cat Burglars” and “Burglar to the Stars”. Among other marks, he claimed Zsa Zsa Gabor, Lauren Bacall, Elizabeth Taylor, Vivien Leigh, Sophia Loren, and Maria Callas. Scott said that sometimes when he was discovered in the middle of the night he would shout upstairs, “It’s only me”, and the homeowner would go back to bed thinking he was the butler.

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