Thai military coup

It was announced that the Thai military has taken control of the government in a coup. The move came after rival factions were unable to come up with a suitable agreement to govern. Hours earlier, members of the military and opposition parties met for a second day to try to find a solution to the crisis in Thailand, which has been under martial law since Tuesday.

Deep-seated tensions in Thailand in recent months have caused deadly clashes, paralyzed parts of the capital and

brought down the Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. The current wave of unrest was triggered in November by

Yingluck's botched attempt to pass an amnesty bill that would have allowed the return of her brother Thaksin

Shinawatra, another former prime minister who lives in exile. Thaksin was deposed by a military coup in 2006.The military,

which has a long history of interfering in Thai politics, stepped into the fray Tuesday with its sudden declaration of martial law -- without giving any warning to the acting prime

minister.

In Other NewsIn Other News Police in Santa Ana, California, have located a 25-year-old woman nearly a decade after her mother

reported her missing. Details on the case are scant, but the mother reported to police in August 2004 that her then 15-year-old daughter disappeared along with her live-in boyfriend, identified as Isidro Garcia. He had started to sexually assault the daughter in June 2004, Santa Ana police said. They did not name the victim.

A federal judge struck down Pennsylvania’s ban on same-sex marriage Tuesday, handing gay rights advocates their second legal victory in as many days and striking the last remaining ban in the Northeast. The state’s laws, which ban same-sex marriages, were struck down as unconstitutional by U.S. District Court Judge John Jones. Same-sex couples in Pennsylvania began receiving marriage licenses soon after Jones’s decision came down. "Even with the opportunity to escape, after years of physical and mental abuse, the victim saw no way out of her situation and lived a life with Garcia under sustained physical and mental abuse," police said. In 2007, Garcia allegedly forced the teenager into a marriage and in 2012 they had a child. Garcia, 41, was arrested Wednesday and booked on suspicion of kidnapping for rape, lewd acts with a minor, and false imprisonment, police said.

An assessment of an annual study by Millward Brown, a communications company, has ranked Google as the world's most popular brand, topping Apple, which had held the top spot for the past three years. Rounding out the top five were IBM, Microsoft, and McDonald's. Amazon, which continues to strengthen its foothold in the streaming-TV and tablet markets, entered the top 10 for the first time. Twitter and LinkedIn debuted on the list at numbers 71 and 78, respectively, and with a 68% increase in perceived value, Facebook was the second-biggest climber on the list, reaching number 21.

The United States deployed 80 members of its armed forces to Chad to help in the search for the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls. President Barack Obama informed the House speaker and the president of the Senate of the move. The forces will be involved in maintaining aircraft and analyzing data, but because they are armed, the President is required by law to inform the speaker of the House. Boko Haram abducted more than 200 girls last month from a school in northern Nigeria. Officials have speculated that the militants may have transported them to neighboring Chad or Cameroon, but it's not clear where the girls are or whether they've left Nigeria.

On Monday, United States men's national team head coach Jurgen Klinsmann announced his 30-man preliminary World Cup roster.