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Total 100 articles, created at 2016-03-25 00:04 1 Former Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic guilty of Srebrenica genocide
(4.01/5) Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was found guilty of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide and nine other war crimes charges, U. N. judges said, sentencing him to 40 years in prison. 2016-03-24 22:53 1KB www.timeslive.co.za 2 Britain may be vulnerable to terror attacks – but not because we have a refugee crisis Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić found “responsible” for genocide (2.01/5) Conflating the refugee crisis with EU migration is simply wrong. 2016-03-24 18:23 5KB www.newstatesman.com 3 Man says he was arrested for not returning VHS rental A North Carolina man says he was arrested for failing to return a VHS tape that he rented in 2002. 2016-03-25 00:04 1KB mynorthwest.com (2.00/5)
4 The Latest: Ex-cop in fatal shooting apologizes to partner The Latest on the case of a New York City police officer charged with fatally shooting a man in a darkened stairwell of a Brooklyn public housing complex (all times local): (2.00/5) 2016-03-25 00:04 2KB mynorthwest.com 5 Banks, dam targeted by Iranian hackers, US says; 7 charged The U. S. charged seven hackers linked to the Iranian government with executing large- scale coordinated cyberattacks on dozens of banks as well as a small dam outside New (2.00/5) York City - intrusions that law enforcement officials said reached into America’s infrastructure, disrupted the nation’s financial... 2016-03-24 23:36 4KB www.washingtontimes.com 6 Former star CBC radio host acquitted of sexual assault TORONTO (AP) — A judge on Thursday found a former Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
(2.00/5) radio host not guilty of sexual assault in a case that sparked a nationwide con... 2016-03-24 20:51 5KB www.dailymail.co.uk 7 State court: Domestic violence law unfair to gay couples A law that perhaps unintentionally failed to protect domestic violence victims in same-sex relationships appears to be unconstitutional, and now South Carolina's high court is trying to decide what to do. 2016-03-25 00:04 1KB mynorthwest.com 8 9 charged with murder after teen slain in massive brawl and one driver charging at people with a car -- before a teenager was fatally stabbed in the neck. 2016-03-25 00:04 4KB mynorthwest.com 9 The Latest: Bail set for flight attendant in cocaine case The Latest on the arrest of a JetBlue flight attendant (all times local): 2016-03-25 00:04 2KB mynorthwest.com 10 $4M will be spent to repair Oregon refuge that was occupied The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service will spend roughly $4 million to clean, repair and upgrade the Oregon wildlife refuge that was the site of a 41-day armed occupation by ranchers earlier this year. 2016-03-25 00:04 2KB mynorthwest.com 11 Wildlife officials: Florida bears abundant, totaling 4,350 Wildlife officials in Florida say they haven't made a decision about whether to continue allowing the hunting of black bears, but new numbers show the animals are abundant statewide. 2016-03-25 00:04 1KB mynorthwest.com
12 The Latest: EU officials call for passenger data exchange The Latest on the suicide bombings this week in Brussels (all times local): 2016-03-24 11:40 17KB mynorthwest.com 13 Amazon says it pays women and men equally Amazon released the results of a survey showing it has equal pay between men and women, as well as minorities and whites. 2016-03-25 00:04 3KB rss.cnn.com 14 Lebanon signs new finance agreements with development banks The World Bank and Islamic Development Bank have signed agreements worth hundreds of millions of dollars to help Lebanon cope with the large number of Syrian refugees who were displaced by their country's civil war. 2016-03-25 00:04 3KB mynorthwest.com 15 Experts: Belgium Often Comes up Short in Preventing Attacks Belgium has come up short in its efforts to prevent extremist attacks time and again, experts say — failing to coordinate intelligence, investigate suspects and control its borders. No country has a perfect record, but Belgium's is especially bad. On Tuesday, suicide bombers linked to... 2016-03-25 00:04 6KB abcnews.go.com 16 The Latest: Winds frustrate wildfire containment in Oklahoma The latest on wildfires burning across parts of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas (all times local): 2016-03-25 00:04 8KB mynorthwest.com 17 Obama Honors Argentine Victims of 'Dirty War' The president visited a memorial to the 1976 military coup. 2016-03-25 00:04 2KB abcnews.go.com 18 Keeping Europe safe after attacks in Brussels Young leaders of Islam are needed to repulse the recruitment and deployment of the radicalised 2016-03-25 00:01 1KB www.thetimes.co.uk
19 Donald Trump continues Twitter war with Ted Cruz, unleashes on rival’s wife, Heidi, again Businessman Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, both 2016 GOP presidential candidates, traded jabs over Twitter late Wednesday after Mr. Trump doubled down on his political assault against Mr. Cruz’s wife, Heidi Cruz. 2016-03-24 23:44 2KB www.washingtontimes.com 20 Paul Ryan’s Lenten sacrifices: ‘Impatience and anxiety’ House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, a practicing Roman Catholic, said in a new web video Thursday that he gave up impatience and anxiety as his Lenten sacrifice this year. 2016-03-24 23:44 2KB www.washingtontimes.com 21 Carly Fiorina relaunches her old campaign on new mission to elect ‘conservative outsiders’ Former GOP presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina has re-emerged on the political landscape with a new mission. She has re-branded and repurposed her old campaign “Carly for America” to “help conservative outsiders win in November, restoring citizen government at every level,” Mrs. Fiorina notes in an initial announcement. 2016-03-24 23:44 2KB www.washingtontimes.com 22 Helen Purcell, Phoenix official, backtracks after blaming Arizona voters for lines Bruce Weiss stewed after waiting 21/2 hours in line outside a downtown Phoenix polling place, where juice drinks, snacks and circus animal cookies were handed out by citizens hoping to pacify thousands who turned out to cast ballots in Arizona’s presidential primary. 2016-03-24 23:44 4KB www.washingtontimes.com 23 NYC growth slows, upstate loses people in latest US census New York City’s growth rate slowed last year but still offset upstate losses as the state’s population nudged higher, according to census figures released Thursday. 2016-03-24 23:44 2KB www.washingtontimes.com 24 Thurston County officials seize 33 malnourished alpacas Two animal rescue organizations working to care for 33 emaciated alpacas seized by the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office are asking for donations to help care for the creatures. 2016-03-24 23:36 1KB www.washingtontimes.com 25 Azkals put up gallant stand in narrow loss to Uzbeks TASHKENT--- The Philippines put up a brave stand against one of Asia's elite sides before ultimately falling short on a cold Thursday night here. The Azkals frustrated the formidable Uzbeks 2016-03-24 23:36 2KB sports.inquirer.net 26 EPA: Radioactive material in unexpected places at landfill The Environmental Protection Agency says radioactive material at a suburban St. Louis landfill near an underground fire has been found in areas where it was previously not suspected, but that there is no greater risk to residents or workers. 2016-03-24 23:22 1KB www.washingtontimes.com 27 General Electric announces site of new Boston headquarters General Electric has pinpointed the Boston site for its new world headquarters. 2016-03-24 23:22 2KB www.washingtontimes.com 28 NAACP: Attorney General should review wrongful convictions North Carolina’s attorney should set up a group to investigate claims of wrongful convictions to prevent more innocent people from being in prison, the head of the state NAACP said Thursday. 2016-03-24 22:16 3KB www.washingtontimes.com 29 EFF: SA media’s lack of sophistication keeps ‘reachable secrets as secrets’ The South African media is behind the curve on state capture. And its reflections on the topic are “largely as a follow-up to the factual reflections the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) gave on the Gupta family’s influence”‚ the party’s deputy president said on Wednesday. 2016-03-24 22:03 2KB www.timeslive.co.za 30 USS Conestoga wreckage found off California after 95 years A US Navy tug, missing since 1921, has been found about 30 miles (50 km) west of San Francisco. 2016-03-24 22:57 896Bytes www.bbc.co.uk 31 Free UK paedophile suspect‚ Cape Town lawyer demands Lawyers for alleged British paedophile Nigel Lee Tucker‚ who was arrested in Cape Town last week‚ asked on Thursday for his immediate release because indecent assault is no longer a punishable offence in South Africa. 2016-03-24 22:53 2KB www.timeslive.co.za 32 Pro-Russian parties in Serbia seek anti-NATO referendum Pro-Russian parties in Serbia are demanding that a referendum be held next month, together with general elections, which would prevent the country from joining NATO. 2016-03-24 22:37 1KB www.washingtontimes.com
33 Iranian UN mission consultant charged with evading sanctions A consultant to Iran’s United Nations mission accused of circumventing U. S. sanctions against Iran has been arrested on tax and money laundering charges. 2016-03-24 22:37 2KB www.washingtontimes.com 34 Numsa condemns murder of Wild Coast anti-mining activist The execution style killing of a leader of the Wild Coast anti-mining campaign has been condemned by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa. 2016-03-24 22:34 2KB www.timeslive.co.za 35 Poolside style tips to steal from SA’s celebs Planning on chilling by the pool or on the beach this long weekend? For an A-list look, take your wardrobe cues from local celebrities 2016-03-24 22:33 3KB www.timeslive.co.za 36 Polygamous town holds first Republican caucus in years Fifty-five people gathered at a school in Hildale, Utah, Tuesday night to discuss the Republican presidential candidates. Voters across the state were holding such caucuses, but in Hildale, some saw the process as a sign of changing times. 2016-03-24 22:16 3KB www.washingtontimes.com 37 Top Democrat casts dim odds on passing Iron Range relief Lawmakers hoping to extend unemployment benefits for Iron Range miners have cleared one snag only to hit another. 2016-03-24 22:15 1KB www.washingtontimes.com 38 Judge blocks gravel pit issue from Josephine County ballot A judge has at least temporarily blocked a May ballot measure that would ask Josephine County voters to reject a gravel mine in the Sunny Valley area north of Grants Pass. 2016-03-24 22:14 2KB www.washingtontimes.com 39 Russia employs old Soviet playbook in Georgia When Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution broke out in 2014, Western leaders should have recognized right at the outset that Russia would employ the same playbook there as it has in another vulnerable slice of the old Soviet Union — Georgia. 2016-03-24 22:14 4KB www.washingtontimes.com 40 Lincoln woman charged in 2-year-old stepson’s drowning death A 28-year-old Lincoln woman has been charged in connection with the drowning death of her stepson. 2016-03-24 22:14 1KB www.washingtontimes.com 41 Senators approve more than $5 million for substance abuse The Senate has approved more than $5 million in fresh funding to fight the state’s substance abuse crisis. 2016-03-24 22:14 1KB www.washingtontimes.com 42 3 men get prison for prostituting girl, 15, at Salem motel Three Boston-area men were sentenced to several years in prison for bringing a 15- year-old Massachusetts girl to a New Hampshire motel for sex with paying clients, authorities said Thursday. 2016-03-24 21:18 2KB www.washingtontimes.com 43 Man painted gold arrested in California freeway hit-and-run Authorities say a man covered in gold spray paint was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving in the San Francisco Bay Area after he allegedly hit three cars on a freeway and then led police on a brief chase. 2016-03-24 21:18 1KB www.washingtontimes.com
44 Sound Transit to add longer trains to handle growing demand Sound Transit is putting some longer trains on its light rail tracks to help with increased demand at new stations. 2016-03-24 21:18 1KB www.washingtontimes.com 45 Obama dances tango in Argentina, comes under criticism Dancing the tango, relaxing with family in picturesque Patagonia, catching a baseball game with Cuba’s Raul Castro - it’s been an unusual week for President Barack Obama. 2016-03-24 21:19 4KB www.washingtontimes.com 46 What happened in Arizona wasn’t an accident: When states make voting impossible, it’s for a very clear reason Arizona residents were forced to wait hours on line in order to vote in this week's primary. Some were turned away. VIDEO 2016-03-24 20:42 5KB salon.com.feedsportal.com 47 CBS New York Yankees, Mets, Jets, Giants, Knicks, Nets, Devils, Rangers and more. 2016-03-24 12:32 4KB scoresandstats.newyork.cbslocal.com
48 Let’s stop with the frozen food snobbery The NS Podcast #141:Students, lists and Duncan-Smith The French see frozen food as healthy and fresh - so why does it have a downmarket reputation in Britain? 2016-03-24 18:23 6KB www.newstatesman.com 49 China’s Xi to meet with Obama on sidelines of nuclear summit Chinese President Xi Jinping (shee jihn-peeng) will meet with President Barack Obama in Washington next week on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit. 2016-03-24 21:46 1KB www.washingtontimes.com 50 Heitkamp says Obama’s Cuba trip provides momentum for trade The first presidential visit to Cuba in nearly a century provides “great momentum” for normalizing relations with the communist nation and boosting agricultural trade, U. S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp said. 2016-03-24 21:44 2KB www.washingtontimes.com 51 Google to expand Android Pay digital wallet to UK Google says that its Android Pay digital wallet facility will be expanded from the US to the UK within "the next few months". 2016-03-24 18:26 4KB www.bbc.co.uk 52 As House of Cards hits season four, the script has gone from unlikely to outright preposterous Thirteen, The Night Manager and more: the best TV this Easter weekend Plus: why the ending of Happy Valley left me bereft. 2016-03-24 18:23 9KB www.newstatesman.com 53 Shuttle Endeavour lands at California air base - CNN.com Space shuttle Endeavour landed safely Sunday afternoon at California's Edwards Air Force Base after NASA waved off two opportunities for a Florida landing because of poor weather. 2016-03-24 18:42 3KB rss.cnn.com 54 “The irony is no longer ironic”: ISIS “aren’t Kobe Bryant,” Michele Bachmann writes in an attempt at a scathing attack on Obama Bachmann abuses the powers of nonsense, alliteration, and assonance to attack Obama's response to Brussels 2016-03-24 16:16 1KB salon.com.feedsportal.com
55 Kasich rejects GOP call to quit race Contact WND (NEW YORK TIMES) Republicans desperate to stop Donald J. Trump from capturing the presidential nomination increased the pressure Wednesday on Gov. John Kasich of Ohio to quit the race, with Jeb Bush joining the growing number of party figures throwing their weight behind Senator Ted Cruz. Mr. Kasich refused, saying that he, not the Texas […]... 2016-03-24 21:29 1KB www.wnd.com 56 The most dangerous thing about Donald Trump: The disturbing movement he’s leading won’t just disappear if he loses People are rightly scared by the prospect of Trump in the White House. But even if he loses, the crisis remains 2016-03-24 18:25 3KB salon.com.feedsportal.com 57 Comedy Central, hire Lindsey Graham! The trash-talking senator upstages Trevor Noah with unflappable ease In last night's hilarious "Daily Show," Graham was willing to say anything and everything that Noah wouldn’t 2016-03-24 18:25 3KB salon.com.feedsportal.com 58 Charlotte man convicted of killing infant daughter in 2012 A Charlotte man has been convicted of killing his infant daughter more than three years ago. 2016-03-24 21:19 2KB www.washingtontimes.com 59 Donald Trump despises women: Mocking Heidi Cruz’s looks is a new low in this grotesque sausage-waving campaign To Trump, women are either sex object trophies or worthless, and he’s encouraging his fans to follow suit 2016-03-24 18:25 2KB salon.com.feedsportal.com 60 Brussels attacks: Wounded flight attendant Nidhi Chaphekar placed in coma A Jet Airways manager says a flight attendant injured in the Belgium attacks is undergoing treatment for burns and has been placed in a medically induced coma 2016-03-24 21:18 1KB www.mid-day.com 61 The Latest: Seattle tree-sitter booked, to appear in court The Latest on the man who spent 25 hours in a tree in downtown Seattle (all times local): 2016-03-24 21:18 1KB www.washingtontimes.com 62 “It’s part of being a human being, people kill each other and love each other”: New Yorkers talk hope, fear and being alive in this wild world "I think that people have always had the choice to choose fear or hope" VIDEO 2016-03-24 18:25 977Bytes salon.com.feedsportal.com 63 University of California OKs statement against anti- Semitism The University of California’s governing board on Thursday adopted a statement condemning anti-Semitic behavior and a companion report urging campus leaders to confront intolerant anti-Zionism activism. 2016-03-24 21:17 2KB www.washingtontimes.com 64 Election Rundown: The ‘Stab v. the Grassroots KMorgan 1172 posts 2016-03-24 22:07 12KB www.thetribunepapers.com
65 New analysis: 'Obamacare' coverage costs rising WASHINGTON (AP) — Expanded health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama's signature legislative legacy, will cost the gove... 2016-03-24 20:09 3KB www.dailymail.co.uk
66 Most racists back Donald Trump: New poll suggests racial resentment above all is driving Trump’s rise Trump has easily exploited identity politics, seducing white voters who project their anger against minorities 2016-03-24 18:25 2KB salon.com.feedsportal.com 67 Government goofs up with Bhagat Singh's portrait on Shaheed Diwas A picture of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis, standing along with chief secretary of Swadheen Kshatriya, next to three portraits on Shaheed Diwas is making rounds on the social networking sites 2016-03-24 21:14 1KB www.mid-day.com 68 Donald Trump leads John Kasich by 3 points in Pennsylvania: poll Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has a 3-point lead over Ohio Gov. John Kasich in Pennsylvania — one of the remaining states with a sizable chunk of delegates up for grabs next month — in a new poll. 2016-03-24 21:10 1KB www.washingtontimes.com 69 Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton in virtual tie: poll Sen. Bernard Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are in a virtual dead heat, according to a new national poll of past and likely voters in Democratic presidential nominating contests this year. 2016-03-24 21:10 1KB www.washingtontimes.com 70 Ministers approve food import reforms while saying more is needed Israeli fish breeders with get a one-time compensation of NIS 23 million for 2016. 2016-03-24 21:08 2KB www.jpost.com 71 Yahoo - Introducing Fair Play on Yahoo Sports Daily Fantasy Yahoo Launches Key Changes in Daily Fantasy to Help Level the Playing Field for Fans Including Entry Limits, Labeling of Veteran Players and No... 2016-03-24 19:59 2KB investor.yahoo.net 72 RI unemployment rate in February unchanged at 5.4 percent Rhode Island’s unemployment rate was unchanged in February, holding steady at 5.4 percent. 2016-03-24 21:04 1KB www.washingtontimes.com 73 North Dakota still sees growth despite oil industry downturn North Dakota continues to have some of the fastest-growing areas in the nation, despite the downturn in the oil industry, according to new U. S. Census Bureau estimates. 2016-03-24 21:04 1KB www.washingtontimes.com 74 Bodies of woman and young boy found below cliff in Sydney Police say they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the deaths of the pair, whose bodies were found near a cliff in Maroubra 2016-03-24 21:03 1KB www.theguardian.com 75 New photos of Oregon wildlife refuge reveal damage done by Bundy standoff Photos released by Fish and Wildlife Service show protesters trashed buildings and damaged facilities, with the occupation’s overall costs running at least $6m 2016-03-24 21:02 5KB www.theguardian.com
76 Census: Iowa population down in 71 counties, urban areas up U. S. Census estimates released Thursday show more than two-thirds of Iowa counties have lost population since 2010 but that counties near urban areas saw big growth. 2016-03-24 20:59 2KB www.washingtontimes.com 77 Man pleads guilty to killing US official in Niger carjacking A man charged with killing a U. S. Department of Defense official and wounding a U. S. Marine during a carjacking in Niger in 2000 has pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit murder. 2016-03-24 20:59 1KB www.washingtontimes.com 78 Roswell worker accused of crashing city car Officials say he was selling personal items on city time. 2016-03-24 18:28 746Bytes www.ajc.com 79 Hannity rips Univision anchor over Trump bias Contact WND Sparks flew on Wednesday when Fox News’ Sean Hannity butted heads with Univision’s Jorge Ramos over coverage of Donald Trump’s campaign. Do you support Trump? Tell the world with this brand new bumper sticker: “DONALD TRUMPS THE REST” “I don’t need any lectures from you, Jorge... 2016-03-24 20:55 2KB www.wnd.com 80 Volkswagen gets a month for plan on diesel emissions fix SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Volkswagen and government regulators must present a detailed plan within a month on getting nearly 600,000 diesel cars to comply with cl... 2016-03-24 20:54 3KB www.dailymail.co.uk 81 Mahmudullah should learn from his mistake: M. S Dhoni Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni wants Bangladesh batsman Mahmudullah Riyad to 'learn from his mistake' 2016-03-24 20:46 2KB www.mid-day.com 82 Queen Elizabeth hands out 90th birthday coins Ahead of her 90th birthday, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday handed out commemorative Maundy coins to 180 people in a traditional royal service at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle 2016-03-24 20:34 1KB www.mid-day.com 83 Editorial: Joy of Purim If you’re searching for the reason why the citizens of the Jewish state scored so high on the UN’s state of international happiness study, Purim might be a good place to start. 2016-03-24 20:33 4KB www.jpost.com 84 Wow, Larry Wilmore’s perfect Brussels response sums it all up: “Donald Trump wants to wall Muslims out, Ted Cruz wants to fence Muslims in” "The Muslim community's not a carton of milk. It doesn't just go bad when you leave it out" VIDEO 2016-03-24 18:25 1KB salon.com.feedsportal.com 85 Mehbooba Mufti set to be next chief minister of J&K Mehbooba Mufti is all set to become the first woman chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, after she was unanimously nominated as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for the post, sources said 2016-03-24 20:25 2KB www.mid-day.com 86 Exelon closes deal to buy Pepco, creating largest US utility NEW YORK (AP) — Exelon has completed its nearly $7 billion deal to buy Pepco, creating America's largest electric utility company. The deal closed late Wedne... 2016-03-24 20:23 1KB www.dailymail.co.uk 87 Woman arrested for DUI after driving to 'Coffee with a Cop' GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — A Montana woman who police said was stumbling and smelled of alcohol was arrested after driving to a cafe hosting a "Coffee with a ... 2016-03-24 20:16 1KB www.dailymail.co.uk 88 Radovan Karadžić's sentence for Bosnia genocide exposes continuing divisions Victims say 40-year sentence is too lenient while many Serbs continue to support man who oversaw 1995 massacre at Srebrenica 2016-03-24 20:12 7KB www.theguardian.com 89 Doctors remove wrong body part, patient says A patient has filed a lawsuit against Yale New Haven Hospital for allegedly removing part of the wrong rib during surgery and then trying to cover up the mistake. 2016-03-24 20:04 988Bytes rss.cnn.com 90 Joe Biden says he treated Supreme Court nominees fairly as senator Vice President Joseph R. Biden will engage in Supreme Court damage control Thursday, arguing in a speech that he treated nominees fairly as a senator, despite his infamous words in 1992 that a president shouldn’t nominate anyone to the high court in an election year. 2016-03-24 20:03 2KB www.washingtontimes.com 91 As Atlantic City falls, Christie returns to New Jersey scrum NEWARK, N. J. (AP) — With Gov. Chris Christie back full time in New Jersey, the political gamesmanship between him and Democrats around the state is heating u... 2016-03-24 19:56 4KB www.dailymail.co.uk 92 Belgium searches soul after home-grown jihadis slipped through net Task of identifying the intelligence gap Brussels bombers exploited holds key to preventing future Isis attacks, say experts 2016-03-24 19:53 7KB www.theguardian.com 93 Probing the cosmos: Is anybody out there? - CNN.com From a remote valley in Northern California, Jill Tarter is listening to the universe. 2016-03-24 06:35 6KB rss.cnn.com 94 Medical experts call for global drug decriminalisation International commission urges complete reversal of repressive drug policies imposed by most governments 2016-03-24 19:43 7KB www.theguardian.com 95 NFL's Carl Banks returns to present NFL Golden Football at Flint Beecher The two-time Super Bowl champion returned to his high school alma mater. 2016-03-24 19:37 3KB highschoolsports.mlive.com 96 Obama admits US 'too slow' to condemn atrocities of Argentina's dictatorship Speaking in Buenos Aires on anniversary of 1976 coup Obama tried to soothe hard feelings, saying US must ‘confront past with honesty and transparency’ 2016-03-24 19:39 4KB www.theguardian.com 97 Dutch football legend Johan Cruyff passes away at 68 Dutch football legend Johan Cruyff, died on Thursday in Barcelona at the age of 68 surrounded by his family after a hard fought battle with lung cancer 2016-03-24 19:36 1KB www.mid-day.com 98 Syria peace talks: Putin urged to wield influence over Bashar al-Assad Negotiating committee spokeswoman warns progress will not be made unless Russia persuades president to step down 2016-03-24 19:33 5KB www.theguardian.com
99 Illinois Supreme Court strikes down Chicago pensions plan SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The Illinois Supreme Court dealt another devastating blow Thursday to the state's impatient attempts to control its ballooning publi... 2016-03-24 19:30 4KB www.dailymail.co.uk 100 Holy Week provides welcome respite for ailing PBA players If there's one thing evident this 2016 PBA Commissioner's Cup, it's that no one is safe. Injuries have already taken down four players in the top 10 of last conference's 2016-03-24 19:26 2KB sports.inquirer.net Articles
Total 100 articles, created at 2016-03-25 00:04
1 Former Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic guilty of Srebrenica genocide (4.01/5) Karadzic, 70, the most senior political figure to be convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, was found guilty of 10 out of 11 charges. He was acquitted of a second count of genocide in Bosnian towns.
Radovan Karadzic, former Bosnian Serb leader, convicted of genocide, sentenced to 40 years washingtontimes.com
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić found “responsible” for genocide How deep will the wounds from the Brussels attacks run? newstatesman.com
How deep will the wounds from the Brussels attacks run? Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić found “responsible” for genocide newstatesman.com 2016-03-24 22:53 REUTERS www.timeslive.co.za
2 Britain may be vulnerable to terror attacks – but not because we have a refugee crisis Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić found “responsible” for genocide (2.01/5) Of all the responses to the tragic events in Brussels today the most idiotic is the suggestion – from the feeble Allison Pearson , Ukip and others – that Britain has a refugee crisis and therefore is especially vulnerable to spectacular mass-casualty terror attacks. This is simply wrong. Britain is and has been for a long while vulnerable to Islamist terror attacks – but not because it has a refugee crisis. As if it needs saying, we are not part of the Schengen passport-free zone (which is unravelling with each passing week as member states introduce emergency border controls). We are an island that has control of its borders, unlike France, Germany or indeed the failing state of Belgium. As a member of the EU’s single market, we have an inflow of economic migrants into Britain but these people are emphatically not refugees. The continuing conflation of Europe’s refugee crisis with the freedom of movement of EU citizens is as dishonest as it is stupid. Even serious Tory MPs I know have said to me that the 1.2 million refugees in Germany will very soon be able to move freely in Europe and settle in Britain. In fact, Germany is extremely reluctant to grant citizenship to refugees and migrants – just study the experiences of the long-settled Turkish communities. A migrant can apply for German citizenship after living in the country for five years and can become a full citizen after eight years, if indeed citizenship is ultimately granted. There’s no doubt that Angela Merkel made a lethal mistake when she announced last September that Germany would grant asylum to all Syrian refugees arriving at its borders. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, was not wrong when he accused the German Chancellor of “moral imperialism”. (Another argument was that Merkel was using the refugee crisis as a means to get more young people of working age into the country. Germany has an ageing and falling population; indeed, the population has been predicted to fall to as low as 66 million by 2060.) Merkel’s declaration exerted a considerable pull factor, dragging the migrants north along the hazardous west Balkan route (since closed). In effect, Merkel opened up Germany (and other northern states such as Sweden) to a mass influx of traumatised people as well as a fair few opportunists. As many as 1.2 million refugees entered Germany last year. (Sources close to the German government told me that an additional 300,000 entered illegally.) As it turned out, a third of the refugees were Syrian, a third were from Iraq, Afghanistan and African countries, and a third were from the Balkans – Kosovans, Albanians and so on. Meanwhile, David Cameron has announced that Britain will take 20,000 Syrian refugees by 2020. These will come from the camps in countries neighbouring Syria – Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq – and priority will be given to women and children. There is a persuasive argument that, in solidarity with its European allies and as an act of burden-sharing, Britain should take more Syrian refugees – after all, we were willing participants in the US-led invasion of Iraq that did so much to destabilise the Middle East. But 20,000 is what we have said we would take over a five-year period. No more, no less. Some crisis. The UN human rights tribunal in the Hague has declared former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić “criminally responsible” for the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica – Europe’s worst since World War Two, in which 8,000 people died. The 70 year old was found guilty for 10 out of the 11 charges he faced at the international criminal tribunal. Acquitted of a first count of genocide, he was found ultimately responsible for Srebrenica, the siege of Sarajevo and crimes against humanity in other towns and villages during the Bosnian war of the 1990s. He has been sentenced to 40 years in jail. Karadžić, who once headed the self-styled Bosnian Serb Republic and was Supreme Commander of its armed forces, said ahead of the verdict that he had worked to uphold peace and deserved praise, not punishment. “My permanent fight to preserve the peace, prevent the war and decrease the sufferings of everyone regardless of religion were an exemplary effort deserving respect rather than persecution,” he said. He is the highest-ranking person to face trial over the Bosnian War, in which 100,000 people were killed, and the country divided along ethnic lines that largely survive today.
Radovan Karadzic, former Bosnian Serb leader, convicted of genocide, sentenced to 40 years washingtontimes.com
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić found “responsible” for genocide How deep will the wounds from the Brussels attacks run? newstatesman.com How deep will the wounds from the Brussels attacks run? Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić found “responsible” for genocide newstatesman.com 2016-03-24 18:23 Jonathan Jones www.newstatesman.com
3 Man says he was arrested for not returning VHS rental (2.00/5) CONCORD, N. C. (AP) -- A North Carolina man says he was arrested for failing to return a VHS tape that he rented in 2002. James Meyers says he was driving his daughter to school Tuesday when a police officer pulled him over for a defective tail light. He says the officer told him there was a warrant out for his arrest from 2002, because Meyers had rented the movie "Freddy Got Fingered" starring Tom Green and never returned it. Meyers says the officer let him take his daughter to school and go to work, as long as he promised to turn himself in to the police department later that day. Meyers showed media outlets the arrest warrant on Wednesday. He was booked on a charge of failure to return rental property. Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Video: North Carolina Man Arrested for 14-Year-Late VHS Rental abcnews.go.com 2016-03-25 00:04 Associated Press mynorthwest.com
4 The Latest: Ex-cop in fatal shooting apologizes to partner (2.00/5) NEW YORK (AP) -- The Latest on the case of a New York City police officer charged with fatally shooting a man in a darkened stairwell of a Brooklyn public housing complex (all times local): 3:30 p.m. A former police officer convicted of accidentally shooting an unarmed man in the stairwell of a New York City apartment building has apologized to the man's domestic partner. Peter Liang met with Kimberly Ballinger Thursday morning at an office near the Brooklyn District Attorney. Ballinger's attorney, Scott Rynecki, says Liang expressed remorse over the death of 28- year-old Akai Gurley. She in turn told Liang that because of his actions, her 3-year-old daughter will grow up without a father. Rynecki says the meeting was arranged by Liang's attorneys. He was convicted of manslaughter by a jury. Prosecutors said they won't seek jail time. Ballinger's lawyer said the meeting was short and somber. Liang was fired after the verdict. His partner who was at the scene but not charged was also fired. ___ 1:30 a.m. A prosecutor says he'll ask a judge not to give jail time to a New York City police officer convicted of accidentally firing a stray shot into a public housing stairwell that killed an unarmed man, a recommendation that the victim's family says "diminishes" his death. Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson said Wednesday that Officer Peter Liang acted recklessly, but he didn't intend to kill 28-year-old Akai Gurley. He says justice will be served if Liang is sentenced to probation and six months of house arrest. Liang was fired from the police force last month. Gurley's family says Thompson's recommendation "diminishes Akai's death. " They say they'll implore state Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun to sentence Liang to time in prison at a court proceeding next month. Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
No charges over killing of ax-wielding North Texas student washingtontimes.com 2016-03-25 00:04 Associated Press mynorthwest.com
5 Banks, dam targeted by Iranian hackers, US says; 7 charged (2.00/5) WASHINGTON (AP) - The U. S. charged seven hackers linked to the Iranian government with executing large-scale coordinated cyberattacks on dozens of banks as well as a small dam outside New York City - intrusions that law enforcement officials said reached into America’s infrastructure, disrupted the nation’s financial system and cost tens of millions. Indictments announced Thursday by the Justice Department show a determination by overseas hackers to cripple vital American interests, officials said, and marked the first time the FBI attributed a breach of a U. S. computer system that controls critical infrastructure to a hacker linked to a foreign government. The hackers are accused of infecting thousands of people’s computers with malware to create a network of zombie computers they used to overwhelm servers of major institutions to knock them offline. Those included the Bank of America, NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange. “The attacks were relentless, systematic and widespread,” said Attorney General Loretta Lynch. “They threatened our economic well-being and our ability to compete fairly in the global marketplace, both of which are directly linked to our national security.” One of the alleged hackers is accused of repeatedly gaining access to the control system of the Bowman Avenue Dam, a small flood-control structure in Rye Brook, about 20 miles north of New York City. Officials termed his access “a frightening frontier on cybercrime,” and said the hacker would have been able to operate a digitally controlled sluice gate, flooding portions of the city of Rye, but the gate had been disconnected for maintenance. The hacker was still able to gain information about the dam’s operations, including its water level, temperature and the sluice gate. While that attack did no harm, one official said the hacker obtained knowledge about the computer system that could be used on other dams and infrastructure. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. Computer systems, such as the one controlling the dam, are considered the backbone or core of modern industries including transportation, energy, oil and gas and manufacturing. The indictments unsealed Thursday stem from intrusions between 2011 and 2013 that officials say targeted 46 victims, disabling bank websites and interfering with customers’ ability to do online banking. The attacks, which occurred sporadically over 176 days, cost the institutions tens of millions of dollars in remediation costs, but no customers lost money or had their personal information stolen. The accused hackers worked for two Iranian computer companies linked to the Iranian government, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the U. S. said. Charges include violating U. S. laws on computer hacking and gaining unauthorized access to a protected computer. The seven defendants are Ahmad Fathi, 37; Hamid Firoozi, 34; Amin Shokohi, 25; Sadegh Ahmadzadega, 23; Omid Ghaffarinia, 25; Sina Keissar, 25, and Nader Saedi, 26. Faroozi is charged alone for hacking the dam. Shokohi received credit from the Iranian government toward his mandatory military service for his work in the attacks, the U. S. alleges. None of the individuals is in American custody and it’s unclear whether they will ever be arrested or if criminal indictments in absentia are effective in combatting such crimes. The Justice Department in May 2014 indicted five Chinese military officials suspected of hacking into several major American companies, including U. S. Steel and Westinghouse, and stealing trade secrets. None has been brought to the U. S. to face charges. The Justice Department is determined to remove a cloak of “perceived anonymity” long enjoyed by foreign hackers and has focused on doing so since 2012, said John Carlin, the department’s top national security official. “We want them looking over their shoulder, both when they travel and when they sit at a keyboard,” said FBI Director James Comey. The criminal case comes amid warming relations between the U. S. and Iran following last year’s nuclear agreement. Story Continues →
Iranians charged with cyber attacks on U.S. banks, dams Contact WND wnd.com 2016-03-24 23:36 U.S www.washingtontimes.com
6 Former star CBC radio host acquitted of sexual assault (2.00/5) TORONTO (AP) — A judge on Thursday found a former Canadian Broadcasting Corp. radio host not guilty of sexual assault in a case that sparked a nationwide conversation about consent and sexual harassment. Jian Ghomeshi had faced four counts of sexual assault and one count of choking based on alleged incidents involving three women. He is the former host of "Q," a popular radio show on culture heard in Canada and on many U. S. public stations. Justice William Horkins acquitted Ghomeshi on all charges, saying it is difficult to have trust in witnesses who selectively or deliberately suppress information. He said the three women were less than fully frank and forthcoming. "The harsh reality is that once a witness has shown to be deceptive and manipulative in giving their evidence, that witness can no longer expect the Court to consider them to be a trusted source of the truth," he said in his decision. He added the acquittal was not the same as asserting the events in question never happened. Police launched an investigation in 2014 after more than 12 women contacted various media sources to allege that Ghomeshi had assaulted them. Ghomeshi, who first gained fame as a member of the 1990s satirical pop band Moxy Fruvous, defended himself in a 1,500-word statement on Facebook, saying women consented to having "rough sex" with him and that he was the victim of a disgruntled ex-girlfriend. The CBC fired him. He still faces another sex assault trial based on allegations from a fourth complainant in June. Ghomeshi and his lawyer declined to comment after the verdict. Dozens of women gathered outside the courthouse to protest the verdict, some chanting, "Ghomeshi guilty. " A topless protester jumped in front of the prosecutor while he was talking to the media and was arrested. All three women made damaging revelations after the trial started. The first woman to testify in the trial, whose name is protected by a publication ban, acknowledged that she emailed Ghomeshi a bikini-clad picture of herself a year after he allegedly sexually assaulted her, pulling her hair and punching her in the head in 2003. She claimed on the witness stand to have forgotten about the email and another flirtatious email she sent a year after the incident. She never told police about the emails. The judge said she was deceptive. "It is clear that she deliberately breached her oath to tell the truth. Her value as a reliable witness is diminished accordingly," he said. Television actress Lucy DeCoutere, the second woman to testify, acknowledged that she told Ghomeshi that she wanted to have sex with him a day after he allegedly choked and slapped her in 2003. She only did so after the defense provided email evidence. DeCoutere also acknowledged she sent Ghomeshi flowers days after the alleged assault. And in a handwritten love letter days later, she wrote: "I love your hands. " DeCoutere, who waived her right to have her name not published, never told police about the love letter and testified that she didn't remember the emails. She also told police that she only saw Ghomeshi in passing afterward, but the defense proved otherwise. "It became clear at trial that Ms. DeCoutere very deliberately chose not to be completely honest with the police," the judge said. "The deliberate withholding of the information reflects very poorly on Ms. DeCoutere's trustworthiness as a witness. " The third witness in the case, whose name is protected by a publication ban, acknowledged that she deliberately misled police when she didn't tell them that she had engaged in some sexual activity with Ghomeshi after the alleged assault took place in 2003. The woman testified that she had trouble breathing after Ghomeshi put his hands around her neck as they were making out in a Toronto park. The judge said her decision to withhold the information "until the last minute prior to trial, greatly undermines the Court's confidence in her evidence. " Ghomeshi's sister said the ordeal has been extremely painful for the family. "Jian is not a symbol to us, but a beloved brother and son," Jila Ghomeshi said. "Our hardest burden has been our feeling of helplessness as we have watched him endure a punishment that was not only prior to a verdict but prior to any semblance of due process for well over a year. " The CBC said in a statement that the charges in the trial were unrelated to their decision to fire Ghomeshi but noted that "based on the evidence that came to our attention, Mr. Ghomeshi's actions were not compatible with the values of the public broadcaster nor with our employee code of conduct. We stand by this decision. "
Jian Ghomeshi trial: why the prosecution's case fell apart theguardian.com 2016-03-24 20:51 Associated Press www.dailymail.co.uk
7 State court: Domestic violence law unfair to gay couples COLUMBIA, S. C. (AP) -- A law that perhaps unintentionally failed to protect domestic violence victims in same-sex relationships appears to be unconstitutional, and now South Carolina's high court is trying to decide what to do. The court was asked on Wednesday to weigh in after a woman tried to get a protective order against her former fianc Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
2016-03-25 00:04 Associated Press mynorthwest.com
8 9 charged with murder after teen slain in massive brawl A Georgia sheriff has charged nine people with murder after a fight between two high school girls escalated into a neighborhood street brawl with a mob wielding baseball bats and knives -- and one driver charging at people with a car -- before a teenager was fatally stabbed in the neck. "This is one of the most senseless murders that we've had," Richmond County Sheriff Richard Roundtree said in a phone interview Thursday. "Before this escalates and becomes the norm, we want to take a hard stance and say we are not going to tolerate this in our community. " Demajhay Bell, 18, died at a hospital Sunday, two days after the sprawling fight in a subdivision just outside Augusta. The sheriff said the brawl was so chaotic that Bell, a bystander who stayed inside through most of the fighting, got stabbed by a friend trying to lash out at a combatant who had broken his arm with bat. Investigators suspect say the deadly melee last Friday was actually sparked days earlier by a fight between two girls at Glen Hills High School. They were arguing "over a boy and some racy photos," Roundtree said. School officials stopped the fight on campus, but the dispute festered in social media posts and text messages, the sheriff said. Friends and relatives of each girl joined in and soon there were two groups threatening to settle the dispute in the streets. "The brawl itself was a coordinated effort," Roundtree said. "The group in the neighborhood knew the other group was coming to fight. " Eyvette Byrd, the mother of one of the feuding girls, told deputies that between 30 and 50 people showed up at her home for the fight. According to the sheriff's incident report, some had armed themselves with bats, pipes and knives. Video posted online of the brawl shows two young women in a fistfight in the street while bystanders circle them. A couple of young men are holding baseball bats. One uses his bat to whack the hood of a Dodge Charger, which lurches after him and plows into someone's front lawn. Another young man in the street gets cracked in the arm with a bat. The two-minute video ends with bystanders suddenly screaming, "Call 911! " A person runs past the camera with a hand clutched to his neck, where there's a large blur of red. It wasn't clear who took the video, but the sheriff confirmed it was authentic and that the person clutching his neck was Bell. "He was not even participating," said Roundtree, adding that Bell stayed inside a relative's house for most of the fighting and had just emerged to see what was happening. "The person who stabbed him was a friend of his. He wasn't the intended victim. " Bell fled in a car and stopped for help when he saw a uniformed office in a patrol car. By the time he got medical aid, the sheriff said, he had already lost a tremendous amount of blood. Authorities have arrested nine people -- men and women ranging in age from 18 to 39 -- and charged each with aggravated assault and felony murder. Georgia law defines felony murder as a death caused during the commission of another felony. The charge does not require intent to kill and it carries an automatic life sentence. The sheriff's office identified Demetrius Lamont Harris Jr., 21, as the suspect accused of stabbing Bell. The sheriff said all suspects charged in the case remained jailed Thursday. It was not immediately known how many of them had defense attorneys. Cheryl Karounos, spokeswoman for the Georgia Public Defender's Office, said the agency's Augusta office was representing one of the suspects, 35-year-old Quiauna Henley. She declined to comment further on the case. Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
2016-03-25 00:04 Associated Press mynorthwest.com
9 The Latest: Bail set for flight attendant in cocaine case NEW YORK (AP) -- The Latest on the arrest of a JetBlue flight attendant (all times local): 3:40 p.m. A New York judge has set $500,000 bail and ordered home detention for a JetBlue flight attendant accused of trying to smuggle a suitcase full of cocaine through Los Angeles International Airport and making a dramatic dash to escape. But Marsha Gay Reynolds will remain in custody at least until Friday. A federal magistrate judge in New York is giving federal prosecutors in Los Angeles 24 hours to appeal the bail decision before Reynolds can be released. The 31-year-old Reynolds turned herself in Wednesday in New York. Authorities say they found 70 pounds of cocaine in her luggage at LAX on March 18 after she was pulled aside for a random security screening. They say she then flung off her high heels and bolted barefoot out of the terminal. ___ 7:20 a.m. Authorities say a JetBlue flight attendant accused of using her credentials to attempt to get 70 pounds of cocaine through airport security in Los Angeles before flinging off her heels and fleeing has been arrested in New York. Federal officials say Marsha Gay Reynolds surrendered Wednesday to federal authorities at John F. Kennedy International Airport, though it wasn't immediately clear how she reached New York. Reynolds is a New York resident. She was expected to be in federal court in Brooklyn on Thursday. Authorities say Transportation Security Administration officials asked Reynolds to step aside for a random security screening last week. Reynolds went to a secondary screening area but quickly dropped her bag, ditched a pair of Gucci heels and fled barefoot downward on an upward-moving escalator. Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
2016-03-25 00:04 Associated Press mynorthwest.com
10 $4M will be spent to repair Oregon refuge that was occupied BURNS, Ore. (AP) -- The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service will spend roughly $4 million to clean, repair and upgrade the Oregon wildlife refuge that was the site of a 41-day armed occupation by ranchers earlier this year. Fish and Wildlife Director Dan Ashe said he wants the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns to become a symbol to the rest of the country that collaboration, not confrontation, endures, The Oregonian reported (http://bit.ly/1Rztqwg). Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell made similar statements during her visit to the refuge earlier this week. Photos of the refuge shared by federal officials show that the ranchers left a mess inside the building. The compound is undergoing a giant spring cleaning, with the use of industrial vacuums and cargo trailers filled with cleaning supplies. Repairing damage and removing debris is expected to take until early summer. In all, the standoff will cost Fish and Wildlife about $6 million, with about $2 million spent during the takeover, including the costs of moving the refuge's 17 employees out of town for safety to live at government expense in hotels for weeks, Ashe said. Fish biologist Linda Beck said she's glad to be back at work, but the biggest cost of the standoff was missed work. Beck and a team of biologists were planning to remove invasive carp by commercial fishing because the fish consume habitat needed by birds. At the beginning of the year, Malheur Lake covered about 3,000 acres. It has since grown to about 20,000 acres. "We lost the opportunity to fish for these fish in a really condensed setting," Beck said. ___ Information from: The Oregonian, http://www.oregonlive.com Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
2016-03-25 00:04 Associated Press mynorthwest.com
11 Wildlife officials: Florida bears abundant, totaling 4,350 MIAMI (AP) -- Wildlife officials in Florida say they haven't made a decision about whether to continue allowing the hunting of black bears, but new numbers show the animals are abundant statewide. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said Thursday that the adult population is estimated at 4,350. The data was collected before a bear hunt in October -- the state's first in more than 20 years. Game officials ended the harvest early when limits in some hunting areas were quickly exceeded. The state said bear numbers in those areas were probably larger than previously thought. However, some animal advocates want federal protections for Florida's bears, saying the hunt, urban sprawl and collisions with vehicles threaten the bears' long-term survival. Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
2016-03-25 00:04 Associated Press mynorthwest.com
12 The Latest: EU officials call for passenger data exchange BRUSSELS (AP) -- The Latest on the suicide bombings this week in Brussels (all times local): 8:20 p.m. European justice and home affairs ministers are calling on the European parliament "as a matter of urgency" to adopt an agreement that would allow authorities to exchange airport passenger data. The ministers issued a statement of solidarity with Belgium following an emergency meeting. The joint statement condemned the "horrific terrorist acts" on Tuesday in Brussels and described them as "an attack on our open, democratic society. " The passenger data issue has long disturbed privacy campaigners, and figures large in the debate over security versus liberties. The United States has long pushed for better data sharing, but Europeans have balked over privacy issues. ___ 8:10 p.m. Belgium authorities have lowered the terror threat level one notch, but say the situation is "exceptional" and "grave" and that another attack is "likely and possible. " The head of the terror threat assessment authority, Paul Zan Pigchelt, says the imminent nature of the threat has lessened since the attacks on the airport and subway Tuesday. Nonetheless, he says "the danger has not gone away. " ___ 7:35 p.m. The Dutch justice minister has confirmed that one of the Brussels suicide bombers was flown from Turkey to Amsterdam in July, but says that authorities weren't told why and had no reason to detain him. In a letter to parliament, Justice Minister Ard van der Steur said Thursday that Ibrahim El Bakraoui was put on a plane from Istanbul to the Dutch capital on July 14, but that Turkish officials didn't say why and his name wasn't flagged in any Dutch law enforcement databases. Van der Steur says that El Bakraoui had a valid Belgian passport when he arrived in Amsterdam "so there was no reason to take any action" at Schiphol Airport. It wasn't clear what El Bakraoui did after arriving in the Netherlands. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that El Bakraoui, was caught in June 2015 near Turkey's border with Syria and deported, at his own request, to the Netherlands, with Ankara warning Dutch and Belgian officials that he was a "foreign terrorist fighter. " The Dutch version of events appeared to contradict that, with Van der Steur saying that an electronic message from Turkey's foreign ministry to the Dutch embassy in Ankara gave no information about the reason El Bakraoui and an unidentified German national were put on the flight. ___ 6:55 p.m. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve says France is proposing the creation of a taskforce to help in the fight against fake identities. Speaking from the sidelines of the of EU justice and security ministers' meeting in Brussels on Thursday, Cazeneuve acknowledged that more must be done since "Islamic State managed to get fake passports and have established a structure that manufactures fake documents. " Multiple suspects in Tuesday's attacks in Brussels and November's attacks in Paris were found to have used false identities. Cazeneuve added that a united front needs to be shown also in the fight against arms trafficking, which he called "one of the main causes of the development of terrorist activities. " ___ 6:45 p.m. A Brussels court has ordered 16 people to stand trial over an attempted terrorist attack in January 2015 -- a plot linked to a man who later orchestrated the Paris attacks. Belgian counterterrorism forces raided the town of Verviers on Jan. 15, 2015 to foil what was described as a jihadi plot to mount a major and imminent attack, killing two suspects. The federal prosecutor's office said in a statement Thursday that 16 people would be sent to trial, including four who are under pre-trial detention. Among the initial suspects who will not face trial is Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected Paris attacks ringleader. He was killed in a police raid days after the Nov. 13 attacks on Paris. Abaaoud was linked to a string of thwarted attacks in France last year as well, and experts believe they were effectively rehearsals for the Paris violence. ___ 6:45 p.m. Brussels airport has cancelled flights until at least Monday because of the Brussels attacks. The long Easter weekend is one of the busiest in the year with at least some 600 flights for 60,000 passengers a day. Sunday would be the sixth straight day without flights at the airport and airlines have made alternative plans to keep flight cancellations for their passengers to a minimum. ___ 5:15 p.m. The Lithuanian president has slammed other European leaders as "too naive" in the face of extremism, saying that tougher measures are needed even if it means sacrificing some human rights. In the wake of the Belgium attacks, Dalia Grybauskaite said that in the fight against extremist organizations "our reaction must be adequate ... (and) the time to complain about human rights has long since passed. " The Baltic leader was speaking in a local radio interview Thursday before meeting NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow and alliance ambassadors. Lithuania, an eager NATO partner after nearly five decades of Soviet occupation, was allegedly involved in a secret CIA program, including providing a jail for terror suspects who were flown into the country by the U. S. intelligence agency in 2004-2005. ___ 4 p.m. A senior official from Turkey's ruling party says Belgian authorities should have treated Turkey's warnings over one of the Brussels attackers with "more sensitivity. " Omer Celik -- spokesman for Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's Justice and Development Party -- also said Thursday the fact that Turkey had warned Brussels over the bomber should "put to shame" countries who have accused Ankara of supporting the Islamic State group. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that one of the Brussels attackers, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, was caught in June 2015 near Turkey's border with Syria and deported, at his own request, to the Netherlands, with Ankara warning Dutch and Belgian officials that he was a "foreign terrorist fighter. " Turkish officials said he was released from Dutch custody due to lack of evidence of involvement in extremism. "We caught him, we prevented him from crossing into Syria, we deported him and we warned Belgium and the Netherlands about him," Celik said. "Since the warning was made by Turkey, they could have asked for more information. They could have treated the issue with more sensitivity. " ___ 3:20 p.m. A Jet Airways manager says a flight attendant injured in the Belgium attacks is undergoing treatment for burns and has been placed in a medically induced coma. Bernard Guisset, a Jet Airways manager in Brussels, said Nidhi Chaphekar has burns over 15 percent of her body and has a fractured foot, but is out of danger. The image of Chaphekar taken right after the blast was one of the most searing photographs taken Tuesday. It showed the 40-year-old mother of two from Mumbai, her bright yellow uniform ripped across her chest. Her hair was caked with soot, and blood streaked down her face. Meanwhile, Amit Motwani, a Jet Airways flight purser who was also injured in the airport blast, was being treated for injuries to his eye and ear. ___ 3:05 p.m. France says it will use an emergency meeting in Brussels to call for better security measures in Europe. Government spokesman Stephane Le Foll quoted President Francois Hollande as telling a Cabinet meeting that the country will "speak loud and clear" when EU ministers of Justice and Interior gather Thursday. The French government is urging the EU parliament to authorize a common passenger name record for the bloc. The database contains details on air travelers, such as their names and destinations. France wants the members of Europe's passport-free Schengen area to improve their exchange of intelligence. It also wants the fight against the illegal trafficking of weapons to be on the agenda of the meeting. France had already called for these measures to be quickly implemented following Nov. 13 Paris attacks. ___ 2:40 p.m. Belgium's interior minister submitted his resignation after unprecedented peacetime attacks on this country and revelations that one of the attackers had been flagged as a "foreign terrorist fighter," but the prime minister refused to accept it. Interior Minister Jan Jambon said after a government meeting Thursday that "If you put all things in a row, you can ask yourself major questions" about the government's handling of the threat from Islamic extremists. Tuesday's attacks exposed authorities' failures to prevent violence despite heightened concerns since the November Paris attacks, which were plotted from Belgium. Turkey's president said Wednesday that one of the Brussels suicide bombers, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, was caught in June 2015 near Turkey's border with Syria and deported to the Netherlands, with Ankara warning Dutch and Belgian officials that he was a "foreign terrorist fighter. " Turkish officials said he was later released from Dutch custody due to lack of evidence of involvement in extremism. Jambon said: "I realized that in these conditions it was justified to offer my resignation to the premier. " ___ 2:30 p.m. Belgian prosecutors say that a suicide bomber who targeted the Brussels metro had rented a house used as a hideout for the Paris attackers, and that he had been hunted by police since December. The statement Thursday by the federal prosecutors' office confirms the link between the Nov. 13 attacks on Paris and Tuesday's suicide bombings targeting the Brussels airport and subway system. The statement says the Belgian magistrate investigating the Paris attacks issued European and international warrants for Khalid El Barkaoui on Dec. 11. It says he is suspected of renting a residence in Charleroi under an assumed name. Several of the Paris bombers were Belgian or had links to Belgium. The statement says police have conducted several raids since Tuesday's attacks and arrested one person who was subsequently released. ___ 2:15 p.m. Belgium's prime minister is promising to do everything to determine who was responsible for deadly attacks targeting the Brussels airport and subway system. Charles Michel, in a national mourning speech Thursday, said Tuesday's attacks on the European Union's capital targeted the "liberty of daily life" and "the liberty upon which the European project was built. " "Our country and our population were hit at its heart," he said in front of the Parliament building. He honored the "children who have lost their papas, who have lost their mamas" in the attacks, which killed at least 31 people and were claimed by Islamic State extremists. "The cries of distress, the cries of pain, the scream of sirens, the apocalyptic images will remain engraved" on memories, he said -- just like those of recent attacks in Paris, Mali, Tunisia and Turkey. ___ 1:45 p.m. The lethal extremist attack in Belgium has sparked a pitched debate in Britain over whether the UK would be safer if it votes to leave the European Union. Both sides in the upcoming June 23 referendum debate claimed the attacks in Brussels strengthened their position. Intelligence figures and senior politicians seemed divided over the security issue, with former Secret Intelligence Service chief Richard Dearlove arguing that leaving the EU would make Britain more secure. He said it would free Britain from Europe's "freedom of movement" rules and give Britain more control. But Rob Wainwright, director of Europol, insisted Thursday that a departure from the EU would make Britain more vulnerable because it would no longer have access to intelligence-sharing systems. The issue has also divided Prime Minister David Cameron's Cabinet. ___ 1:40 p.m. The international airport in the Slovak capital, Bratislava, has introduced new checks of passengers at the entrance to the terminal building as part of increased security following the attacks in Brussels. Ivan Trhlik, director of the M. R. Stefanik airport, says passengers will be allowed to use only one entrance to the terminal and will immediately undergo a check at new security gates together with their luggage. Trhlik said Thursday the measure is needed to ensure the safety of passengers. It could remain in place permanently. Bratislava's is a relatively small airport with 1.56 million passengers using it last year. Authorities say if the new checks cause delays, passengers will be advised to arrive at the terminal one hour sooner than usual. ___ 12:15 p.m. Hungary's interior minister says the government wants to limit phone calls in the vicinity of any future terror attack to prevent the overload of communications networks and avoid interference with emergency and rescue services. Interior Minister Sandor Pinter said Thursday that civilians would be restricted to sending only text messages in areas affected by any attack. The concept's technical aspects would be developed jointly with the telecommunications companies. Pinter said networks frequently collapse after attacks because of the large number of people wanting to get in touch with friends or relatives. Pinter said another alternative would be to expand an exclusive radio network already used by police and the disaster management agency to other emergency services like firefighters, ambulances and hospitals. The idea is part of a new package of anti-terrorism measures being discussed by the government that also seeks to grant intelligence services greater access to financial transactions and personal communications. ___ 12:10 p.m. The driver of the subway train bombed in Brussels this week immediately helped victims despite the horror and fear of the attack -- but he insists he's not a hero. Christian Delhasse described to Belgian state broadcaster RTBF doing "what I had to do. " He's reportedly already back at work, as the Belgian public transport system gradually gets back toward normal following Tuesday's deadly attacks at the Maelbeek station and Brussels airport. Delhasse posted a statement on his Facebook page saying, "I'm a metro driver who did his work in specific circumstances. Any other driver in my place would have done the same thing. The heroes are our firefighters, our forces of order, our army. " He urged respect for "the victims we couldn't pull out. " ___ 10:40 a.m. The lawyer for the chief Paris attacks suspect says his client is not fighting extradition to France, which is seeking his extradition from Belgium to face potential terrorism charges. Salah Abdeslam's lawyer, Sven Mary, told reporters in Brussels on Thursday that he asked for a one-month delay on any transfer while he studies the large dossier. He said that Abdeslam "wants to leave for France as quickly as possible. " Abdeslam was captured in Brussels last week after four months on the run following the Nov. 13 Paris attacks on a stadium, rock concert and cafes that killed 130 people. ___ 8:40 a.m. The chief suspect in last year's deadly Paris attacks is facing a hearing in Brussels, amid increasing signs that the same Islamic State cell was behind attacks in both cities. Salah Abdeslam is scheduled to face magistrates Thursday morning after his arrest last week in the same Brussels neighborhood where he grew up. France is seeking his extradition to face potential terrorism charges for his involvement in the Nov. 13 attacks on a Paris rock concert, stadium and cafes, which killed 130 people. Several attackers were also killed. European security officials say one of the suicide bombers who attacked the Brussels airport Tuesday is a suspected bombmaker for the Paris attackers. A car accompanied by police left the prison in Bruges where Abdeslam has been held on Thursday morning. ___ 8:35 a.m. Belgian state broadcaster RTBF and France's Le Monde are reporting that a second attacker is suspected of taking part in the bombing this week of a Brussels subway train and may be at large. The media, citing unnamed sources, said Thursday the suspect was filmed by surveillance cameras in the Brussels metro on Tuesday carrying a large bag alongside Khalid El Bakraoui, whom prosecutors have identified as a suicide bomber. RTBF said it is not clear whether the second suspect was killed in the attack. El Bakraoui's brother was identified as one of two suicide bombers who targeted the Brussels airport the same day in attacks that killed at least 31 people and injured more than 200. Prosecutors did not immediately respond to the reports. Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
2016-03-24 11:40 Associated Press mynorthwest.com
13 Amazon says it pays women and men equally In a survey of its staff, Amazon ( AMZN , Tech30 ) found that women made 99.9% of men's earnings in equivalent positions last year. Minorities even made slightly more than whites, taking home 100.1% of what Caucasians earned. "There will naturally be slight fluctuations from year to year, but at Amazon we are committed to keeping compensation fair and equitable," an Amazon spokesman said in a statement. The survey was the result of a proposal from Arjuna Capital, an activist shareholder that's part of Boston-based Baldwin Brothers investment company. Arjuna successfully lobbied Amazon to cough up its pay disparity data. Amazon had initially petitioned the Securities and Exchange Commission to withhold that information, but the SEC turned down Amazon's request earlier in the month. As a result, Amazon released the survey results, preempting Arjuna's shareholder proposal. Arjuna is in the process of withdrawing its proposal. "After an initially defensive response, Amazon is stepping up to the plate and making a public commitment to gender pay equity," said Natasha Lamb, director of equity research and shareholder engagement at Arjuna Capital. "It's good for the company, it's good for employees, and it's good for shareholders. " Arjuna says its mission is to "advance the understanding of what sustainability means for investor returns and corporate profitability. " It pushes companies to believe that equal pay and environmentally friendly policies are good business. Related: Yes, men earn more than women Amazon is the latest in a string of recent victories for Lamb and Arjuna. On Thursday, Arjuna announced that it successfully got Expedia ( EXPE ) to disclose its policies and goals to address the gender pay gap. Expedia will also disclose its pay disparity information by October 2016. Apple ( AAPL , Tech30 ) and Intel ( INTC , Tech30 ) agreed to Arjuna's demands last year to commit to pay parity. "What we know is that a 'trust me, women are paid fairly' approach is not enough, and a defensive approach to gender pay equity will not solve the problem," Lamb said. Eventually, companies will have to start disclosing this information anyway. In January, President Obama ordered the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to begin collecting companies' pay data, broken down by sex, ethnicity and race. Nationally, women earn just 79% of what men take home . Arjuna also scored wins against Exxon ( XOM ) and Chevron ( CVX ) , after the SEC rejected the oil companies' attempts to exclude Arjuna's climate change shareholder proposals.
2016-03-25 00:04 David Goldman rss.cnn.com
14 Lebanon signs new finance agreements with development banks BEIRUT (AP) -- The World Bank and Islamic Development Bank have signed agreements worth hundreds of millions of dollars to help Lebanon cope with the large number of Syrian refugees who were displaced by their country's civil war. The announcement was made after a Thursday meeting between Prime Minister Tammam Salam and visiting U. N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim and Islamic Development Bank President Ahmad Mohamed Ali Al-Madani. Lebanon is home to more than 1 million registered Syrian refugees, or nearly a quarter of the country's 4.5 million people. Lebanon says that another half a million Syrians live in the country as well. "The Syrian refugees' presence in Lebanon has generated a severe burden that Lebanon is no longer able to face alone," said Salam during a joint news conference with the visiting dignitaries. The World Bank president said that it has already signed agreements worth $900 million with Lebanon, saying that the World Bank is doing all it can to get that money out, but progress has been slow because Lebanon has been without a president since May 2014 and parliament rarely meets. He added that the World Bank's board has decided to take $100 million from a fund used only for the poorest countries, mostly in Africa and South Asia, and "provided today a very concessional loan for the education sector, again to show our appreciation for what Lebanon has done in educating refugees here. " The head of the Islamic Development Bank announced that five agreements have been signed to help Lebanon, and pledged to help more in the future. "We have signed five agreements worth $373 million. There is another agreement that will be signed soon, God willing, in which the amount will be $400 million," Al-Madani said. He added that several projects are underway and "we expect that during this year there will be agreements worth $220 million. " Earlier Thursday, a bomb targeted a military vehicle in eastern Lebanon near the border with Syria, killing one soldier and wounding three, a Lebanese military official said. The official said the bombing occurred on the edge of the town of Arsal in the Atta Valley. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. The Islamic State group and al-Qaida's branch in Syria, known as the Nusra Front, control parts of that volatile border area. Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
2016-03-25 00:04 Associated Press mynorthwest.com
15 Experts: Belgium Often Comes up Short in Preventing Attacks Belgium has come up short in its efforts to prevent extremist attacks time and again, experts say — failing to coordinate intelligence, investigate suspects and control its borders. No country has a perfect record, but Belgium's is especially bad. On Tuesday, suicide bombers linked to the Islamic State group detonated their explosives at Brussels Airport and on a subway train, killing 32 people including three of the attackers and injuring some 270. Raffaello Pantucci, director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London, called it "depressingly predictable" that a major attack would occur in Brussels. "There is sort of a perfect union," he said — a combination of homegrown, hardened Muslim radicals willing to act and possessing the tools and opportunity, as well as a government and law enforcement structure that simply isn't up to the task. Historically, Belgium has often been found wanting when it comes to sharing intelligence among different agencies, applying what's learned to police work and controlling its external borders, said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution think tank. In addition, he said, Brussels often fails to strike the balance that other countries achieve in weighing the desire to investigate suspected criminal activity and the need to act quickly when an immediate threat is identified. "I don't believe Belgium has done very well with most of the above over the years," O'Hanlon said. "Though I suspect they will rethink things from first principles now. " In a shocking departure from the habitually polite speech of European relations, French Finance Minister Michel Sapin accused Belgian officials on Tuesday of a "lack of will... maybe also a kind of naivete" in ignoring the spread of radical Islam among the country's 650,000-member Muslim population. Alain Marsaud, a conservative member of France's parliament, said in a newspaper interview he was "disgusted by the inability of the Belgians over these recent months and years to deal with this problem. " He expressed particular astonishment that it took the Belgians more than four months to capture Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam, who returned to Brussels the day after the bloodbath in the French capital but eluded Belgian authorities multiple times and was run to ground only Friday. Belgium interior and justice ministers both tendered their resignations overnight Wednesday after the unprecedented peacetime attacks on their nation — and the revelation that one of the suicide bombers, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, had been flagged to Belgian and Dutch authorities as a "foreign terrorist fighter" by Turkey, which deported him to the Netherlands in June. Turkish officials said El Bakraoui was subsequently released from Dutch custody. "During the process of passing on the information from Turkey and during the information processing in Belgium, things went slower than the circumstances warranted," Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens conceded. "If you put all things in a row, you can ask yourself major questions" about Belgium's handling of the threat of Islamic extremism, said Interior Minister Jan Jambon. Prime Minister Charles Michel refused to accept either resignation. The reasons for the Belgian dysfunction are many. Guns, including illegal battlefield-grade weapons from the former Yugoslavia, are readily available. A complicated, disjointed governmental structure has hindered the forging of a unified front against extremism. Mayors in the greater Brussels area complained last year that even when officially alerted to the presence of suspected radicals in their municipalities, they lacked the power to do anything about it. The Brussels area, a mosaic of 19 municipalities where 1 million people live, has six separate police zones, compared to a single law enforcement agency for all of New York City and its population of 8.4 million. And around the country, different forces operate in French, Dutch or German, complicating communication. "They have got so many different police forces, and they don't all talk to each other," Pantucci said. All that has allowed radical groups to operate with less fear of detection than they face elsewhere. Per capita, Belgium is the Islamic State's most fertile recruiting ground in Europe as it seeks to find Westerners to fight for its self-styled caliphate in Syria and Iraq. Many of the suicide bombers and gunmen in last year's Paris attacks lived in Brussels. And French authorities say Belgian involvement is suspected in the abortive attack on an international express train and a failed plot to attack a Paris-area church. "Belgium has been a prime site for immigrants from the Middle East and has notoriously poor police and border controls," said Melvyn Levitsky, a former U. S. ambassador with postings in Europe and South America. RTBF Belgian broadcasting reported this month that an official oversight body had found gaps and errors in how Belgian law enforcement handled information about the Paris attackers before they wrought their carnage. An example: An alias used by one suspect was keyed into some police databases but not the central one, it said. The government concedes it needs to make progress. Last month, it announced a 400-million euro ($448 million) program to combat "terrorism and radicalization," including the hiring of 1,000 additional police, prosecutors, state security agents and other personnel. "We have to do more," Michel, the prime minister, said in November, "and we have to do better. " ——— Contributors to this report included Lorne Cook, Raf Casert and Raphael Satter in Brussels, Lori Hinnant in Paris and Rhonda Shafner in New York.
2016-03-25 00:04 By abcnews.go.com
16 The Latest: Winds frustrate wildfire containment in Oklahoma KIOWA, Kan. (AP) -- The latest on wildfires burning across parts of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas (all times local): 2:10 p.m. Strong winds have thwarted efforts to contain a wildfire that has burned 620 square miles of rural land in Oklahoma and Kansas, and it's now approaching populated areas. Oklahoma Forestry Services spokesman Mark Goeller said Thursday that strong winds shifted the direction of the fire late Wednesday and overwhelmed existing containment lines. Officials are now monitoring a part of the blaze 5 miles away from Alva, Oklahoma, where about 5,000 people live. No mandatory evacuations have been issued in Oklahoma, though Goeller says officials are forming contingency evacuation plans as crews work to slow the fire's spread. Goeller says wind conditions and humidity are expected to improve throughout the day, making progress on containment more likely. ____ 1:05 p.m. Grass fires burning several counties northeast of a massive two-state blaze have forced evacuations and destroyed a home. The Harvey County sheriff's office said in a news release Thursday that dozens of firefighters are battling two blazes northwest of the town of Burrton. One home was lost Wednesday night, but the owner wasn't home. The sheriff's office says multiple outbuildings have burned and livestock also have been killed. The office says two firefighters were treated and released Wednesday evening for eye irritation from blowing ash and smoke. No other injuries have been reported. The National Weather Service says wind gusts of up to 50 mph were reported early Thursday in nearby Wichita. Winds had died down to 30 mph around daybreak and were expected to continue losing strength. ___ 11:35 a.m. Smoke from the wildfires burning in Oklahoma and Kansas has traveled hundreds of miles. The National Weather Service says the smoke has been detected as far away as Springfield, Missouri, about 290 miles to the east, and in St. Louis, about 460 miles to the northeast of the fires. Springfield meteorologist Mark Burchfield says the smell of smoke was "pretty strong" as he was leaving for work Thursday morning. St. Louis meteorologist Mark Britt says the weather service posted on social media advising of the smoke. The strong winds that are blowing the smoke also are complicating efforts to fight the fires that have consumed more than 600 square miles of largely rural land along the Kansas-Oklahoma border since Wednesday. ___ 10:45 a.m. Authorities say wildfires have burned about 85 square miles of grassland in the Texas Panhandle. No one has been hurt in the fires that began Wednesday. They are partially contained Thursday. The Texas A&M Forest Service said Thursday that the largest wildfire has burned about 70 square miles in rural areas in Carson, Hutchinson, Roberts and Gray counties. Agency spokeswoman Linda Moon says some people were evacuated Wednesday from their homes in Skellytown, about 45 miles northeast of Amarillo, but were allowed to return after a few hours. A smaller fire has burned about 15 square miles of grassland in Wheeler County. ___ 10:20 a.m. Another grass fire has started burning in Kansas, several counties northeast of a massive two- state blaze. The Harvey County sheriff's office says on Facebook that multiple homes have been evacuated as crews fight the blaze. A shelter for displaced residents has been established at a high school. The post says several small structures have been damaged but that no injuries have been reported. A sheriff's department official wasn't able to immediately comment on the size of the Harvey County fire. The National Weather Service says wind gusts of up to 50 mph were reported early Thursday in nearby Wichita. Winds had died down to 30 mph around daybreak and were expected to continue losing strength. ___ 8:50 a.m. Authorities estimate that a wildfire has burned 625 square miles in Oklahoma and Kansas. Preliminary estimates from the Oklahoma Forestry Services say about 220 square miles have burned in Oklahoma and 405 square miles in Kansas. The worst damage in Kansas is in Barber and Comanche counties, where the fire continues to burn Thursday. Forestry Services spokeswoman Michelle Finch-Walker says crews are surveying the wildfire by aircraft Thursday morning and more concrete numbers will be available once that's complete. An emergency management official said earlier Thursday that the fire had burned more than 300 square miles in southern Kansas. ___ 8:35 a.m. Fourteen patients have been evacuated from a small hospital in rural southern Kansas because of a wildfire. Medicine Lodge Memorial Hospital sent 12 patients to a nursing home Wednesday night and the other two to a nearby hospital. Authorities say the blaze went around the Barber County town of about 2,000 residents, and plans are being made to return the patients to the facility Thursday. Hospital CEO Kevin White describes the evacuation as precautionary. He says the smoke was so thick that it "completely obliterated the sun" at 5 p.m. Wednesday, an hour before the patients left. The hospital kept its emergency room open and treated one firefighter and one member of the public for smoke inhalation. He described what was happening as "pretty scary stuff. " ___ 8:20 a.m. A wildfire has reignited in a Kansas county where it was briefly brought under control. Comanche County Emergency Management coordinator John Lehman says crews have been sent back out Thursday morning to resume the firefight. The blaze had been under control Wednesday night. Lehman says the blaze reignited when winds blew embers onto unburnt land. He says that once embers hit dry grass, "away it goes. " He says crews are fighting a mile-long moving fire line. The fire has claimed about 37 square miles in the county after starting Tuesday near the Kansas border in Oklahoma, and has burned a further 280 square miles in neighboring Barber County. ____ 6:45 a.m. Hundreds of firefighters are battling a 30 to 40 mile line of fire in a rural Barber County in southern Kansas that has already lost 280 square miles of land to the wildfire. Kansas Incident Management Team spokeswoman Darcy Golliher said Thursday that she doesn't know how much land has burned in neighboring Comanche County, where the fire is now under control, nor in nearby Oklahoma, where the blaze started Tuesday. She says the Kansas State Highway Patrol will fly over Thursday afternoon to evaluate the damage. No one is hurt, but one home has burned. Strong winds have complicated the firefight. The National Weather Service says 25 mph winds are forecast in the area until noon, when they are expected to drop to 15 mph. Gusts of 45 to 50 mph were reported Wednesday. ___ 1:20 a.m. Authorities say a wildfire in south-central Kansas still poses a threat but that conditions are improving in the two counties most affected. Ben Bauman, director of public affairs for the Kansas Department of the Adjutant General, said in a statement early Thursday that the fires in Comanche County are under control. Fires in adjacent Barber County have improved but are still being monitored. Bauman says the fire went around the town of Medicine Lodge, where authorities had said earlier that up to 1,000 structures were threatened. One home and outbuilding were destroyed on the outskirts of town. The fire started in an Oklahoma border county Tuesday and moved into Kansas. It has burned nearly 110 square miles. Gov. Sam Brownback has declared a state of disaster emergency for some areas, authorizing state resources to assist. Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
2016-03-25 00:04 Associated Press mynorthwest.com
17 Obama Honors Argentine Victims of 'Dirty War' President Obama paid tribute to the victims of Argentina’s so-called “Dirty War,” honoring thousands of Argentinians killed by visiting the Parque de la Memoria on the 40th anniversary of the 1976 military coup, acknowledging “controversy about the policies of the United States early in those dark days.” "I believe we have a responsibility to confront the past with honesty and transparency,” Obama said. “A memorial like this speaks to the responsibilities that all of us have. We cannot forget the past, but when we find the courage to confront it, and we find the courage to change that past, that's when we build a better future. " Walking alongside Argentine President Mauricio Macri through the memorial, the leaders reached the inscription of Fernando Brodsky, where they were met by Fernando's brother Marcelo Brodsky. The trio continued through the memorial, pausing at the name of Toni Motta -- an American journalist who disappeared during the violence. "This park is a tribute to their memory but it's also a tribute to the bravery and tenacity of the parents and spouses, siblings and the children who love and remember them," Obama said during remarks at the memorial. "Today, we also commemorate those who fought side-by-side with Argentinians for human rights. " The presidents were handed small bouquets of white roses and walked onto a pier, where they tossed the flowers into the river where many of the victims were drowned. Obama said the United States government would declassify U. S. military and intelligence documents related to the "Dirty War," at the request of Macri and human rights groups. Opened in 1997, the memorial is located alongside the Río de la Plata in the Belgrano neighborhood of Buenos Aires. The primary structure in the park is the Monument to the Victims of State Terrorism , a long wall -- similar to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D. C. -- inscribed with 20,000 names and ages of victims. An additional 10,000 empty plaques represent victims who have not been identified. The wall is connected to a jetty that extends into the river, commemorating those who disappeared at sea. ABC News' Ben Siegel contributed to this report.
2016-03-25 00:04 By abcnews.go.com
18 Keeping Europe safe after attacks in Brussels Young leaders of Islam are needed to repulse the recruitment and deployment of the radicalised Sir, The appalling events in Brussels demonstrate two clear conclusions. First, Isil has the resources and capacity to plan multiple attacks in different cities within a short time frame, including the ability to respond quickly to events (such as the arrest of Salah Abdeslam). Second, the current quality of even shared intelligence is far from a guarantee against such atrocities. The outrage and anger we feel will not combat Isil. We must engage and join with the Muslim communities of Europe in their condemnation of the heresies that drive the growth of Isil. In doing so, we should urge those
2016-03-25 00:01 www.thetimes.co.uk
19 Donald Trump continues Twitter war with Ted Cruz, unleashes on rival’s wife, Heidi, again Businessman Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz , both 2016 GOP presidential candidates, traded jabs over Twitter late Wednesday after Mr. Trump doubled down on his political assault against Mr. Cruz ’s wife, Heidi Cruz. Mr. Trump , the GOP front-runner, first threatened on Tuesday to “spill the beans” on his rival’s wife after a pro- Cruz super PAC called “Make America Awesome” circulated a meme that featured a nude image of his spouse, Melania Trump, in a come- hither pose. The ad read: “Meet Melania Trump. Your next first lady. Or, you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday.” The ad enraged Mr. Trump , who took to Twitter to vent. “Be careful, Lyin’ Ted , or I will spill the beans on your wife!” Mr. Trump tweeted on Tuesday evening. Mr. Cruz has since stated that he had no part in circulating the sexually charged image ahead of Tuesday’s primary in the predominately Mormon state of Utah and told NBC’s “Today” show that Mr. Trump ’s threat “speaks volumes about character” and “is the epitome of classlessness.” “If Donald is trying to mess with my wife, he’s way out of his league,” Mr. Cruz added. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop his opponent from continuing the social media spat. Late Wednesday, Mr. Trump shared an image on Twitter that compared a candid, unflattering photograph of Mrs. Cruz with a glamour shot of Mrs. Trump. “No need to ‘spill the beans,’ ” an accompanying caption read. “The images are worth a thousands words.” The meme had originally been tweeted to Mr. Trump by a Twitter follower, @Don_Vito_08, but it was copied by the presidential front-runner and shared with his social media audience of more than 7 million Twitter users. “ Donald , real men don’t attack women. Your wife is lovely, and Heidi is the love of my life,” Mr. Cruz responded in a tweet early Thursday. The results of a poll released on Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California evening put Mr. Trump 11 points ahead of the Texas senator with respect to GOP voters in the Golden State, were a winner-takes-all primary is scheduled for June 7.
2016-03-24 23:44 In a www.washingtontimes.com
20 Paul Ryan’s Lenten sacrifices: ‘Impatience and anxiety’ House Speaker Paul D. Ryan , a practicing Roman Catholic, said in a new web video Thursday that he gave up impatience and anxiety as his Lenten sacrifice this year. While most Catholics give up a favorite sweet, and some forgo meat or full meals, Mr. Ryan said he’s done those sorts of sacrifices before, and felt it made more sense to work on what he called his own character problems. “I gave up impatience and anxiety this year,” he said in a brief video released by his office. Lent is the religious season before Easter, meant to be a special time of prayer, fasting and penance as a reminder of the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert being tested by the devil. “I used to give up food things, I used to give up, you know, beer, or ice cream or pop. Typically what I do is don’t pick those things back up. Ice cream and beer I still have a little bit, but I’ve given up so many things over the years, food-wise, that I decided to witch my Lenten vows to character deficiencies, or problems I’ve had,” Mr. Ryan said. He said he first tried a behavioral change several years ago when, as the new chairman of the House Budget Committee, he was fighting to get a conservative budget approved by a fractured GOP. “I gave up fear that year and was able to pass our budget and do it happily, joyfully,” Mr. Ryan said. Mr. Ryan is the third Catholic in a row to hold the speaker’s post, following Rep. Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, and former Rep. John A. Boehner, an Ohio Republican who stepped down last year. On Wednesday, in a speech about injecting civility into politics, Mr. Ryan said his faith is integral to his public life, and particularly informs his efforts to combat poverty. “I’m a Christian who chooses to practice Christianity as a practicing Catholic. And we have certain principles that I think are very important that apply very well to what we do in public life as lay Catholics,” he said. “It gives me a sense of philosophy that is grounded in my faith, but it also gives me a sense of how I should conduct myself, both personally and publicly, because I think they’re inseparable, number one. Number two, you’re always going to fail. And when you fail, and after you fail, you ask for forgiveness and you try and pick up and improve yourself going forward,” Mr. Ryan said in his speech.
2016-03-24 23:44 Speaker of www.washingtontimes.com
21 Carly Fiorina relaunches her old campaign on new mission to elect ‘conservative outsiders’ Former GOP presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina is back on the political landscape with a new mission. She has re-branded and re-purposed her old campaign “ Carly for America” to “help conservative outsiders win in November, restoring citizen government at every level,” Mrs. Fiorina notes in an initial announcement. Her image has changed too. Gone are the patriotic colors of her presidential wardrobe, replaced by the muted shades of someone ready to get down to business. “It’s about defeating the Washington establishment of both parties—and electing real conservative leaders from outside the political class, who will engage citizens around the nation and lead the charge to take our country back,” says Mrs. Fiorina , who endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz for president earlier this month. “These citizen leaders have the commonsense solutions and the clear-headed perspective we need to solve our nation’s problems. Instead of representing the liberal establishment, they will represent the American people. Instead of being concerned with party politics, they will get the job done. Instead of taking away our rights, they will defend our Constitution,” she states. “I know about outsider candidates, because I’ve been one,” Mrs. Fiorina continues, citing lack of funding and name recognition and a hostile mainstream media as primary challenges for those hoping to break in the field. Outsiders must also face down foes like a Republican establishment “actively working to shut them out and shut them up.” Mrs. Fiorina says she’s on the look out for conservatives candidates willing to fight, and “shake up the status quo.” And it looks like her campaign apparatus is very much intact - she is also looking for donations for the outsider hopefuls. “Anything we can do to make sure they have all the resources they need to amplify their voices, bypass the media and the establishment, and win over voters.”
2016-03-24 23:44 Carly Fiorina www.washingtontimes.com
22 22 Helen Purcell, Phoenix official, backtracks after blaming Arizona voters for lines PHOENIX (AP) — Bruce Weiss stewed after waiting 2½ hours in line outside a downtown Phoenix polling place, where juice drinks, snacks and circus animal cookies were handed out by citizens hoping to pacify thousands who turned out to cast ballots in Arizona’s presidential primary. The scene was repeated Tuesday as thousands stood in lines that wrapped around sidewalks at churches, community centers and government buildings after the number of places to vote were cut back as a cost-savings measure. Some voters took shelter from the sun under umbrellas. Others brought lawn chairs. Still others gave up and went home. The last voters entered polling spots after midnight. “It’s like a complete, total failure of government,” Weiss said. PHOTOS: Phoenix official backtracks after blaming voters for lines Waits dragged on as long as five hours in Maricopa County — home to metro Phoenix and 1.2 million voters eligible to cast ballots — but where only 60 polling places were open. By Wednesday, the mayor of Phoenix said the cutbacks were about more than saving money. Mayor Greg Stanton, a Democrat, called for a federal investigation into whether election officials illegally put fewer polling locations in poor or minority-heavy areas. Stanton in a letter to the Justice Department also cited examples of other policies adopted by elections officials and the state Legislature that have created “a culture of voter disenfranchisement.” Arizona’s Republican governor called the primary day foul-ups “unacceptable,” and others demanded the resignation of the county’s top elections official, Recorder Helen Purcell. Purcell initially put the blame on voters, stirring a clamor on the Internet. Her name was a trending topic on Twitter. But Wednesday she backtracked, saying she failed to anticipate the effect of intense voter interest on primary turnout. “I made bad decisions based on the information I had, obviously, or we wouldn’t have had long lines,” Purcell told The Associated Press. In the 2012 presidential primary, there were 200 places for voters to cast ballots in the county, which is heavily Republican. By comparison, Pima County — home to more liberal Tucson, Arizona, and a quarter of Maricopa County’s population — had 124 voting locations Tuesday. Ramped-up interest in the presidential primary was also seen Tuesday in Idaho and Utah, where results were delayed as throngs of voters packed caucus sites. Republican and Democratic party officials predicted record turnouts but still underestimated the crowds. Three-fourths of the Democratic caucus sites in Utah ran out of ballots, sending workers to nearby stores to print more ballots or voters home to bring back reams of paper or even a home printer at one site. But the biggest outcry was from Arizona. Shrinking the number of voting spots in the Phoenix area was meant to save $1.5 million, officials said. But other factors that contributed to the fiasco - which saw Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump breeze to victories in Arizona - were the growing number of mail-in ballots the county recorder has seen in the last decade. When Phoenix news station Fox 10 asked Purcell who to blame for Tuesday’s problems, she said, “Well, the voters for getting in line. Maybe us for not having enough polling places or as many as we usually have.” Story Continues →
2016-03-24 23:44 Voters wait www.washingtontimes.com
23 NYC growth slows, upstate loses people in latest US census ALBANY, N. Y. (AP) - New York City’s growth rate slowed last year but still offset upstate losses as the state’s population nudged higher, according to census figures released Thursday. The latest annual estimates from the U. S. Census Bureau show the city adding 55,211 people in the year before July 2015, for a population of 8.55 million. The city-wide growth rate of 0.6 percent last year was the lowest this decade, according to an analysis of the estimates by Jan Vink of Cornell University’s Program on Applied Demographics. In contrast, upstate New York lost 16,596 people over the year, a 0.24 percent decrease. Only six of 52 upstate counties added people over the year, all growing less than 1 percent. The Cornell analysis showed that the only areas in the state to post growth since 2010 outside New York City were the capital region around Albany, the mid-Hudson Valley and Long Island. Upstate New York has long struggled with residents moving to other states for better jobs or warmer weather. Vink said that trend could be becoming more pronounced. “Domestic migration seems to be picking up again,” Vink said. “This is bad news for New York state and a lot of areas within New York state - more people moving out than moving in.” Some demographers believe that migration had slowed during the national recession because there were fewer job openings. The census previously reported that New York state’s 2015 population was 19.8 million, a growth rate of 0.2 percent that was below the national average. The Bronx grew a state-high 0.9 percent over the year. Saratoga was the fastest growing upstate county, at 0.7 percent, followed by Orange (0.4 percent). Two rural upstate counties that lost population the fastest were Sullivan (-1.18 percent) and Delaware (-1.17 percent).
2016-03-24 23:44 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
24 Thurston County officials seize 33 malnourished alpacas TACOMA, Wash. (AP) - Two animal rescue organizations working to care for 33 emaciated alpacas seized by the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office are asking for donations to help care for the creatures. The News Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/1RBEOxY ) that the alpacas were seized Friday near Mud Bay as part of an animal cruelty investigation. Four alpacas were dead at the time. Of the surviving 33, two are pregnant and four are babies. The alpacas are being cared for by a veterinarian and have been moved to several foster homes in the area. Cross Creek Alpaca Rescue and Hooved Animal Rescue of Thurston County will take care of the alpacas throughout the investigation. Officials with the nonprofits say the herd needs medical supplies and feed. ___ Information from: The News Tribune, http://www.thenewstribune.com 2016-03-24 23:36 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
25 Azkals put up gallant stand in narrow loss to Uzbeks TASHKENT— The Philippines put up a brave stand against one of Asia’s elite sides before ultimately falling short on a cold Thursday night here. The Azkals frustrated the formidable Uzbeks for long periods only to absorb a 0-1 defeat in their Asian Cup and World Cup Qualifying clash at a jampacked Bunyodkor Stadium. Defender Anzur Ismailov’s glancing header at the hour mark lifted the Uzbeks who dominated possession. A superb performance on goal from Neil Etheridge kept the Azkals in the match up until the end. Well drilled and organized, the Azkals proved tough to break down even after playing with 10 men in the last 80 minutes. The Azkals didn’t pick up a point but their battling performance showed the squad’s resilience – something that they can build on when they face North Korea in Manila on Tuesday. “I’m not happy because we lost but I have to compliment the team for fighting for 90 minutes,” said coach Thomas Dooley who missed several players from his regular starting eleven due to injuries and suspension. “It was a game where we had to put out heart in and we did.” Making his first start in the qualifiers, OJ Porteria was sent off for a foul on defender Egor Kremits 10 minutes into the match. Dooley wasn’t happy with the Japanese referee Ryuji Sato’s decision pointing out that it was only Porteria’s first foul of the match and a booking would have been enough. Etheridge then produced a string of outstanding saves denying Server Djeparov, Igor Sergeev and Odil Akmehdov as the keeper redeemed himself from his error-strewn game in the 1-5 loss in Manila last September. “We had an incredible goalkeeper who kept us in the game,” said Dooley.
2016-03-24 23:36 Cedelf P sports.inquirer.net
26 EPA: Radioactive material in unexpected places at landfill ST. LOUIS (AP) - The Environmental Protection Agency says radioactive material at a suburban St. Louis landfill near an underground fire has been found in areas where it was previously not suspected, but that there is no greater risk to residents or workers. The EPA released the first phase report of an investigation of the West Lake Landfill on Thursday. Nuclear waste dating to the Manhattan Project was illegally dumped at the site in the 1970s, and an underground fire is smoldering at the adjacent Bridgeton Landfill. The EPA report states that the investigation found “radiologically impacted material” further south than expected, but not present in areas previously presumed to contain it. EPA remedial project manager Brad Vann says health risks associated with the site are unchanged by the findings.
2016-03-24 23:22 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
27 General Electric announces site of new Boston headquarters BOSTON (AP) - General Electric has pinpointed the Boston site for its new world headquarters. The company announced Thursday it is purchasing about 2.5 acres in South Boston from Procter & Gamble. The site, along the Fort Point Channel, is currently part of P&G;’s Gillette campus and includes two older and mostly empty buildings and a parking lot. The property sits across the channel from a central U. S. Postal Service facility and the South Station transportation hub. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. GE announced in January it was moving its corporate headquarters to Boston from Fairfield, Connecticut. The company also is talking with Rhode Island officials about opening a branch office in that state. On the Boston property, GE plans to build a new building, renovate the two older buildings and move to the site in 2018. About 800 GE employees will work there. GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt discussed the move Thursday at the Boston College Chief Executives Club, promising that any public investment in his company will be worth it. City and state officials offered General Electric Co. a package of incentives to help secure the move of the company’s headquarters to Boston. The city offered the company up to $25 million in direct property tax relief while the state put up $120 million in grants for infrastructure improvements in and around the eventual site. The Boston Globe quoted Immelt saying that “for every dollar that was invested in GE being here, you will get back one thousand fold. Take my word for it.” Immelt also said he’s not going to say anything bad about Connecticut; he feels the move is “really about the future,” the Hartford Courant reported.
2016-03-24 23:22 General Electric www.washingtontimes.com
28 NAACP: Attorney General should review wrongful convictions RALEIGH, N. C. (AP) - North Carolina’s attorney should set up a group to investigate claims of wrongful convictions to prevent more innocent people from being in prison, the head of the state NAACP said Thursday. The Rev. William Barber also called on Gov. Pat McCrory to establish a task force to recommend ways to strengthen protections against wrongful convictions. At a news conference, he said both the governor and Attorney General Roy Cooper - running against each for governor in the 2016 election - should come together to support a moratorium on the death penalty. “Put down being competitors for the season of Easter,” Barber said. “Come together and do what’s right.” Barber held the news conference to focus on two murder cases - one in Winston-Salem and another in Greenville - where defense attorneys say innocent men have been in prison since the 1990s. Both men rejected plea deals for lesser sentences because they refused to admit to murders they didn’t commit, Barber said. “This is what happens when a system is infected and infested with racial class bias,” Barber said. “And the only way to stop it is to deal with it, have grown-up conversations, free the innocent people” and a create a system that prevents wrongful convictions. Conviction integrity units such as ones in Harris County, Texas, and Brooklyn, New York, are one reason a record number of people falsely convicted of crimes - 149 - were exonerated in 2015, Sam Gross, editor of the National Registry of Exonerations, has said. The registry is a project of the University of Michigan Law School that has documented more than 1,740 such cases in the U. S. After the news conference, participants delivered letters to the offices of McCrory and Cooper, calling for the release of the two men - Kalvin Michael Smith in Winston-Salem and Dontae Sharpe in Greenville. Their families and supporters also attended the news conference. Cooper’s office said in an email to The Associated Press that a meeting was held with Barber and representatives of the NAACP. “We look forward to working with them to address systemic issues in the criminal justice system,” said the email from Noelle Talley, public information officer for Cooper. McCrory’s office didn’t immediately respond to Barber’s comments. ___ Martha Waggoner can be reached at http://twitter.com/mjwaggonernc. Her work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/martha-waggoner
2016-03-24 22:16 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
29 EFF: SA media’s lack of sophistication keeps ‘reachable secrets as secrets’ Floyd Shivambu‚ in an opinion piece entitled “ON STATE CAPTURE: Ideological Reflections!”‚ said: “There are of course so many Gupta undue capture and influences on many aspects and parts of the state‚ but South African media’s lack of sophistication and utterly sluggish investigative capacity keep what are reachable secrets as secrets.” As “most parts of the media represent fractions of capital”‚ Shivambu argued that there is reluctance to utilise the “adequate legislative framework that can guarantee ordinary South Africans and the media access to crucial information”. Shivambu quoted just one example of his party scooping the media. He cited the case of short-tenured finance minster Des van Rooyen reportedly arriving “with advisors at the National Treasury and that a contingent of National Treasury staff members almost resigned” as being “first made public by the EFF‚ and media caught up very late”. He did‚ however‚ vow: “There are still many revelations we are going to make about the Gupta corruption‚ and we will do so at the right time and moments.” Later in the essay‚ Shivambi returned to the “legislation that guarantees media access to information”‚ saying “credible sections of the media should have identified and quantified the numbers of contracts Guptas companies and subsidiaries have with the state”. This‚ he argued‚ “must be revealed because there has never been one single business empire in South Africa that monopolises state contracts in the manner the Gupta family has done”. Shivambu’s “reflections” came hours after Gupta-owned media ANN7 and The New Age agreed to apologise to the African National Congress over coverage of the party’s national executive committee meeting at the weekend. "The NEC expressed its utmost disgust at the arrogance‚ disrespect and reckless journalism displayed by the New Age newspaper [March 18-19]‚ ANN7 news channel [March 16-18] and representatives of the Gupta family‚" secretary-general Gwede Mantashe had told reporters on Sunday.
2016-03-24 22:03 Tmg Digital www.timeslive.co.za
30 USS Conestoga wreckage found off California after 95 years A US Navy tug, missing since 1921, has been found near one of the Farallones Islands, about 30 miles (50 km) west of San Francisco. The USS Conestoga disappeared after leaving San Francisco on March 25, 1921, en route to American Samoa. The disappearance sparked an air and sea search, but the tug and its 56 crew were declared lost in June that year. Investigators believe the Conestoga sank as it tried to reach a protected cove to escape heavy winds and rough seas.
2016-03-24 22:57 BBC News www.bbc.co.uk
31 Free UK paedophile suspect‚ Cape Town lawyer demands Police arrested Tucker‚ 52‚ on behalf of United Kingdom authorities‚ in Cape Town after 15 years on the run. He is facing 42 counts of indecent assault in his home country and authorities there want him extradited. The crimes were allegedly committed between 1983 and 1993. Tucker appeared on Thursday in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court‚ where legal points were heard ahead of his bail application. Tucker’s counsel‚ Reuben Liddell‚ urged the court to release him immediately because indecent assault is no longer punishable in South Africa‚ the offences are not extraditable transgressions and he cannot be prosecuted under South African law because the offences were allegedly committed more than 20 years ago. “As I said‚ the matter should end here. We should be walking out‚” said Liddell. “My client should be allowed to go home. I am going to hand in two expired passports … to show that my client arrived in this country as Nigel Lee Tucker in the year 2000. He has obtained visas in his own name‚ initially a tourist visa and eventually a permanent spouse visa‚ which show that he did not hide anything.” Liddell said Tucker trained as a helicopter pilot in 2006 and obtained his licence in 2008. He had applied for a police clearance‚ which he received a day before his arrest. “He is not a flight risk‚” Liddell said. “He has lived in one place since 2003. He bought a house with his father and also had a bond with Absa. He registered a company in his name.” British court papers tabled in Cape Town on Thursday said Tucker absconded between the time he gave evidence at his Bristol Crown Court trial in 2000 and the jury's retirement. He was convicted in his absence of nine offences of indecency with young males and one count of administering a stupefying drug. The court sentenced him to eight years’ imprisonment and compelled him to “register with police indefinitely” under the Sex Offenders Act. He took the matter on appeal‚ the decision was overturned and a retrial was ordered but did not take place because he had fled the country. Magistrate Grant Engel postponed the matter until April 7. Tucker has been remanded in custody at the Sea Point police station. – TMG Digital/The Times
2016-03-24 22:53 Philani Nombembe www.timeslive.co.za
32 Pro-Russian parties in Serbia seek anti-NATO referendum BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Pro-Russian parties in Serbia are demanding that a referendum be held next month, together with general elections, which would prevent the country from joining NATO. The demands were voiced Thursday on the 17th anniversary of the start of the NATO bombing of Serbia over its bloody crackdown against Kosovo Albanian separatists. Bosko Obradovic of the right-wing Dveri party says that if the incumbent populists remain in power in Serbia after the April 24 elections, they will seek NATO membership and will join Western sanctions against Russia over Ukraine. The current government has so far refused to impose sanctions against longtime Slavic ally Russia, despite seeking EU membership. It has also said the country should remain militarily neutral. NATO remains highly unpopular in Serbia after the 78-day bombing in 1999.
2016-03-24 22:37 Migrants walk www.washingtontimes.com
33 Iranian UN mission consultant charged with evading sanctions NEW YORK (AP) - A consultant to Iran’s United Nations mission accused of circumventing U. S. sanctions against Iran has been arrested on tax and money laundering charges. The indictment against Ahmad Sheikhzadeh, of New York City, was unsealed Wednesday. He was released from Brooklyn federal court on $3 million bail and ordered to be placed under electronic monitoring. The indictment said Sheikhzadeh, 60, helped two co-conspirators in the United States violate sanctions against Iran by pursuing investments in the Middle East country. It said he failed to obtain permission from the U. S. Treasury Department to authorize his interactions with Iran, thus violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act that was enacted to limit interactions between the countries. According to the indictment, he violated the act from October 2007 through May 2013 when he engaged in financial transactions. Sheikhzadeh’s attorney, Steve Zissou, said his client is a “patriotic American.” “His work at the Iranian Mission to the United Nations was consistent with his lifelong goal of building a bridge of friendship between the United States and Iran so that the two countries might live in peace and harmony,” Zissou said. “Sadly, the charges that were filed will make it impossible for him to continue that work and will only make it less likely that his hope for the future will ever be realized.” Iran’s U. N. mission did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ___ Associated Press writer Cara Anna contributed to this report.
2016-03-24 22:37 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
34 Numsa condemns murder of Wild Coast anti-mining activist Sikhosiphi ‘Bazooka’ Rhadebe‚ chairperson of the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC)‚ was shot eight times in the head‚ in front of his wife and 15- year-old son‚ by assassins who claimed to be police officers‚ it was reported on Wednesday. Two men driving a white vehicle with blue lamps came to his home‚ claiming to be police officers‚ and told Rhadebe they were there to arrest him. The ACC and Wild Coast residents have been battling for about 10 years to stop Australian mining company Mineral Resource Commodities (MRC) and its local subsidiary‚ Transworld Energy and Minerals (TEM)‚ from mining titanium on the Xolobeni coastal dunes. Some residents have links to the Australian-owned company and support the bid to mine the area. MRC chairman Mark Caruso has denied that the company was linked to Rhadebe’s murder. The ACC said: “Our beloved Bazooka made the ultimate sacrifice defending our ancestral land of Amadiba on the Wild Coast. The Australian company and all the criminals in high positions‚ who are eager to cut their piece of our land and fill their pockets with blood money‚ shall know that the Amadiba coastal community will not be intimidated into submission.” The crisis committee said while they are shocked by the murder‚ it was not unexpected‚ following shootings in May last year in Xolobeni and over Christmas in Mdatya. Prior to his murder Rhadebe said there was a hit-list and that he was the number one target‚ according to the Numsa statement. Numsa said in its statement that the anti-miners are under attack from powerful capitalist interests in league with local thugs. - TMG Digital
2016-03-24 22:34 Tmg Digital www.timeslive.co.za
35 Poolside style tips to steal from SA’s celebs A head wrap is the answer to keeping unruly poolside hair under control: it’s an easy way to hide a frizzy do and will stop the wind from whipping your locks into knots. Plus it’ll help to protect your hair – and delicate scalp - from the sun’s damaging rays. Practicalities aside, a head wrap will also add a cool, individualistic touch to even the plainest poolside ensemble. Here are some of the local celebs who’ve embraced the head wrap: Bonang Matheba A photo posted by Bonang ''Adebimpe' Matheba (@bonang_m) on Nov 26, 2015 at 4:41am PST Candice Swanepoel A photo posted by Candice Swanepoel (@angelcandices) on Mar 28, 2015 at 10:09am PDT Boitumelo ‘Boity’ Thulo A photo posted by Boitumelo Thulo (@boity) on Nov 7, 2015 at 10:15am PST Light, airy and available in all sorts of prints, kaftans are effortlessly chic way to cover up after taking a dip. And, they’re not just poolside attire. Celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe of The Zoe Report reckons kaftans are one of the most versatile pieces of clothing because you can wear them to the beach, brunch, a braai or even a cocktail party depending on whether you dress them up or down. For instance, she recommends pairing a kaftan with glam beaded embellishments with flat metallic sandals and delicate jewellery for a daytime event, noting that once you add heels it’ll become more of an evening look. Take a look at these celebs who are uber fans of the kaftan: Chiano Sky A photo posted by ChianoSky (@chichi_lingo) on Nov 2, 2015 at 8:12am PST Zuraida Jardine A photo posted by Z U R A i D A (@zuraidajardine) on Jun 11, 2015 at 7:04am PDT Lee Ann Liebenberg A photo posted by Lee-Ann Liebenberg (@leeann_liebenberg) on Mar 12, 2016 at 8:53am PST There’s no rule that says that you can’t wear jewellery around the pool (although practicality dictates you might need to take your accessories off before diving into the water). Don a pair of dramatic drop earrings, an arm cuff or two, or team a statement neckpiece with a swimsuit with a plunging neckline. Remember, though, less is more when it comes to accessories, so don’t overdo it. Boity Thulo and Pearl Thusi show us how to bling up a bathing suit: Boitumelo ‘Boity’ Thulo A photo posted by Boitumelo Thulo (@boity) on Nov 2, 2015 at 4:23am PST Pearl Thusi A photo posted by Pearl Thusi- Real Black Pearl (@pearlthusi) on Dec 22, 2015 at 9:08am PST A photo posted by Pearl Thusi- Real Black Pearl (@pearlthusi) on Nov 30, 2015 at 5:14am PST For an instant hit of A-list glamour, you can’t beat a pair of supersized sunglasses and a hat with an extra wide brim. Beyond looking stylish, these practical pieces will protect your skin, hair and eyes from the sun’s harsh rays. These gals aren't afraid to go big on accessories: Bonang Matheba A photo posted by Bonang ''Adebimpe' Matheba (@bonang_m) on May 19, 2015 at 6:05am PDT Minnie Dlamini A photo posted by Minnie (@minniedlamini) on Nov 13, 2015 at 1:40am PST Lee Ann Liebenberg A photo posted by Lee-Ann Liebenberg (@leeann_liebenberg) on Feb 22, 2016 at 6:50am PST
2016-03-24 22:33 Staff reporter www.timeslive.co.za
36 Polygamous town holds first Republican caucus in years HILDALE, Utah (AP) - Fifty-five people gathered at a school in Hildale, Utah, Tuesday night to discuss the Republican presidential candidates. Voters across the state were holding such caucuses, but in Hildale, some saw the process as a sign of changing times. “I want us to function like a normal city,” Jesse Barlow, 32, told The Salt Lake Tribune (http://bit.ly/1LK5WII ). Barlow was elected precinct vice chairman and ran what he described as the city’s first Republican caucus in at least four years at the Water Canyon School. Hildale and the adjoining Colorado City, Arizona, are home to the polygamous sect known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is a radical offshoot of Mormonism, which disavowed polygamy more than a century ago. Authorities believe the group’s former leader, Warren Jeffs, continues to exert control from a Texas prison cell. Jeffs’ brother, FLDS bishop Lyle Jeffs, sent Barlow away from the community without explanation in 2013, according to Barlow. Barlow and his family have recently returned to Hildale after living in St. George. Lyle Jeffs is currently behind bars while awaiting trial on charges that he orchestrated a years- long, multimillion-dollar food stamp fraud. He has pleaded not guilty. Tuesday’s caucus was the first Republican caucus in the city in at least four years, Barlow said, and it garnered record turnout. The previous record for a Hildale Republican caucus was five people, all city employees meeting at the city offices, according to Barlow. “I would have to say there was a lot of energy” at Tuesday’s caucus, said Barlow. He said he didn’t see anyone he could identify as in good standing with the FLDS church. Former members say the faithful are not allowed to go to Water Canyon. U. S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas won the Hildale caucus with 26 votes, followed by Donald Trump with 19 votes and Ohio Gov. John Kasich with 10, said Barlow. Democrats in Hildale had to drive to the city of Hurricane and caucus there. Hildale Mayor Philip Barlow is listed as the precinct chairman on the Washington County Republican Party website, but Jesse Barlow, the mayor’s cousin, said he was asked to lead the meeting because the mayor hasn’t been active in the caucuses for years. ___ Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http://www.sltrib.com
2016-03-24 22:16 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
37 Top Democrat casts dim odds on passing Iron Range relief ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Lawmakers hoping to extend unemployment benefits for Iron Range miners have cleared one snag only to hit another. The Senate unanimously passed a bill Thursday granting $258 million in business tax breaks from the state’s unemployment fund. That measure has been the primary sticking point in a weeks-long struggle to send unemployment checks to thousands of steelworkers. But Democrats still object to a small provision House Republicans want that declares the Legislature’s support for mining. Some lawmakers worry it could mean trouble for the state after permitting decisions on proposed copper-nickel mines. Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk says the extension might not get done. A spokeswoman said Kurt Daudt was not available for comment. Thousands of miners have exhausted their unemployment checks amid layoffs and mine closures in northeastern Minnesota.
2016-03-24 22:15 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
38 Judge blocks gravel pit issue from Josephine County ballot GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) - A judge has at least temporarily blocked a May ballot measure that would ask Josephine County voters to reject a gravel mine in the Sunny Valley area north of Grants Pass. Circuit Court Judge Pat Wolke said the measure is unlawful because it asks voters to decide a land-use matter. As a result, he issued a temporary restraining order to the county clerk, and then set an additional hearing for Friday to consider making the order a permanent injunction, the Grants Pass Daily Courier reported (http://is.gd/2PADl7 ). The county Board of Commissioners last summer changed the allowed use of the property from forest to mining. Opponents hoping to reverse that action gathered enough signatures to put the question to voters, and the ballots were just days away from being sent to the printer. Sunny Valley Sand & Gravel has sought the injunction, contending that land-use decisions are not subject to a vote of the people. “A land-use decision is not a legislative decision of the kind to which the constitutional initiative and referendum rights apply and may not be referred to the electorate,” the company stated in its motion seeking the court’s order. “Land use decisions are appealable to (the Land Use Board of Appeals) and the appellate courts.” Diane Getchell, chief petitioner of the ballot measure, issued a statement critical of Wolke’s decision. “Does a county circuit court judge have the power to declare this procedure illegal and thereby pull the measure off the ballot?” Getchell said. “We do not think so.” The mining operation four miles east of Interstate 5 will excavate an area that contains an estimated 6.9 million tons of aggregate, to be removed over a period of 20 to 40 years and crushed on site. Opponents have cited concerns about traffic, dust and noise. County Clerk Trisha Myers said she has worked in the office for nearly a decade and has never had to deal with this type of court challenge. “This stuff usually occurs after an election,” she said. ___ Information from: Daily Courier, http://www.thedailycourier.com
2016-03-24 22:14 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
39 Russia employs old Soviet playbook in Georgia When Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution broke out in 2014, Western leaders should have recognized right at the outset that Russia would employ the same playbook there as it has in another vulnerable slice of the old Soviet Union — Georgia. With its small neighbor in the Caucasus, the Kremlin invoked the excuse of the need to “protect” Russian-speaking populations in Georgia to spark a separatist movement in Georgia’s South Ossetia region, leaving Georgian troops no choice but to intervene to protect their sovereignty in 2008. The effort didn’t end well for Tbilisi. Russia invaded and overran large parts of the country, destroyed infrastructure and defeated the Georgian army in four days, increasing the level of Russian regular forces in both South Ossetia and the separate ethnic enclave in Abkhazia. The build-up continues to this day. In another bite at the Georgian apple, Russian troops recently moved a critical border fence which marks the contested territories further into Georgian territory, giving Russia access to critical infrastructure, pipelines and transportation networks. It’s the same technique we have seen in East Ukraine and the Crimea — a sustained push to regain Soviet territory that continues until Russian forces run into significant resistance. Once a new pseudo-border is established, Moscow works to foment instability in the remaining parts of the country, to prevent any further integration with the European Union and NATO. In spite of the reforms and efficiencies put in place by former President Mikheil Saakashvili, the Kremlin has doggedly pursued this strategy in Georgia, using its intelligence services to support the government opposition and block reforms. NATO, for its part, has repeatedly stated it will allow Georgia to join — as long as all preconditions are met. And here’s the rub: Georgia is slowly slipping back into the Soviet model of corruption and stagnation (with Russia’s help of course), preventing NATO’s preconditions from even being met. According to Georgian sources, the Obama administration hasn’t helped the situation by neglecting Georgia and its effort to fashion a more free and open society. Democratic reforms have not been abandoned, but they are stagnating. Inefficient bureaucracies are regaining lost governmental territory. Georgian reformers are crying out for Western assistance and attention, desperate to prevent a backslide into the dark past. There’s a strategic angle to their arguments, as Georgia sits at the crossroads of Europe and Asia and shares a border with Turkey, NATO’s southern firewall. For its part, Russia obviously sees the territory as strategic as well. Neighboring Armenia has been moving closer to Moscow and is bristling with Russian troops and weapons, an ominous development with strategic and military implications for the Caucasus, Turkey and even Syria. Georgians view Russia as unpredictable, capable of anything, which is exactly how the Kremlin wants it. Uncertainty is the goal. So it comes as no surprise that, absent a significant push by the West, Georgia is slipping back into the old Soviet ways. The rule of law seems nonexistent. Corruption is once again on the rise. The economy is stagnating. Georgia, according to internal reformers, has lost direction. NATO would be wise to see Russia’s textbook Soviet strategy for what it is — a way for the Kremlin methodically but relentlessly to reclaim its lost empire. The neighboring Caspian states of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are at risk as well. Russia now has de facto control over a fifth of Georgian territory. With the recent moves on borders and the subversion of Georgian reforms, that percentage is likely to grow. The United States used to stand for freedom and democracy overseas. This focus needs to return. To do this doesn’t require a war with Russia, just firm leadership — something we have been lacking for two presidential terms. • L. Todd Wood, a former U. S. military helicopter pilot and Wall Street debt trader, is a contributor to Fox Business, the National Review and many other publications. He can be reached through his website, LToddWood.com.
2016-03-24 22:14 - The Washington Times - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
40 Lincoln woman charged in 2-year-old stepson’s drowning death LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - A 28-year-old Lincoln woman has been charged in connection with the drowning death of her stepson. Lincoln police Wednesday charged Jacqueline Cooley with felony child abuse in the January death of 2-year-old Jase Queen. Police say Cooley found her stepson face down and not breathing in a bathtub filled with about 10 inches of water. She told police that she left the child, who had Down syndrome, unattended for a few minutes while seeking a towel. Cooley attempted CPR but he was pronounced dead days later at an Omaha hospital. Investigators say Cooley frequently left children alone in the bathtub, including Jase in November 2015. After being found not breathing, he was revived. Online court records don’t list the name of an attorney who could comment on her behalf.
2016-03-24 22:14 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
41 Senators approve more than $5 million for substance abuse CONCORD, N. H. (AP) - The Senate has approved more than $5 million in fresh funding to fight the state’s substance abuse crisis. The 24-member body is unanimously backing the bill despite a partisan spat over where the money should come from. The bill authorizes Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan to appropriate the money from unspent funds in various state departments. The bill gives $4.5 million to the Department of Health and Human Services, which can choose to spend it on affordable sober housing or give to the Governor’s Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention, Treatment and Recovery. It also provides $500,000 in grant funding for peer recovery support services and about $125,000 for the state attorney general’s office to hire a new drug prosecutor.
2016-03-24 22:14 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
42 3 men get prison for prostituting girl, 15, at Salem motel CONCORD, N. H. (AP) - Three Boston-area men were sentenced to several years in prison for bringing a 15-year-old Massachusetts girl to a New Hampshire motel for sex with paying clients, authorities said Thursday. The U. S. Attorney for New Hampshire said Andy Pena, 21, of Jamaica Plain, and Hansel German, 25, of Boston, were sentenced to eight years in prison for aiding and abetting human trafficking for the purposes of prostitution. Enoc Ayuso, of Dorchester, was sentenced to five years for his role in the conspiracy. A fourth defendant, Rafael Reyes, whose hometown was not identified, pleaded guilty to the same charge as German and Pena and will be sentenced next week. Clients were solicited through the online classified advertising site Backpage.com, authorities said. Assistant U. S. Attorney Nick Abramson said investigators were unable to identify the clients who paid to have sex with the minor at the LaQuinta Inn and Suites in Salem in 2014. U. S. Attorney Emily Gray Rice said the victim played a critical role in the four convictions. “She had been placed into a sinister and abusive world,” Rice said, praising the “bravery of a minor child who came forward courageously to tell her story.” Rice appealed to other victims of sex trafficking to come forward as well. “Let us help you out of that world and put the people profiting from it behind bars,” she said. Rice said the Boston Police Department provided the initial leads on the men’s activities and movements and members of the New Hampshire division of Internet Crimes Against Children provided the forensic skills to detect electronic evidence. The teamwork helped build an “overwhelming” case against the four suspects, she said. Officials said the victim is still grappling with her ordeal. “It’s been a very long healing process for her,” said Jennifer Hunt, federal victim-witness advocate. “She felt very used, embarrassed and ashamed, but has come to a place where she realizes this was not her fault.”
2016-03-24 21:18 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
43 Man painted gold arrested in California freeway hit-and-run RICHMOND, Calif. (AP) - Authorities say a man covered in gold spray paint was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving in the San Francisco Bay Area after he allegedly hit three cars on a freeway and then led police on a brief chase. The San Francisco Chronicle reports (http://bit.ly/1Un51RJ) that the chase on Interstate 80 in Richmond came to an end when a wheel fell off his car. No one was injured. California Highway Patrol spokesman Officer Sean Wilkenfeld says the man was identified as 21-year-old Damaj Cook. It was not immediately clear if he has an attorney. An off-duty CHP officer witnessed the beginning of the mayhem and followed the suspect, who was covered head-to-toe in gold spray paint. Cook was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and hit-and-run. ___ Information from: San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com
2016-03-24 21:18 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
44 Sound Transit to add longer trains to handle growing demand SEATTLE (AP) - Sound Transit is putting some longer trains on its light rail tracks to help with increased demand at new stations. The Seattle Times reports (http://bit.ly/1q4h3T0 ) that beginning Monday, three- car trains will alternate with the usual two-car trains. Transit spokesman Bruce Gray says passengers have been finding full platforms and trains at peak times since the agency opened a new $1.8 billion tunnel from Westlake Station to the University of Washington and Capitol Hill on Saturday. Additionally, greater demand is expected Monday when university classes resume. Gray says the most-used rail segment is between Pioneer Square and the International District/Chinatown Stations but that the Capitol Hill-Westlake stretch is expected to be the busiest in the future. ___ Information from: The Seattle Times, http://www.seattletimes.com
2016-03-24 21:18 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
45 Obama dances tango in Argentina, comes under criticism BARILOCHE, Argentina (AP) - Dancing the tango, relaxing with family in picturesque Patagonia, catching a baseball game with Cuba’s Raul Castro - it’s been an unusual week for President Barack Obama. His tour of Latin America left him on the periphery as the world grappled with terrorism and other problems. Republican critics faulted Obama for sticking to his itinerary even after more than 30 people were killed in an Islamic State-linked attack in Brussels. Obama insists he remained fully engaged. “That was a tremendous mistake,” Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said Thursday on MSNBC. “It’s fine to go to Argentina. You want to do the work, but you’ve got to be careful of these little photo-ops or optics. Baseball games and tangos, that’s inconsistent with the seriousness of the day.” To drop everything and rush home every time attackers strike would be playing into extremists’ hands, Obama said. It would also upend other critical business on the president’s agenda, such as Obama’s historic effort to normalize relations with Cuba and to improve U. S. ties to Argentina. “That is how we are going to defeat these terrorist groups,” Obama said in Buenos Aires. “A lot of it is also going to be to say, ‘you do not have power over us. We are strong. Our values are right. You offer nothing except death.’” Obama didn’t initiate his brief tango Wednesday evening at a state dinner in his honor. In fact, he declined several invitations by the sashaying female dancer before politely giving in. And attending the exhibition game in Havana between Cuba’s national team and Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays was itself an act of diplomacy. As “The Star-Spangled Banner” rang out, there was a palpable sense that after half a century of estrangement, something new was foot. Still, Obama faced no shortage of flak. Twitter and other social media sites were abuzz with photo-shopped images of Obama tangoing superimposed over scenes of carnage. “I think he ought to return home,” said Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a GOP presidential candidate. Though Obama was at the center of global attention in Cuba as he paid the first presidential visit in nearly 90 years, other events competed for attention. As U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Moscow for talks on the Syrian war and the IS threat, Iraq’s military was launching a long-awaited operation to recapture the northern city of Mosul from IS militants, with U. S. backing. White House officials said Obama can do anything from the road that he can do from the White House, echoing an argument Obama has made frequently after other incidents interrupted his travel. After IS extremists attacked Paris last year, Obama went forward with a trip to Turkey and Asia, and used his meetings there to coordinate with world leaders on ramping up the fight against the militant group. Moreover, there was no indication that Obama’s response would have been different had he been in Washington or scurried to Brussels. Obama always travels with top domestic and national security advisers who keep him abreast of developments and coordinate his response. In Havana, he was briefed within hours of the Brussels attacks. And even as he prepared for some leisure time with his wife and daughters in the Argentine city of Bariloche, where U. S. outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid once operated a ranch, Obama spoke by secure phone call with his counterterrorism adviser, Lisa Monaco. The White House said he directed his team to provide all needed help to Belgium. Other presidents have grappled with unwelcome intrusions into their best-laid plans. George W. Bush was roundly slammed in 2002 for responding to bombings in Israel while playing golf, calling for the world to “do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers,” and closing with “Thank you. Now watch this drive.” Story Continues →
2016-03-24 21:19 President Barack www.washingtontimes.com
46 What happened in Arizona wasn’t an accident: When states make voting impossible, it’s for a very clear reason Topics: Video , arizona primary , Elections 2016 , Voter Fraud , Voter ID , voter suppression , election reform , News , Politics News Once again, an American election was unnecessarily thwarted by long lines and not enough ballots. To say there’s no excuse for such nonsense, especially in a nation that prides itself on its representative democracy and, yes, its exceptionalism, is understating the problem. This time around, it happened during the Arizona primary where countless voters were forced to stand in lines for hours, while others were told they weren’t registered in the first place. In Maricopa County alone, election officials infuriatingly reduced the number of polling places by 70 percent. Such a drastic reduction meant there was only one polling place per 21,000 residents of the highly populated Phoenix metroplex. Officials including County Recorder Helen Purcell (a Republican) said the cutbacks were due to budgetary concerns. Uh-huh. Of course, I doubt members of either party who were forced to wait in five-hour lines would’ve minded the additional expense to facilitate our most basic right as Americans. Elsewhere, independent voters who switched their registration to the Democratic Party were allegedly told they hadn’t registered at all, forcing them to sit out the closed primary. It’s yet another example of why the federal government should take over the election process. Local and state officials are clearly in too far over their heads to handle a task of this magnitude, as evidenced by the reality that every time we hold an election in this country, one numbskull or another flummoxes the whole thing — intentionally or not. “Intentionally” is an appropriate word here since many of the electoral shenanigans at the state level are, indeed, intentional. Voter ID laws and punitive voter purges have been the centerpieces of a Republican strategy to rig modern elections. Republicans in nearly half of all states have managed to pass laws that make it more difficult for lower-income Democratic voters to cast ballots, forcing former Attorney General Eric Holder to compare such measures to the poll taxes used in the Jim Crow-era South in order to suppress the Black vote.. This is absolutely by design, even if some Republicans are caught in the meat grinder, too. The lower the turnout, the better Republicans fare in elections, so while voter ID laws tend to disenfranchise Democrats, the intention is more specifically to elect Republicans. Thirty-three states boast one form of voter ID or another. Texas has perhaps the most ridiculous such law. If you don’t have one of the required forms of identification in the Lone Star State, you’ll have to apply for an Election Identification Certificate (EIC). But in order to get an EIC, you have to present your proof of citizenship and a second form of identification. Yes, that’s right, you’ll need to get an ID in order to get an ID — one of many reasons why this law is so completely absurd. And all of this on top of the normal voter registration process (which only requires a Social Security Number). If you don’t have a mandatory ID issued by the TxDPS (Texas Department of Public Safety), it might be because 70 counties don’t have a TxDPS office. The GOP excuse for these laws? It’s voter fraud, they say. But how often do voters attempt to scam the system? Among all federal elections between 2002 and 2005, the rate of voter fraud was 0.00000013 percent. This according to a five-year probe by George W. Bush’s Justice Department. Put another way, around 26 people out of 197 million were convicted of attempting to vote illegally during all of those elections. And yet the Republicans continue to screech about voter fraud anyway. (They’re willing to believe that voter fraud exists, even though it doesn’t, and yet the climate crisis, with its 97 percent scientific consensus, is clearly fiction.) Elsewhere, in Ohio , the Republican Secretary of State uncovered a possible 20 cases of voter fraud during the 2012 election out of 5.6 million votes cast. That’s 0.00035 percent of the vote. In Iowa , the Republican Secretary of State found a possible eight cases out of 1.5 million votes cast. That’s 0.00053 percent of the vote. In Wisconsin , possible fraud amounted to 0.00023 percent of the vote. But up to nine percent of voters will be disenfranchised by voter ID laws. That’s like using a nuclear missile to kill a gnat — and then entirely missing the gnat because, it turns out, voter IDs wouldn’t have prevented the possible fraud cases in the first place.
2016-03-24 20:42 Bob Cesca salon.com.feedsportal.com
47 CBS New York NEW YORK -- If the New York Rangers go anywhere in the upcoming Stanley Cup Playoffs, it will be because goaltender Henrik Lundqvist played well enough to hide his team's defensive flaws. Lundqvist's performance against the Boston Bruins at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night was a shining example of just that. The potential Vezina Trophy finalist stopped 39 shots -- including 30 over the final two periods -- as the Rangers took another step toward a postseason berth with a 5-2 victory that moved them four points ahead of the Pittsburgh Penguins for second place in the Metropolitan. Center Derek Stepan had a goal and two assists and the Rangers scored a pair of power-play goals, but it was Lundqvist shouldering the burden and buying time for the team to find insurance goals in the third period. The Rangers (42-24-8) have 92 points and appear to be locked into a playoff spot with eight games remaining. "There's only eight games to go and I think everybody is excited," Lundqvist said. "This is a great time of year. We are getting closer and closer to the first step of many goals that you set going into the season. You want to make sure you are playing as well as you can and then you see what the result will be moving forward after that. "The Rangers are 3-1-1 in their past five games and took control against the Bruins with two power-play goals in the first period. Right winger Mats Zuccarello and center Derek Stepan scored three minutes apart to make it 2-0. Both goals were the result of gorgeous passes from defenseman Keith Yandle, who found Zuccarello with a sharp pass near the right post and dished to Stepan for a tap-in goal after scorching Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara on the rush. "He understands the importance of passing on the power play and I think that's something he's so good at," Stepan said. "When he makes a pass, it's right on the tape and it's to a guy that's in a scoring area. That's something that isn't easy and he's able to do it really well. "Those goals came against goaltender Tuukka Rask, who left the game after the first period due to an illness. He was replaced by Jonas Gustavsson, who stopped 13 of 15 shots over the final two periods. Brassard greeted Gustavsson less than six minutes into the second period when his slap shot from the left circle drilled the inside of the post and skipped into the net to make it 3-0 Rangers. It was the last goal the Rangers would need and helped send the Bruins (39-27-8) to their fourth straight regulation loss. Their 86 points are just three more than the ninth-place Detroit Red Wings, who hold a game in hand. "We are all aware of the standings," Bruins center Patrice Bergeron said. "We have to get back at it (against Florida on Thursday). We have a huge game tomorrow and have to bounce back and find some sense of urgency. "Bruins coach Claude Julien used profanity to express displeasure with a penalty called against center David Krejci that led to Stepan's goal that made it 2-0. He used softer language to describe his team's current situation. "We didn't play well at all tonight," he said. "Whether it was one of those off- games then we will find out soon enough tomorrow night when we play Florida. I said this morning we control our own destiny. Right now, we are giving teams below us some hope, so we have to turn this around quick. "While the Bruins are surviving, the Rangers are relying on their goaltender -- with a little help from a hot power play -- to carry them to their sixth straight playoff appearance and maybe a second trip to the Stanley Cup Final in three years. "Their power play got some good looks and (Lundqvist) made some real good saves," Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said. "Our power play was able to get some good looks and finish. When you're able to do that against a real strong team, that's a real positive for the group as far as confidence level. "NOTES: There was some doubt about the status of G Tuukka Rask, who was battling illness, but his ability to start meant the Bruins returned G Jeremy Smith to the AHL. ... The Bruins scratched RW Brett Connolly, RW Tyler Randell, D Joe Morrow and D Zach Trotman. ... Rangers LW Oscar Lindberg was scratched for a fifth straight game. Both he and RW Kevin Hayes were game-time decisions but Hayes was in the lineup on a line with C Eric Staal and LW Chris Kreider. ... Rangers LW Rick Nash was in the lineup after missing practice Tuesday due to soreness.
2016-03-24 12:32 The Sports scoresandstats.newyork.cbslocal.com
48 Let’s stop with the frozen food snobbery The NS Podcast #141:Students, lists and Duncan-Smith It’s fair to say that frozen food has a bit of an image problem. One in three Britons believe it is inferior to fresh food, and 43 per cent say that nothing could persuade them to buy more frozen fare. Confidence in the sector was further knocked by the infamous horsemeat scandal. But for the sake of our health , our pockets and the environment, it may be time to stop turning our noses up at frozen food. Humans have been using freezing as a means of safely preserving food for thousands of years. But it wasn’t until the 1920s, when Clarence Birdseye kick-started the development of home refrigerators and launched the first line of frozen foods, that the industry really took off. Despite embracing other types of convenience foods and the rise of ready meals – with the market predicted to grow 20 per cent by 2017 – the UK is still reluctant to go frozen. Instead frozen food is often viewed as a last resort – for when people can’t get to the shops. Food snobs Some of it may come down to snobbery. According to the director general of the British Frozen Food Federation, frozen food compares favourably to fresh in blind taste tests. But in the UK and US there is a passionate love-hate relationship with frozen food retailers such as Iceland. Despite the growth of budget brands Aldi and Lidl in recent years, Iceland is still perceived in some circles as being downmarket and inferior, something it is challenging with its new “ power of frozen ” marketing strategy. Ironically perhaps, this is in part due to price. Frozen foods are often cheaper at point of sale than fresh produce – due to lower production costs – and this can affect consumers’ perception of quality. Similar beliefs are held in the US, where in one study; four out of five consumers believed frozen foods to be “highly processed”. Not so in France. Many French consumers see frozen food as being healthy, fresh, and of a high quality. This is no doubt helped by the strong brand presence of Picard , a premium retailer, which accounts for a fifth of all new frozen food launches in the country. And who are we to argue with the French, whose reputation for fine food is in stark contrast to international beliefs about British food? Freeze up It does seem that the French might be on to something. Studies have shown that freezing does indeed “lock in” the beneficial nutrients of fruits and vegetables. In one experiment , fresh produce was stored in a general household fridge at 4°C for up to three days. They were then compared with equivalent frozen produce stored in a domestic freezer at - 20°C. The concentrations of antioxidants and other key nutritional components decreased in the refrigerated produce, and ended up lower than that found in the frozen goods. Freezing excess food can also help us with portion control – which is thought to be key to tackling the current obesity epidemic. Frozen fruit and veg also count towards your five a day so the health argument for having a stock of non-perishable fruit and veg is pretty clear. Britain has the highest level of food wastage in the European Union, with each household throwing away 13lb (6kg) of food each week. Throwing away items that could have been consumed cost each household £470 (US$679) in 2012. Embracing frozen food would likely lead to a reduction in food waste and create a more sustainable use of seasonal foods that are consumed out of season, as well as saving us money. Pick and choose Of course, freezing isn’t appropriate for all foods. The process of freezing creates ice crystals. The more water there is in a food, the bigger the ice crystals. The bigger the ice crystals, the more damage freezing does to the food structure and the food quality. So many veg such as lettuce leaves, mushrooms and cucumbers do not fare too well in their natural state due to their high water content. There are ways around this , though, with the use of cooking or pulping and even changing the way you use your food. But on the whole, meat, fish, peas, sweetcorn and even aromatic spices all respond well to freezing in their natural forms. When it comes to freezing, it doesn’t have to be either-or. Fresh bananas can be happily whipped up into a smoothie during the winter with the punnet of summer berries that were tucked away in the freezer. And for many products that don’t freeze well on their own, they can be frozen just fine if they have been cooked in a rich sauce first. These days frozen offerings are not restricted to fish fingers and pizzas, innovation in the industry has brought about a raft of premium frozen products. You can even tempt your palate with such delights as bass fillets in a crispy lemon and herb tempura now appearing in frozen aisles near you. So in the words of the other famous “Frozen” – you know, the Disney one – perhaps, when it comes to our snobbery over frozen food, it’s time for us to just “let it go”. Emma Boyland , Lecturer in Appetite and Obesity, University of Liverpool This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. This week, Stephen Bush and Anoosh Chakelian discuss post-budget ructions in the Tory party. George Eaton considers the fall-out from Labour’s leaked list. And our Anthony Howard scholar, Henry Zeffman, joins to discuss student politics and the climate of antisemitism. You also ask us: post-election, why did Labour not refer to the “small” conservative majority? (Stephen Bush, Anoosh Chakelian, George Eaton, Henry Zeffman) You can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes here or with this RSS feed: http://rss.acast.com/newstatesman , or listen using the player below. Want to give us feedback on our podcast, or have an idea for something we should cover? Visit newstatesman.com/podcast for more details and how to contact us. Iain Duncan Smith resigns, citing disability cuts - and with a swipe at Osborne The NS Podcast #141:Students, lists and Duncan-Smith newstatesman.com
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What we talk about when we talk about millennials The NS Podcast #141:Students, lists and Duncan-Smith newstatesman.com Celebrate Iain Duncan Smith leaving, but don't let that distract from the mess he's left behind The NS Podcast #141:Students, lists and Duncan-Smith newstatesman.com
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What Iain Duncan Smith got wrong - and what Labour can do right The NS Podcast #141:Students, lists and Duncan-Smith newstatesman.com How George Osborne's view of humanity brought him unstuck over cuts The NS Podcast #141:Students, lists and Duncan-Smith newstatesman.com
“Sometimes, I hated you”: two friends recount memories of their relationship The NS Podcast #141:Students, lists and Duncan-Smith newstatesman.com 2016-03-24 18:23 Jonathan Jones www.newstatesman.com
49 China’s Xi to meet with Obama on sidelines of nuclear summit BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) - Chinese President Xi Jinping (shee jihn- peeng) will meet with President Barack Obama in Washington next week on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit. Obama will host Xi on March 31. The White House says they’ll discuss cooperation as well as areas of disagreement between the U. S. and China. Dozens of world leaders are heading to Washington for the summit, which focuses on preventing terrorists from obtaining nuclear weapons. Obama has sought China’s cooperation on punishing North Korea for its nuclear weapons program and on climate change. The two countries remain at odds on maritime disputes, cybersecurity and other issues. Obama and Xi have met frequently in recent years in the U. S., China and in third countries. The White House announced the meeting while Obama was traveling in Argentina.
2016-03-24 21:46 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
50 50 Heitkamp says Obama’s Cuba trip provides momentum for trade BISMARCK, N. D. (AP) - The first presidential visit to Cuba in nearly a century provides “great momentum” for normalizing relations with the communist nation and boosting agricultural trade, U. S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp said. The North Dakota Democrat accompanied President Barack Obama on his trip to Cuba this week and said one of the highlights was the announcement by the U. S. Department of Agriculture that it will allow the use of producer checkoff dollars to promote trade with Cuba. Checkoffs are taxes on production that farmers pay to promote their industry. “This trip definitely provides some great momentum,” Heitkamp said after returning to the U. S. on Wednesday. North Dakota has long looked at Cuba as a potentially big market for farm goods because the country has a high demand for crops such as dry beans, dry peas and lentils that are produced in large amounts in the state. U. S. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N. D., and state Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring also have visited the country in recent years. Heitkamp also visited Cuba in February 2014, and was among a small group of lawmakers who met with Cuban President Raul Castro at the United Nations in New York last September. There are still barriers to trade with Cuba, and an honest effort by that country to improve human rights would help soften opposition in Congress, Heitkamp said. “Opening up trade will guarantee Cuba can buy our high-quality products rather than turning to Vietnam, Canada, or Brazil,” she said. “Trade and dialogue can also help expand human rights for the Cuban people. After a 50-year trade embargo, this visit to Cuba reinforced that it’s time for a different approach.”
2016-03-24 21:44 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
51 Google to expand Android Pay digital wallet to UK Google has said that it will extend Android Pay to the UK "in the next few months". The facility allows any device running Android 4.4 or higher and fitted with an NFC (near field communication) chip to act as a tap-and-pay substitute for credit and debit cards. Several lenders, including Lloyds Bank, HSBC and Nationwide have said they will support the scheme. Samsung earlier said its rival service would also come to the UK this year. The South Korean handset maker has yet to be more specific about its British launch plans for Samsung Pay, which is restricted to its own Android smartphones. Apple Pay has been available in the UK since July 2015 but is limited to the firm's iOS devices, so will not compete directly with Google's service. At present, Android Pay is only available in the US, where it became available in September. A Google spokeswoman said it was now "likely" that the UK would become its second or third market. The only other expansion plan announcement has been about bringing Android Pay to Australia by the end of June. The service requires a user to first store details of their cards within the app, and then provide a fingerprint scan or passcode to authorise a payment. It can be used in stores and restaurants as an alternative to tapping a card on a point-of-sale terminal, or within apps to avoid having to type in account details. In theory, it is safer to use than a physical credit or debit card as the owner does not need to reveal their account number at point of purchase, and even if someone was able to intercept the transmitted encrypted information, they could not re-use it to authorise further payments. Google said it had struck deals with Visa and Mastercard to allow the service to stand in for their cards, as well as several UK's financial institutions including: Santander said it also planned to support the feature before the end of the year. That still leaves several big names missing, including American Express, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland - but Google said it intended to add more organisations to the list ahead of the launch. Google's blog, which revealed the announcement , said that Android Pay had been "growing steadily in the US with 1.5 million new registrations happening each month". But one expert suggested it was lagging behind Samsung's rival offering. "Samsung Pay has made a bigger impact here than Android Pay and is being advertised more heavily," said Carolina Milanesi, a California-based analyst at Kantar Worldpanel Comtech. "If you look at the type of early adopters most likely to buy into the idea of wanting to do everything via their smartphone, they normally fit with the type of person who buys a high-end Apple or Samsung device. " Many stores in the US are still moving from magnetic strip-based terminals to chip-and-pin systems, which gives Samsung another advantage as its facility works with both. It is a different case in the UK, where chip-and-pin has been the de facto standard for several years. One industry watcher said that while in-store payments were a useful feature, it was Android Pay and other digital wallets' in-app functions that should drive their adoption. "Most people have contactless cards in the UK already, and [they are already easy to use] when nipping into a shop to buy something," commented Dave Birch, a payments specialist at Consult Hyperion. "But if you are an online service provider or any kind - whether you are Waitrose or Airbnb - you want to provide the best experience for the customer. "The bit that's currently the pain is the customer having to fish out their card and look for the number on the back to complete a payment, and these services avoid the need for that. " Other handset-makers are also preparing rival Android-based digital wallets of their own including LG Pay and Huawei Pay.
2016-03-24 18:26 BBC News www.bbc.co.uk
52 As House of Cards hits season four, the script has gone from unlikely to outright preposterous Thirteen, The Night Manager and more: the best TV this Easter weekend Cluck, cluck, cluck. In House of Cards , now in its fourth season on Netflix, the chickens are coming home to roost, which would be perfect if I could remember the various strands of its labyrinthine plot thus far. Unfortunately, I can’t; for which reason the henhouse is mostly a place of confusion for me, every face glimpsed in fuzzy flashback a reminder of little more than the fact that this show began by being exotic and gripping, but then fell rapidly apart. Admittedly, I’m only just over halfway through the current series: slave to this column that I am, even I can’t spend every waking moment staring at my laptop, wondering where the first lady gets her togs (clue: not from the J C Penney sale). But after only six episodes, I do believe I am beginning to find its more arcane storylines almost as tedious as its interchangeable Pottery Barn interiors. President Underwood (Kevin Spacey) and his wife, Claire (Robin Wright), spend the first half of this series apart, and the second together, having realised – this is your first, and last, warning: what follows is positively throbbing with spoilers – that they’re better off as allies than enemies. Waiting for their reunion is boring, given its inevitability, though my obsession with Claire, a childless smoker who is about as far from the American ideal of womanhood as it’s possible to be, remains embarrassingly intact, even as her character tips into parody. Are the writers being facetious when they have her eat a bowl of salad at three o’clock in the morning after a day-long vigil at the bedside of her husband? (Frank has been shot by his old enemy, the journalist Lucas Goodwin.) Probably not. Doubtless they truly believe she’s the kind of woman who, for all her political bloodlust, can be satisfied with, even comforted by, a bowl of lightly dressed rucola. But still, her unnerving poise is now tinged with camp. In Texas, on the run from Frank, she stays with her mother Elizabeth (Ellen Burstyn), who comes off like something out of a Bette Davis movie. “I’m the mother! I’m the mother!” she shrieks, ripping the turban from her bald head in distress at the thought that Claire is going to sell their grand family estate to fund her political ambitions. Most people in this situation would run to the bathroom, barricade the door and call security, pronto. Claire remains calmly stock-still, as if her Gothic mommy had merely asked whether she fancied a grape soda. House of Cards has sailed beyond the land of the highly unlikely and into the realm of the unmitigatedly preposterous, a place where anything goes, with tinsel on it. The Underwoods’ opponents are now vanquished with such ease, we might as well be in Kazakhstan or some other godforsaken autocracy in which Tony Blair takes a keen interest. Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly), the president’s murderous chief of staff, has, for instance, taken to waterboarding his disobedient press secretary, Seth Grayson (Derek Cecil), using only a handy tumbler – if not Pottery Barn then probably Crate & Barrel – and a firm hand. Following this unprecedented disciplinary measure, moreover, Seth does not resign, or even contact human resources, but merely casts nervous glances at Stamper every time they pass in the White House’s corridors. Pad, pad, pad. They’re so luxuriantly carpeted. Where do they film this show, the Waldorf Astoria? In this world, the first lady can travel to Germany to negotiate an oil deal with the Russian president single-handedly while her husband undergoes a liver transplant in Washington, and, beyond some minor hand-wringing by the secretary of state, no one bats an eyelid. Next up: Claire will, following a usefully distracting war in the Middle East, end up in talks with the leader of a caliphate. (I wonder if her hijab will be by Céline or Jil Sander.) It’s all completely batty and, as a result, wants for jeopardy to an extraordinarily risky degree if you are the CEO of Netflix. Where is the press in this? Where are the attack dogs of Fox News? Where, for that matter, is the series show-runner? All I can think is that the dastardly Doug Stamper has sent him away. If you listen carefully, you may be able to hear him, above the House of Cards theme tune, battering away at the locked writers’ room door. Happy Valley has ended (15 March, 9pm), and I am bereft. The resolution of the serial killer strand of Sally Wainwright’s tightly knotted plot was not entirely satisfying, even if Alison’s distress at her son’s confession was never anything less than convincing (Susan Lynch played her with such delicacy). But everything else clicked into place with all the rightness of a heavy old key fitting a lock. John Wadsworth, Frances Drummond, Tommy Lee Royce: how piteous their twisted, crumpled lives. And then, a last soaring scene. Catherine (Sarah Lancashire) was striding across tussocky fields with her family, her sister and son laughing and joking determinedly, jollying her along. Suddenly, she looked up. I half expected some kind of unfurling, an epiphany born of fresh Yorkshire air and post-traumatic stress. But, no. Her grandson, Ryan, dashing ahead, trailed his usual shadows, one of which now passed across her face. The poor kid’s future is booby-trapped, and not even she can do a thing to change it. Thursday 24 March Line of Duty , BBC Two, 9pm Daniel Mays is the major new cast member in the third series of Jed Mercurio’s police corruption drama, following on from Keeley Hawes in last season’s acclaimed run. He plays Sgt Danny Waldron, who is leading an armed-response unit against a potential murderer – until that suspect is shot dead. If previous series are anything to go by it will be well worth watching. Good Friday 25 March Mary Berry's Easter Feast , BBC Two, 7pm The British know no way of celebrating a religious holiday without cake and nice old lady, but in this latest Mary Berry instalment, Berry is going further afield. She explores how cultures around the world celebrate Easter with food: from Greek Orthodox tsoureki to Dutch “Easter men” to Filipino roast pork. A suitably diverse selection that emphasises the culinary delights immigration has brought to the UK. Janis: Little Girl Blue , BBC Four, 9pm After a limited theatrical release, BBC Four airs this documentary composed of archival footage and interviews with band members. It follows Joplin’s life and career, from her musical rise in the 1960s to her battle with alcohol and heroin addiction. A loving portrait of a much-loved artist. Saturday 26 March Being the Brontës , BBC Two, 9pm Journalist Martha Kearney, novelist Helen Oyeyemi, and columnist Lucy Mangan travel to Haworth Parsonage, the home of the Brontë sisters, to discover the stories behind their classic novels Jane Eyre , Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey. In the absence of any good period dramas, this seems like an apt replacement, especially ahead of Charlotte Brontë’s 200 th birthday in April. Easter Sunday 27 March The Night Manager , BBC One, 9pm The finale of this sexy, tense adaptation of John Le Carré’s novel. Roper and his team return to Pine’s former workplace in Cairo for their arms deal, reuniting him with an old enemy. Meanwhile, poor, discredited Angela Burr refuses to let her team down. Thirteen , BBC Three , from 12pm The finale of BBC Three’s haunting kidnap drama is released online tonight. Surprising, discomforting and darkly compelling, Ivy’s story comes full circle in this last episode. Monday 28 March The Island The first season introduced the world to swastika-tattooed call centre worked Ryan. Last year’s series debuted class warrior and wise philosopher Vic. (Sample quote: “the only labour is physical labour!”) Who will it be this year? The show has been criticised in the past for segregating women and men – this year, the gendered teams are on the same island at the same time. A much more interesting show than it first appears, this is a grittier take on reality TV that’s worth a watch. On Demand Doctor Thorne All three episodes are available on ITV player. Hammy, ridiculous, clichéd – what more could you want from an ITV period drama? Rebecca Front and Phoebe Nicholls are excellently overblown as scheming sisters.
SRSLY #36: Thirteen, Anomalisa, A Little Chaos Thirteen, The Night Manager and more: the best TV this Easter weekend newstatesman.com
The 50-second film challenge: the best movies that last under a minute Thirteen, The Night Manager and more: the best TV this Easter weekend newstatesman.com 2016-03-24 18:23 Jonathan Jones www.newstatesman.com
53 Shuttle Endeavour lands at California air base - CNN.com (CNN) -- Space shuttle Endeavour landed safely Sunday afternoon at California's Edwards Air Force Base after NASA waved off two opportunities for a Florida landing because of poor weather. The shuttle, steered by commander Christopher Ferguson, landed at 1:25 p.m., ending a mission that lasted more than two weeks. Wind, rain and reports of thunderstorms within 30 miles of the shuttle landing facility at Florida's Kennedy Space Center prompted NASA to cancel the landing attempts there. Those had been scheduled for 1:19 p.m. and 2:54 p.m. ET. After determining Monday's weather forecast at Kennedy Space Center was equally unpromising, flight controllers decided they would try to land the shuttle and its seven astronauts at Edwards AFB, about 100 miles from Los Angeles, California, where Sunday's forecast was sunny. Flight controllers prefer landings at Kennedy Space Center because of cost and schedule. NASA has estimated it costs about $1.7 million to bring a shuttle home to Kennedy Space Center from California. Watch Endeavour's Sunday landing in California » It also takes at least a week to get the shuttle ready for the trip, but schedule is not a major factor for the Endeavour; it is not scheduled to fly again until May. Endeavour's 15-day mission to the international space station began on November 14 and included four spacewalks. During that time, the crew brought key pieces -- including exercise equipment, more sleeping berths and a urine recycling system -- for a project to double the capacity of the station from three in-house astronauts to six. The recycling system was installed to turn urine and sweat from the astronauts into drinking water. Other modules are scheduled to arrive on a February shuttle flight. The goal of expanding the station's capacity to six astronauts is expected to be reached by the summer. The crew also worked on a joint that helps generate power for the space station. Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper and Steve Bowen spent hours cleaning and lubricating the Solar Alpha Rotary Joint, which is designed to allow the solar panels on the left side of the station to rotate and track the sun. The astronauts also removed and replaced several trundle bearing assemblies. The mission went according to plan, despite a minor interruption on the first spacewalk when a grease gun in Stefanyshyn-Piper tool's bag leaked, coating everything inside with a film of lubricant. While she was trying to clean it up, the bag -- with $100,000 in tools -- floated away. CNN's Kate Tobin and Miles O'Brien contributed to this report.
2016-03-24 18:42 rss.cnn.com
54 “The irony is no longer ironic”: ISIS “aren’t Kobe Bryant,” Michele Bachmann writes in an attempt at a scathing attack on Obama Topics: Michele Bachmann , Terrorism , Brussels , Barack Obama , Elections 2016 , World Net Daily , Elections News , News , Politics News In a column at World Net Daily that could only make less sense if it were adapted by Zack Snyder , former Minnesota representative and GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann excoriated President Barack Obama for not tucking tail and running home in a panic after the terror attacks in Brussels. In a piece that was clearly penned by someone with an affinity for assonance and alliteration, Bachmann “wrote” that “[o]ur feckless U. S. president appeared unfazed by the message he portrayed of American incompetence and historic irrelevance.” “In fact,” she continued, “the president appeared pleased,” as “[o]nly he could break the barriers of isolation his misguided predecessors had painstakingly built,” and “[o]nly he could vouchsafe freedom against attack from legions of murderous Communist regimes and Jew-hating ayatollahs.”
2016-03-24 16:16 Scott Eric salon.com.feedsportal.com
55 Kasich rejects GOP call to quit race Contact WND (NEW YORK TIMES) Republicans desperate to stop Donald J. Trump from capturing the presidential nomination increased the pressure Wednesday on Gov. John Kasich of Ohio to quit the race, with Jeb Bush joining the growing number of party figures throwing their weight behind Senator Ted Cruz. Mr. Kasich refused, saying that he, not the Texas senator, was the best option to stop Mr. Trump. But his argument was undercut by his dismal showings Tuesday in Utah and Arizona, where he won no delegates — as well as by the surprise endorsement Wednesday morning by Mr. Bush of Mr. Cruz. Mr. Bush, who dropped out of the presidential race last month, is the latest mainstream Republican — following Mitt Romney and Senator Lindsey Graham — who is ideologically closer to Mr. Kasich, but whose embrace of Mr. Cruz is a strategic calculation that he has a better shot at stopping Mr. Trump.
2016-03-24 21:29 www.wnd.com
56 The most dangerous thing about Donald Trump: The disturbing movement he’s leading won’t just disappear if he loses Topics: Donald Trump , GOP primary , Elections 2016 , News , Politics News Over the past few weeks, it has become increasingly clear that Donald Trump is a threat to domestic tranquility. Throughout the country, people have gathered at Trump rallies and elsewhere to protest the Republican frontrunner and his divisive rhetoric, and many of these protesters have ultimately been dealt with violently, whether sucker punched by unhinged Trump supporters or pepper-sprayed by New York’s finest. Trump’s inflammatory comments about various ethnic and religious groups, along with his advocacy of violence against protesters, has convinced about half of Americans, according to a recent Huffington Post/YouGov poll , that his campaign “exhibits fascist undertones” (only 30 percent disagreed). And the possibility of a Trump presidency isn’t just alarming Americans; according to the research firm The Economist Intelligence Unit (a sister organization to the neoliberal Economist magazine) , the possibility of Trump becoming president is a significant threat to global economic security, right next to the rise of Jihadism. Trump’s “militaristic tendencies towards the Middle East (and ban on all Muslim travel to the US),” write the researchers, “would be a potent recruitment tool for jihadi groups, increasing their threat both within the region and beyond.” Along with his reckless and belligerent rhetoric, Trump’s apparent promise to get into trade wars with China and Mexico if they don’t toe the line (which, of course, they won’t) is seen as a sure way to create economic and geopolitical chaos. On a list of 25, Trump is ranked 12, as a “moderate probability, high impact” risk. The researchers, like the majority of pundits, feel confident that Trump will not become President of the United States. (Of course, the majority of pundits also felt confident that Trump would already be back to his reality TV career by now.) If favorability ratings are anything to go by, this is probably true — Trump’s ratings are, in a word, horrific. According to the HuffPost Pollster average , 62 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of the billionaire, compared to just 33 percent favorable. These ratings alone make a Trump victory in November seem unlikely, and EIU researchers conclude that, barring an unlikely event, such as “a terrorist attack on U. S. soil or a sudden economic downturn,” Trump will lose to the presumed Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton. This may be so, but it would be unwise to underestimate Trump’s populist appeal to disaffected Americans, along with Hillary Clinton’s natural aptitude for repelling these same kind of voters. (Bernie Sanders is a decent man who decided not to attack Clinton for her emails and went relatively easy on her Wall Street ties — don’t expect Trump to take this high road.) Clinton is the quintessential politician, while Trump is the anti-politician, and right now, many Americans would vote for a professional wrestler over a Washington insider.
2016-03-24 18:25 Conor Lynch salon.com.feedsportal.com
57 Comedy Central, hire Lindsey Graham! The trash-talking senator upstages Trevor Noah with unflappable ease Topics: TV , 2016 Elections , Lindsey Graham , Trevor Noah , The Daily Show , daily show , Entertainment News Senator Lindsey Graham, the senior senator from South Carolina, was not on “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah” for any reason except because he felt like it. Sometimes, politicians are promoting policy or running for office, but not Sen. Graham. He was there to play pool and talk shit, not necessarily in that order; as it happened, the talking shit came first. Graham—who dropped out of the 2016 GOP presidential race in December—endorsed Senator Ted Cruz for president a few days ago, despite having joked, just last month: “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.” It’s hard not to like Graham, who is the type of natural politician that is imbued with likable charisma, even when you completely disagree with them. Graham, crucially, seems like a person who has had complete thoughts; it makes his existence in the Republican party completely perplexing. Along those lines, my colleague Andrew O’Hehir wrote a love letter (of sorts) to the senator just a few weeks ago, observing: Perhaps Graham got the memo, because just a few short weeks later, Graham and “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah were shooting pool together. It was an irritatingly Jimmy Fallon-esque move—the NBC late-night host of “The Tonight Show” has become a constant purveyor of idiotic games, including one horrific one where the contestants spit food at each other —but it was a good format for Noah. The host has proven himself to be little more than a serviceable anchor for “The Daily Show,” as was demonstrated just in the first 10 minutes of this episode. But as soon as Graham walked onstage, it felt like an invisible veil had been lifted. Noah greeted him, with the ceremonial intonation of “thanks for appearing on my show for free,” and Graham, apparently without even thinking about it, said, “Well, this is as good as it gets. … Which is kind of sad, really.” The audience laughed, and Noah tried to press him on such a fatalistic pronouncement, but Graham adroitly dodged, beaming from ear-to-ear with that South Carolina smile. Noah then asked him about Cruz. Graham deadpanned: “I’m on the Ted Train. What’s not to like?” And when the audience hesitated, unsure, he turned that smile out to the audience, waiting with eerie, professional-level confidence for the inevitable laugh of recognition. It was like watching a Little League game lose all of its meaning as a Hall-Of-Famer stepped up to the plate; Lindsey Graham gives absolutely no fucks, and he doesn’t care who knows it.
2016-03-24 18:25 Sonia Saraiya salon.com.feedsportal.com
58 Charlotte man convicted of killing infant daughter in 2012 CHARLOTTE, N. C. (AP) - A Charlotte man has been convicted of killing his infant daughter more than three years ago. Multiple media outlets reported that 28-year-old Todd Boderick was found guilty of first-degree murder Wednesday by a judge hearing his case. Boderick acted as his own attorney after another judge ruled he has forfeited his right to a lawyer by firing two attorneys and clashing with a third lawyer. Superior Court Judge Robert Sumner sentenced Boderick to life in prison without parole. The case was heard without a jury. Sumner had a dual role of judge and jury, which was made legal by a 2014 constitutional amendment that allowed such trials if a defendant in a felony case requested one and the court approved. Boderick’s standby attorney, Calvin Coleman, announced an immediate appeal, arguing that the trial was not fair because it pit the defendant against two experienced prosecutors. Prosecutors Bill Bunting and Bill Stetzer declined comment because of pending murder charge against Krishay Mouzon, the infant’s mother. Boderick’s daughter, 6-month-old Keyoni Mouzon, was found on the floor between two hotel beds Oct. 27, 2012. Her autopsy revealed recurring injuries to most of her body from blows or severe shaking. Some of her ribs had been broken two and three times, and the child had fractures on both sides of her skull. Mouzon testified that she had left the child with Boderick on Oct. 25 for no more than 30 minutes. When she picked the child up, she said, the baby’s body was limp. The couple did not seek medical help for almost two days.
2016-03-24 21:19 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
59 Donald Trump despises women: Mocking Heidi Cruz’s looks is a new low in this grotesque sausage-waving campaign Topics: Donald Trump , Melania Trump , Heidi Cruz , Ted Cruz , Everyday Sexism , Life News , Entertainment News I keep having this recurring nightmare that a sputtering sexist Twitter troll is the leading Republican candidate for our nation’s highest office. And then I realize I’m not dreaming and all I can do is pretend that America is not happening right now. The thing about Donald Trump is that however busy you might think someone seriously hoping to become our next commander in chief might be, he always manages to stop and make time for the little things, like smack-talking his opponents — and their wives. With all the gentlemanly decorum of someone who has an egg avatar or considers “Yo mama” a suitable riposte, Trump this week has been fuming over an ad created by a pro-Ted Cruz Super PAC. The ad, paid for a group calling itself Make America Awesome and not authorized or endorsed by Cruz, features a nude British GQ image from 2000 of Trump’s former-model wife with the words, “Meet Melania Trump, your next first lady. Or, you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday.” America, I guess we still have a way to go in catching up with France in terms our national tolerance for nude first ladies. But so outraged was Trump as this apparent dis on his lovely wife that he immediately tweeted out the threat, “Lyin’ Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G. Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!” He later blustered, “Lyin’ Ted Cruz denied that he had anything to do with the G. Q. model photo post of Melania. That’s why we call him Lyin’ Ted!” and then went on to use the phrase “Lyin’ Ted” five more times in subsequent tweets. Shots: Fired. Beans: Ready to be spilled. Though Trump has yet to make good on his ominous legume-detonating threat about Heidi Cruz, he did — in his famously retweet-addicted way — RT an image from a supporter who claims to be a “PhD, MBA, Neurosurgeon” that featured an unflattering, grimacing image of Mrs. Cruz side by side with a glamor shot of Mrs. Trump, and the message “No need to spill the beans… the images are worth a thousand words.”
2016-03-24 18:25 Mary Elizabeth salon.com.feedsportal.com
60 Brussels attacks: Wounded flight attendant Nidhi Chaphekar placed in coma Brussels: A Jet Airways manager says a flight attendant injured in the Belgium attacks is undergoing treatment for burns and has been placed in a medically induced coma. Bernard Guisset, a Jet Airways manager in Brussels, said Nidhi Chaphekar has burns over 15 per cent of her body and has a fractured foot, but is out of danger. The image of Chaphekar taken right after the blast was one of the most searing photographs taken Tuesday. It showed the 40-year-old mother of two from Mumbai, her bright yellow uniform ripped across her chest. Her hair was caked with soot, and blood streaked down her face. Meanwhile, Amit Motwani, a Jet Airways flight purser who was also injured in the airport blast, was being treated for injuries to his eye and ear.
2016-03-24 21:18 By PTI www.mid-day.com
61 The Latest: Seattle tree-sitter booked, to appear in court SEATTLE (AP) - The Latest on the man who spent 25 hours in a tree in downtown Seattle (all times local): 11:15 a.m. A man who transfixed Seattle and the Internet by perching near the top of an 80-foot sequoia tree downtown has been booked into jail for investigation of malicious mischief and is expected to make an afternoon court appearance. Seattle police on Thursday identified the man as 28-year-old Cody Lee Miller. He climbed near the top of the conifer on Tuesday and stayed for about 25 hours, for much of which he ignored police efforts to coax him down. He finally clambered down around midday Wednesday. Officials say he was taken to a hospital and received physical and mental evaluations. He stripped branches off the tree and at times threw apples and branches toward officers.
2016-03-24 21:18 A man www.washingtontimes.com
62 62 “It’s part of being a human being, people kill each other and love each other”: New Yorkers talk hope, fear and being alive in this wild world Topics: original video , Sustainability News , Working Ahead News , Social News , Media News , Life News , Entertainment News Salon hit the streets and asked New Yorkers if they are living in a state of fear or hope and what that means for them.
2016-03-24 18:25 Peter Cooper salon.com.feedsportal.com
63 University of California OKs statement against anti- Semitism SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The University of California’s governing board on Thursday adopted a statement condemning anti-Semitic behavior and a companion report urging campus leaders to confront intolerant anti-Zionism activism. The actions come amid growing campus tensions between Israeli supporters and backers of Palestinian rights. Some Jewish groups say they are concerned that anti-Semitic behavior is increasing because of the highly emotional debate. The groups last year urged the 10-campus UC system to affirm its opposition to anti-Semitism. The declaration makes the University of California the first public university system to reaffirm its opposition to anti-Semitic behavior since campaigns for academic and economic boycotts of Israel have taken root on many U. S. college campuses. Pro-Palestinian groups and faculty members with research specialties in the Middle East were upset that anti-Semitism was the only type of intolerance specifically mentioned in the principles at a time when Muslims in the U. S. increasingly face discrimination. The Board of Regents adopted the statement against intolerance and a report summarizing its need and context. Critics feared the statement would stifle free speech. An initial statement presented to a board committee alarmed critics with language condemning anti-Zionism, the rejection of Israel’s right to exist. The committee added language barring anti- Semitic “forms” of anti-Zionism activism. “Anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic forms of anti-Zionism and other forms of discrimination have no place at the University of California,” according to the statement the regents adopted. Free speech advocates remained concerned that the slight change to the introductory report made Wednesday did not go far enough. The statement does not outline sanctions for violating its terms but reminds faculty and staff to impose discipline in cases that violate existing anti-discrimination policies, UC officials said.
2016-03-24 21:17 In this www.washingtontimes.com
64 64 Election Rundown: The ‘Stab v. the Grassroots By Leslee Kulba- Ted Cruz beat Donald J. Trump 11,433 to 8,430 in Buncombe County. Cruz also beat Trump in Henderson and Madison counties, but Trump won statewide 458,411 to 418.927. The best explanation offered for the unique outcomes in these Western North Carolina counties is the outreach of Pete Kaliner, the afternoon drive-time host on WWNC 570AM. Kaliner is vehement in contending Trump is a liberal whose amazing deal-cutting skills include “purchased” legislators and ties to organized crime. Kaliner, like many, is convinced Trump would get totally trounced by Hillary Clinton; especially since he contributed at least $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation and, for example, in 2006 donated $25,000 to Democrat Congressional committees, compared to the $1000 he gave to Republicans. John Kasich came in third, above Marco Rubio in Buncombe and Henderson, reflecting the statewide trend. Kasich was bolstered by intensive Fox News attention in days leading up to the election. His supporters had tried to get Rubio to swap delegates in Ohio and Florida, and Ohio Cruz supporters were urged to give their vote to Kasich to siphon delegates away from Trump. Rubio plummeted after trying to respond in-kind to Trump’s negativity in the last debate. Brent Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center recently announced that Trump had been getting 52 percent of candidate coverage in the mainstream media. Cruz, who has been running in second place since the Iowa Caucus, has only gotten 1.5 percent, most of which has been derogatory. Counting delegates is messy, and no two sources seem to have agreed since Super Tuesday. The states have different methods of awarding delegates and some take longer to sort out than others. Another reason is reports have different ways of dealing with uncommitted delegates. To date, according to the Conservative Review’s Republican Delegate Count, Trump has 693; Cruz, 422; and Kasich, 146. 209 delegates have been assigned to candidates now dropped out. A candidate must receive a majority of delegates, or 1237, to win. If that does not happen, the Republicans would hold a contested convention, in which the candidates vie for the votes of uncommitted delegates. If no majority winner emerges from that process, then the process would degenerate to a brokered convention, in which lots of wheeling and dealing go on and, as has been suggested, the Establishment could “parachute in” somebody who hasn’t been running, or doesn’t qualify, like Kasich. The number of rounds a delegate is pledged to vote for their assigned candidate varies from state to state. Over on the Democrat side, Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders 616,758 to 460,434 statewide. But locally, in Buncombe, Bernie clobbered Hillary 30,913 to 17,604. He also beat Hillary in counties all over Western North Carolina. While Uncle Bernie has broad popular appeal, Nurse Ratchet, as Rush Limbaugh calls her, is strongly bolstered by superdelegates. In the Democrat Party, 715 delegates consisting of party leaders and Democrats elected to high office may vote their minds regardless of how the vote goes. Clinton has 465 superdelegates; Sanders, 24. The names of superdelegates are listed on Wikipedia. Patsy Keever and Jake Quinn are superdelegates of local notoriety. Due to Establishment fears of a Trump presidency, rumor spread this week of secret meetings and attempts to defeat Trump by running a real conservative as a third-party candidate. That was a head-scratcher, since Cruz is billed as being totally Reaganesque in his conservativism, and there is already a third party. The Libertarians ran eleven presidential candidates on their ballot. Gary Johnson, who ran last time, barely squeaked by “No Preference,” securing 2390 votes statewide. As has been mentioned previously, the election of a president would not be so important if not for recent episodes of executive overreach. President Obama is famous for saying, “If Congress doesn’t act, I will,” and for making threats with his pen and phone. The properly enumerated powers of the presidency are very few. But it is difficult for somebody bent on winning not to promise the moon to voters who have learned to look to the executive branch for salvation. There is no doubt that one reason for the economy’s malaise is the absence of the rule of law at the federal level keeping would-be speculative investors off-balance. Fortunately, the Supreme Court overturned twenty of Obama’s actions that made people angry enough to sue. A conservative president dedicated to appointing an originalist stalwart to fill Antonin Scalia’s vacancy on the court would go a long way to making sure the next president doesn’t get away with twenty overreaches. These Guys Matter – Cruz has promised to repeal every un-Constitutional executive order upon taking office. But repealing legislation like Obamacare will take a proverbial act of Congress. Despite what candidates promise, Obamacare may only be repealed with a bill passing both chambers with a 2/3, veto-proof majority, or by a simple majority and the blessing of the president. And so the choice of legislators will be important. Incumbent Senator Richard Burr won in a statewide landslide with 622,074 votes. The next closest candidate was Greg Brannon with 255,030 votes. Burr, considered an Establishment Republican, was sure to win because the grassroots conservatives ran three of their own to split the opposition. That said, all grassroots votes combined were only slightly more than half Burr’s. Ever since Barry Goldwater’s horrible defeat in his bid for the presidency in 1964, the Establishment has been reluctant to run a hard-core conservative. And yet, guys who have run to the middle, like Mitt Romney and John McCain have not had messages that could resonate across the aisle like Ronald Reagan’s self-evident truths did with Reagan Democrats. Should the Establishment get what it wants in an aisle-reacher like Kasich, here’s what’s on the other side. Winning the Democrat senatorial primary was Deborah K. Ross, whose issues statements are quite foreign to the Republicans’. For example, she wants government to grow the economy, invest in public schools and make college more affordable, address climate change through clean energy supports, enact universal healthcare coverage, provide benefits to seniors and veterans, and fight for women’s issues. Congressional candidates will have until June to get their votes together. A Supreme Court ruling that came down after absentee ballots were already circulating allowed Districts 1 and 12 to be redrawn, and they couldn’t be redrawn without affecting the borders of adjacent districts and then juggling the boundaries to make sure a goodly number of people were in each district. Consequently, Congressional Districts 10 and 11, currently represented by Patrick McHenry and Mark Meadows, respectively, have been adjusted somewhat. McHenry is running for a seventh term with house re-election rates around 90 percent. He is challenged by former Democrat Jeff Gregory, who is protesting McHenry’s support of Planned Parenthood through the omnibus budget bill; and Albert Wiley, who is one of three candidates living outside their districts – 300 miles away on a barrier island in this case. The Liberty Caucus’ Meadows is one of three Republican congressmen who aren’t being primaried. The other two, George Holding and Richard Hudson, are also viewed as being fairly conservative. Either Thomas Hill or Frederick Bryson will run against Meadows in the general election. Far less advertised were races for other seats on the Council of State. A very important position in these “perilous times” is that of attorney general. Cruz brought to light the importance of this position on the campaign trail as he told about how Texas’ attorney general, now Governor Greg Abbott, commissioned him as solicitor general to proactively seek out cases elsewhere in the country where Texas had standing, in order to force clarifying, and not activist, votes on the Constitution. As a result, Heller v. District of Columbia was decided so that individual citizens, and not exclusively the well-regulated militia, retained the right to keep and bear arms. Thanks to Elk Grove v. Newdow, school children can still say “under God.” What’s more, it was attorneys general across the country who sued the federal government on various grounds to try to stop Obamacare. North Carolina’s attorney general did not cooperate. Now, Buck Newton will be facing off against Josh Stein. Newton ran as a Constitutional conservative. Musical Chairs – Incumbent Pat McCrory won the governor’s race. With 869,487 votes, he won 81.76 percent of the statewide vote. He will be running against the current attorney general, Roy Cooper, who earned 68.76 percent of Democrats’ votes. Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest will be running for re-election against Linda Coleman. Coleman beat out local star Holly Jones with 494,579 over 278,160 votes. Jones had served seven years on Asheville City Council before serving as a Buncombe County Commissioner another seven. Her term on the commission is set to end in 2016. The vacancy she leaves in the downtown District 1 is expected to be filled by Jasmine Beach-Ferrera. Beach-Ferrera’s main selling point was that she is openly LGBT. With 43.85 percent of the votes, she defeated Asheville City Councilman Gordon Smith and civil rights activist Isaac Coleman. Having run mid-term, Smith will be able to return to his seat on council. But there will be another vacancy in District 1. Commissioner Brownie Newman, who served with Jones on city council and followed her over to the commission, is running for commission chair. Incumbent David Gantt opted not to run for reelection. Newman had no opposition in the Democrat primary and so he will be running against Commissioner Miranda DeBruhl. DeBruhl is running mid-term so she will not forfeit her western District 3 seat if she loses. Either way, DeBruhl’s or Newman’s seat will go up for bid. DeBruhl defeated Chad Nesbitt in the primary. Whereas DeBruhl is measured, articulate, and pragmatic; Nesbitt had more of a Trump-like bent for publicity. Fellow partisans had been turned off by stunts like a 911 rappelling event at the Swannanoa Fire Department that officials say was billed as a fundraiser for cancer, but turned out to be a fundraiser for a “guerilla marketing campaign” to “defend ourselves from socialistic terrorism.” Nesbitt had the support of the Asheville TEA PAC and partisans trying to secure two seats instead of one. Another Tea Party candidate, Jordan Burchette, was running against Mike Fryar, who was seeking reelection for his eastern District 2 seat; even though Fryar takes the most conservative stances of any commissioner. Fryar garnered 57.89 percent of the vote and will be challenged in the general election by Nancy Nehls Nelson, who won a four-way race with 32.05 percent support. Nelson, a former Bell Labs project manager, is running as a centrist. They Also Ran – Following the primary, the following face-offs for Council of State emerged: Chuck Stuber (R) v. incumbent Beth Wood (D) for Auditor, Walter Smith (D) v. incumbent Steve Troxler (R) for Commissioner of Agriculture, George Goodwin (D) v. incumbent Mike Causey (R) for Commissioner of Insurance, incumbent Cherie Berry (R) v. Charles Meeker (D) for Commissioner of Labor, incumbent Elaine Marshall (D) v. Michael LaPaglia (R) for Secretary of State, Mark Johnson (R) v. incumbent June Atkinson (D) for Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Dale Folwell (R) v. Dan Blue III (D) for Treasurer. Current Treasurer Janet Cowell is the only incumbent not seeking re-election. For the state legislature, Frank Moretz beat Robert Chilmonik 4816 to 3356 in the Republican primary for NC House District 115. He will be running against John Ager (D). Unprimaried, Kay Olsen (R) will challenge incumbent Brian Turner for NC House 116. Incumbent Susan Fisher (D) is running unopposed in the heavily-Democrat House 114 district. Republican leadership had searched hard to find a challenger. For state senate, Beau Meredith (L) will challenge incumbent Terry Van Duyn (D) in District 49. No Republican is running in this race, either. For District 48, a three-way Republican primary was settled with Chuck Edwards getting 3074 votes; Lisa Baldwin, 2223; and Dennis Justice, 613. Both Edwards and Baldwin ran as conservatives and both received prestigious endorsements. Baldwin is the same public schools activist who writes for the Tribune Papers. Edwards will run against Norman Bossert (D) in November. Lastly, the bond referendum passed. The state will now be allowed to borrow $2 billion for a variety of capital projects, including buildings for community colleges and the National Guard. 2016-03-24 22:07 By Leslee www.thetribunepapers.com
65 New analysis: 'Obamacare' coverage costs rising WASHINGTON (AP) — Expanded health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama's signature legislative legacy, will cost the government more, according to an official study released Thursday. Still, on balance, the measure more than pays for itself. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the health care law will cost $1.34 trillion over the coming decade, $136 billion more than the CBO predicted a year ago. That 11 percent hike is mostly caused by higher-than- expected enrollment in the expanded Medicaid program established under the law. All told, 22 million more people will have health care coverage this year than if the law had never been enacted, CBO said. The measure's coverage provisions are expected to cost $110 billion this year. The number of uninsured people this year is anticipated at 27 million. About 90 percent of the U. S. population will have coverage, a percentage that is expected to remain stable into the future. The study also projected a slight decline in employment-based coverage, although it will remain by far the most common kind among working-age people and their families. Employers now cover some 155 million people, about 57 percent of those under 65. That's expected to decline to 152 million people in 2019. Ten years from now, employers will be covering about 54 percent of those under 65. CBO said part of the shrinkage is attributable to the health care law: some workers may qualify for Medicaid, which is virtually free to them, and certain employers may decide not to offer coverage because a government-subsidized alternative is available. (Larger employers would face fines if they take that route.) But the agency also noted that employer coverage had been declining due to rising medical costs well before the health care law was passed, and that trend continues. The analysis underscores the view that the health care law is driving the nation's gains in insurance coverage, which raises political risks for Republicans who would repeal it. Taking seniors covered by Medicare out of the equation, the government devotes $660 billion to subsidizing health care for people under 65, including the Medicaid program for the poor and disabled and tax benefits for employer-provided health insurance. The budget office did not provide a new estimate of Obamacare's overall impact on the federal deficit, other than to say that it is, on net, expected to reduce the deficit. The law included a roster of tax increases and cuts in Medicare payments to hospitals and other providers to pay for coverage expansion. The Obama administration said the report shows that the law is working to cover the uninsured and that the cost projections, when viewed in context, remain positive. "It's important to appreciate that the (health care law) is not just about some race to meet a given number of enrollees," spokesman Aaron Albright said in a statement. "It is about health care in America for all of us as we go through life... affordable insurance is not out of reach because of costs or a pre-existing condition. " CBO is a congressional agency that does budget forecasts and cost estimates of legislation.
2016-03-24 20:09 Associated Press www.dailymail.co.uk
66 Most racists back Donald Trump: New poll suggests racial resentment above all is driving Trump’s rise Topics: Elections 2016 , Republican Party , Donald Trump , Elections News , News , Politics News Not all Donald Trump supporters are racists, but most racists are Donald Trump supporters. The rhetoric and bile surrounding Trump’s rallies more or less confirms this, but that’s anecdotal. We know, if nothing else, that the Donald has appealed to working class whites who have been victimized by a decaying industrial economy but are deeply confused about who’s or what’s responsible. As I argued in December, “It’s not Mexicans or Muslims or some other minority group outsourcing jobs or buying elections or rigging the tax code in favor of special interests – corporations and their deregulating cronies in office (on both sides) are responsible for that, as are the broader forces of globalization and neoliberalism. And yet the ire of the typical Trumpite is directed at foreigners and black people.” The driving force of Trump’s campaign, in many ways it’s raison d’etre, is racial and cultural resentment. Indeed, support for Trump is positively correlated with racial resentment, according to a recent American National Election Study (ANES). The disaffected whites clamoring for a big wall on the border at his rallies are a reminder of what’s lurking beneath the nationalist fervor. If a luxurious wall on the southern border was of any practical value, we’d be having a different conversation. But, as the inimitable John Oliver pointed out, Trump’s wall is not only useless – it’s obscenely expensive and counterproductive. The wall is a symbolic gesture, a metaphorical middle finger to the nebulous “other.” It won’t bring back any jobs; it won’t resuscitate the manufacturing sector; and it won’t make America any whiter or safer than it already is. But for the disillusioned Trump voter, it’s a palliative nevertheless. As prominent Republicans like Paul Ryan scramble to stop Trump, decrying the tone and divisiveness of his campaign, a new Washington Post/ABC News poll confirms that Trump is succeeding precisely because of his tone and divisiveness. Republican voters were asked a revealing question: “Which of these do you think is a bigger problem in this country – blacks and Hispanics losing out because of preferences for whites, or whites losing out because of preferences for blacks and Hispanics?”
2016-03-24 18:25 Sean Illing salon.com.feedsportal.com
67 Government goofs up with Bhagat Singh's portrait on Shaheed Diwas A picture of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis, standing along with chief secretary of Swadheen Kshatriya, next to three portraits on Shaheed Diwas is making rounds on the social networking sites. The picture that is being circulated on social networking sites The picture that is being circulated has two goof- ups. First, out of three portraits, there is no portrait of Sukhdev and on the contrary there are two of Bhagat Singh and one of Rajguru. Second, the portrait which is in the centre is actually of Bhagat Singh and is erroneously named as Sukhdev. Last year in September the government came up with a circular directing every government, and semi-government office to commemorate March 23 as Shaheed Divas. Hence, on this day, every government, semi-government office, had geared up to pay homage to the freedom fighters. The chief minister had gone to pay his respects at the Mantralaya. However, an administrational mistake led to a major embarrassment. mid-day tried contacting the chief minister but neither he nor his media advisor were unavailable for comments. Swadhin Kshatriya, the Chief Secretary for the state of Maharashtra said, "We have asked the Additional Chief Secretary to clarify on this matter. I cannot say anything else. "
2016-03-24 21:14 By Varun www.mid-day.com
68 Donald Trump leads John Kasich by 3 points in Pennsylvania: poll Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has a 3-point lead over Ohio Gov. John Kasich in Pennsylvania — one of the remaining states with a sizable chunk of delegates up for grabs next month — in a new poll. Mr. Trump was at 33 percent among Republican voters, Mr. Kasich was at 30 percent and Sen. Ted Cruz was at 20 percent in the Franklin & Marshall College poll released this week. Last month, Mr. Trump had been at 22 percent, Mr. Kasich was at 15 percent and Mr. Cruz was at 12 percent. There are 71 GOP delegates up for grabs in the April 26 contest, though just 17 of those are technically bound to abide by the state popular vote on the first ballot at the Republican convention in July. Mr. Trump often includes Pennsylvania as a state he’d put in play for Republicans if he’s the nominee. But the poll showed him trailing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton by 13 points, 46 percent to 33 percent. Sixty-five percent of Pennsylvania voters overall had an unfavorable view of Mr. Trump , compared to 27 percent with a favorable view. Among Republicans only, Mr. Trump had a 46 percent/41 percent favorable/unfavorable split. On the Democratic side, Mrs. Clinton had a 25-point, 53 percent to 28 percent, advantage over Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont.
2016-03-24 21:10 Republican presidential www.washingtontimes.com
69 Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton in virtual tie: poll Sen. Bernard Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are in a virtual dead heat, according to a new national poll of past and likely voters in Democratic presidential nominating contests this year. Mr. Sanders was at 49 percent in the Bloomberg Politics poll and Mrs. Clinton was at 48 percent. Mrs. Clinton did lead Mr. Sanders by 3 points, 50 percent to 47 percent, among those who have yet to vote in a primary or caucus. But Mr. Sanders outperformed Mrs. Clinton in head-to-head match-ups against the remaining Republican contenders, leading GOP front-runner Donald Trump by 24 points, Sen. Ted Cruz by 12 points, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich by 4 points. Mrs. Clinton , meanwhile, led Mr. Trump by 18 points and led Mr. Cruz by 9 points. She trailed Mr. Kasich by 4 points. Nevertheless, Mrs. Clinton holds an outsize advantage over Mr. Sanders in the delegate race. Including superdelegates, she has 1,690 to Mr. Sanders ‘ 946, according to the latest estimates from The Associated Press. A candidate needs 2,383 to clinch the nomination.
2016-03-24 21:10 Backers of www.washingtontimes.com
70 Ministers approve food import reforms while saying more is needed Tax free food imports will be allowed for a number of items after Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel signed an agreement, aiming to “stabilize food prices ahead of the Passover holiday.” The agreement also outlines the amount of compensation that will be provided to local farmers. With the government's approval to import 3,500 tons of tariff-free tilapia and 500 tons of carp and gray mullet fish without tariffs, Israeli fish breeders with get a one-time compensation of NIS 23 million for 2016. Israeli olive oil producers will also get NIS 15m. in compensation to offset the import of 2,000 tons of olive oil, tax free. A special committee will monitor the agreement's implementation and gather reports on the the affects lower import taxes could have on prices at all levels. The reforms also allowed for the the tax-free import of 3,500 tons of meat, though did not say how much compensation would be provided to Israeli slaughterers. The Agriculture Ministry emphasized the need for more imported meat earlier in the week as it banned meat from the West Bank from being sold in Israel, saying the products do not meet minimum health standards and that the Palestinian Authority's veterinary services are “untrustworthy.” The ministry said that if more meat and chicken were to be imported, the proper authorities would be present to make sure products hold up to the minimum standards, The ministry said that although it realizes the “diplomatic importance” of these products, “no civilized country would allow these products to be sold,” and asked whether authorities in the US or Europe would allow the same PA items to be imported.
2016-03-24 21:08 MICHELLE MALKA www.jpost.com
71 Yahoo - Introducing Fair Play on Yahoo Sports Daily Fantasy Yahoo Launches Key Changes in Daily Fantasy to Help Level the Playing Field for Fans Including Entry Limits, Labeling of Veteran Players and No Scripting --(BUSINESS WIRE)-- (NASDAQ:YHOO) today announced important changes to its Sports Daily Fantasy product to make contests more transparent and fun for all users. Changes include limiting entries to a max of 10 entries per user per contest (and in no event can a single user's entries make up more than 1% of total entries in a contest), clearly identifying Veteran players with a badge, and prohibiting the use of any type of scripting tool to upload or edit entries. "We first launched Yahoo Sports Daily Fantasy back in because it was an exciting addition to our product suite and because our users were clamoring for it," said , Head of Product for and Finance. "Yahoo Fantasy Sports has tens of millions of registered fans and we are making these changes today as the result of months of user experience and customer requests. values an environment that is transparent and trustworthy. We also want to provide the best Fantasy games for true sports fans. does both. " As daily fantasy continues to evolve, the labeling of a small percentage of "Veteran" players with a distinct badge is a key change that will make it easier for all players to know who they are playing against on Yahoo Sports Daily Fantasy. Veterans will be defined as users who have entered more than 1,000 contests within a single year, or who have entered more than 250 contests and prevailed in greater than 65% of them within a single year, or who have won a single prize of or greater more than three times within a single year. As a thank you to those users who have been so dedicated to Yahoo Sports Daily Fantasy, will be inviting Veterans to a special, free, invitation-only contest. has been a leader in fantasy sports for over 17 years. The changes made today will continue the tradition of fun and social user experiences that fans have come to expect from. is a guide focused on informing, connecting, and entertaining our users. By creating highly personalized experiences for our users, we keep people connected to what matters most to them, across devices and around the world. In turn, we create value for advertisers by connecting them with the audiences that build their businesses. is headquartered in , and has offices located throughout the , (APAC) and the , and (EMEA) regions. For more information, visit the pressroom (pressroom.yahoo.net) or the Company's blog (yahoo.tumblr.com).
2016-03-24 19:59 investor.yahoo.net
72 RI unemployment rate in February unchanged at 5.4 percent PROVIDENCE, R. I. (AP) - Rhode Island’s unemployment rate was unchanged in February, holding steady at 5.4 percent. Numbers released on Thursday by the state Department of Labor and Training show the state’s jobless rate is five-tenths of a percentage point higher than the national rate of 4.9 percent. The national rate also did not change from January to February. The state unemployment rate has fallen one percentage point since February 2015, when it was 6.4 percent. Rhode Island had one of the highest unemployment rates for years during the recession and is still struggling to recover the jobs it lost. The number of unemployed residents rose by 100 from January, while the number of Rhode Island-based jobs rose by 300.
2016-03-24 21:04 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
73 73 North Dakota still sees growth despite oil industry downturn MINOT, N. D. (AP) - North Dakota continues to have some of the fastest- growing areas in the nation, despite the downturn in the oil industry. New U. S. Census Bureau estimates show that Williston in 2015 continued to be the fastest-growing micropolitan area in the country, with a nearly 9.9 percent growth rate. A micropolitan area has a population of 10,000 to 50,000 people. The Minot Daily News reports (http://bit.ly/1T7rpwQ ) that Minot and Dickinson were fifth and sixth in the nation respectively in numerical population growth. North Dakota swept the top four spots for fastest-growing counties, led by 16.65 percent growth in McKenzie County. Williams was second with 9.85 percent, Mountrail third at 5.97 percent and Stark fourth at 5.46 percent. Cass County in the east - North Dakota’s largest - saw growth of 2.5 percent. ___ Information from: Minot Daily News, http://www.minotdailynews.com
2016-03-24 21:04 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
74 Bodies of woman and young boy found below cliff in Sydney A woman and young boy have been found dead close to a cliff in the Sydney beachside suburb of Maroubra after emergency services were alerted to concerns for a mother and child. Emergency services were called to the cliff face about 8.30pm on Thursday, and the bodies of the woman and boy were found during a subsequent search. Police said they were not looking for anyone else in connection to the deaths, and the woman and child were still to be formally identified.
2016-03-24 21:03 Australian Associated www.theguardian.com
75 New photos of Oregon wildlife refuge reveal damage done by Bundy standoff The US Fish and Wildlife Service released new photos from the scene of the 41-day standoff at a wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon , showing that protesters left behind trashed buildings, damaged facilities, a compromised septic system and government offices with missing possessions. The images from the Malheur national wildlife refuge in rural Harney County – where anti- government activists, led by Ammon Bundy , staged a takeover in January to protest federal land-use regulations – show piles of garbage, offices turned upside down, abandoned camping gear, food and alcohol, broken walls and excavated grounds. Government officials who run the bird sanctuary have also revealed that the cost of the occupation for the federal agency is at least $6m – a number that could grow as workers continue to assess and repair damage. Since the high-profile occupation, which drew armed militiamen from across the country, began 2 January at the headquarters of the refuge, protest leaders have insisted that they were not damaging any public property and were instead cleaning up facilities. But after dozens of activists joined the occupation – some working on federal computers, rummaging through office records and artifacts , building roads and trenches and establishing group living quarters on site – officials say the damage was significant and costly. “These pictures are a microcosm of how bad it really was,” said Jason Holm, assistant regional director for the fish and wildlife service. The agency took the photos after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) completed its extensive sweep of the site, removing evidence in the government’s criminal conspiracy case, which now includes 26 defendants facing serious charges for their roles in the standoff. “It brings out some emotions and some anger,” Holm said, referring to the reactions from the federal employees who have returned to the refuge. “They are thrilled to be back. These are people who generally don’t become biologists to be in the public sphere. They love creatures and places and are passionate about doing their jobs.” Attorneys representing the jailed activists and supporters of the occupation have argued that the public should not trust the official damage reports from the FBI and other federal agencies. Critics have recently pointed to formal allegations that FBI agents may have lied and removed evidence in the fatal shooting of protester LaVoy Finicum as a clear indication of the government’s dishonest tactics in its investigation and ongoing prosecution. During the occupation, activists renamed the refuge the “Harney County Resource Center” and argued that the federal government has no authority on the state’s public lands and should instead allow local control. After federal prosecutors this week revealed new charges against one standoff participant for allegedly damaging government property, occupier Shawna Cox –who is one of the defendants in the case on house arrest while awaiting trial – said the protesters were respectful of the site and caused no damage. “Everyone was out there fixing and cleaning,” she said by phone. “I can’t imagine them [damaging property]. They’re not that type of people.” The agency spent roughly $2m relocating employees and their families throughout the region, according to Holm, who said many faced threats from activists online and in person in Harney County. Some anti-government protesters confronted workers in the local town of Burns and some refuge employees reported being followed and stalked at their homes, Holm said. “Strange cars were parked in front of houses. There were encounters at grocery stores where people were confronted,” said Holm, adding that the government had intel suggesting one federal refuge employee was “targeted for kidnapping”. The wildlife service also spent roughly $2.3m on law enforcement and estimates it will spend $1.7m to restore damaged property and replace missing items, Holm said. This $6m is in addition to the more than $3m that Oregon government agencies reported spending on the occupation. During the occupation, protesters, visitors, reporters and others were free to enter most buildings at the refuge, which were unlocked when the activists took over. Some workers returned to their offices to find personal belongings and government equipment gone, including money and cameras, Holm said. The refuge is now open to the public, except for the headquarters where the occupation occurred, which could remain closed until early summer. Employees are currently stationed in temporary trailers.
2016-03-24 21:02 Sam Levin www.theguardian.com
76 Census: Iowa population down in 71 counties, urban areas up DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - U. S. Census estimates released Thursday show more than two-thirds of Iowa counties have lost population since 2010 but that counties near urban areas saw big growth. The Census data estimates 71 of Iowa’s 99 counties lost residents and 28 counties gained population. Gary Krob, coordinator of the State Data Center, said the population has been declining in rural counties for decades, so this latest report was nothing new for those areas. “The fact that we have counties that are declining in population, it’s concerning for those communities and those counties for sure,” he said. “But the state as a whole, we’re not experiencing population decline.” He added that population growth is generally going to center on urban areas, where employment opportunities are more abundant. The Census Bureau reports most metro areas, or 285 out of 381, nationwide gained population between 2014 and 2015. “The United States as a whole was a lot more rural 100 years ago than it is now, and that’s what we’re seeing here in Iowa as well,” Krob said. The state’s largest percentage population growth was in Dallas County, a suburban area near Des Moines that saw the number of residents climb by 21.2 percent. That was followed by 10.2 percent in Johnson County and 8.6 percent in Polk County. In actual numbers, the largest population growth was in Polk County, where Des Moines is located. It added 37,076 people. Polk County has an estimated population of 467,711, making it Iowa’s largest. Clinton County had the biggest population decline, dropping by 1,348 residents. Adams is the state’s least populated county, with 3,796 people.
2016-03-24 20:59 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
77 Man pleads guilty to killing US official in Niger carjacking NEW YORK (AP) - A man charged with killing a U. S. Department of Defense official and wounding a U. S. Marine during a carjacking in Niger in 2000 has pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit murder. Alhassane Ould Mohamed of Mali pleaded guilty Thursday at federal court in New York City. The 46-year-old was accused of fatally shooting Department of Defense attache William Bultemeier as Bultemeier left a restaurant in the Niger capital of Niamey. A Marine who came to Bultemeier’s aid was also wounded. Mohamed was arrested in Mali two days after the killing but escaped from prison twice since then. He was extradited to the U. S in 2014. Speaking through an interpreter Thursday, Mohamed apologized for his actions. He is expected to be sentenced to 25 years in prison. ___ This story has been corrected to show that the defendant’s last name is Mohamed, not Mohammed, and that he is 46, not 45.
2016-03-24 20:59 - Associated Press - Thursday, March 24, 2016 www.washingtontimes.com
78 Roswell worker accused of crashing city car Just One More Thing... We have sent you a verification email. Please check your email and click on the link to activate your profile. If you do not receive the verification message within a few minutes of signing up, please check your Spam or Junk folder.
2016-03-24 18:28 www.ajc.com
79 Hannity rips Univision anchor over Trump bias Contact WND Sparks flew on Wednesday when Fox News' Sean Hannity butted heads with Univision's Jorge Ramos over coverage of Donald Trump's campaign. Do you support Trump? Tell the world with this brand new bumper sticker: “DONALD TRUMPS THE REST” "I don’t need any lectures from you, Jorge Ramos! " Hannity said after being charged with treating the presidential hopeful with kid gloves. "You're calling [Trump] racist. You're calling him bigoted and you totally misrepresent what he said. " Ramos insisted that Hannity's hour-long interview with the Republican front-runner on March 9 was devoid of tough questions about the billionaire's comments on crime committed by illegal immigrants. "What he's saying about Mexican immigrants, what he's saying about Muslims, and what he's saying about women is completely unacceptable," Ramos said, Mediaite reported. "Is it true that people have entered this country illegally and not respected our laws and sovereignty? Have people come over from the border and have they committed rape? Have they committed murder? Have they committed crimes against Americans? Do you doubt what the law enforcement and Border Patrol told me about Texas alone in an eight-year period – 642,000 crimes? Is it true those crimes are happening? Do you recognize that truth or not? " "I'm not here to defend any criminals," replied Ramos. "Yes, that has happened. " Hannity lost patience with the Univision anchor's insistence that he and Trump were denigrating "all" illegal immigrants as rapists and drug dealers at one point, saying, "You act like a sanctimonious objective reporter. You've got an agenda. You support open borders! You support illegal immigration! " Like the reporting you see here? Sign up for free news alerts from WND.com, America's independent news network. Ramos and Hannity will have plenty of additional opportunities to spar in the coming months. Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz – both fierce opponents of amnesty for illegal immigrants – are racing to secure 1,237 delegates by the Republican Party's convention in Cleveland, Ohio, in July. The billionaire has secured 678 delegates compared with Cruz's 465. RELATED: Mexico's Fox flips out on Trump's border plan Ex-Mexico prez: We’re not building Trump’s ‘stupid wall’ Trump rips Mexico: ‘The wall just got higher’
2016-03-24 20:55 Douglas Ernst www.wnd.com
80 Volkswagen gets a month for plan on diesel emissions fix SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Volkswagen and government regulators must present a detailed plan within a month on getting nearly 600,000 diesel cars to comply with clean air laws or risk the possibility of a trial this summer over an emissions cheating scandal, a federal judge said Thursday. Senior U. S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer said he wants to know the timing of the fix and any planned payments to owners, among other details, by April 21. "I would hope by the 21st that as many outstanding issues as possible will be wrapped up, but at least the issues of what is to be done with these cars must be resolved by that date," he said. Breyer said former FBI Director Robert Mueller told him Volkswagen, government regulators and attorneys for car owners had made substantial progress toward a resolution that would get the polluting cars off the road. He did not provide any details. Breyer appointed Mueller to oversee settlement talks. The parties were not able to immediately announce the solution because engineering technicalities and other important issues still needed to be resolved, Breyer said Mueller told him. Volkswagen acknowledged in September that it intentionally defeated emissions tests and put dirty vehicles on the road. The cheating allowed cars to pass laboratory emissions tests while spewing harmful nitrogen oxide at up to 40 times the level allowed when operating on real roads. The Department of Justice sued Volkswagen on behalf of the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency. The company also is facing lawsuits from angry car owners, who are demanding Volkswagen buy the vehicles back. Those cases are both before Breyer. Justice Department attorney Josh Van Eaton and Elizabeth Cabraser, lead counsel for vehicle owners and lease holders, agreed with the assessment that substantial progress was being made. But Joe Azam, an attorney in New York who owns a 2014 Jetta wagon, said another month was not what he wanted to hear. The 34-year-old is not a party to any of the lawsuits against Volkswagen. "Every day that goes by and every time I drive my car, it's almost like a moral hazard," he said. "I realize it's spewing out more emissions than I thought it was going to when we paid a premium for the diesel. " Breyer warned that he would seriously consider holding a trial this summer to resolve the ongoing pollution if a solution did not emerge by April 21. The judge told Volkswagen attorney Robert Giuffra last month that he wanted to know by Thursday whether the company had come up with a fix that was technologically feasible and acceptable to the EPA. Six months was long enough to determine whether there was an engineering fix for the vehicles, Breyer said at the time. But he appeared pleased with the progress report he received Thursday. Volkswagen said in a statement after the hearing that it is committed to coming to a fair and prompt resolution of the diesel emissions lawsuits and was fully cooperating with Breyer. Justice Department spokesman Mark Abueg declined to comment. ___ Associated Press writer Michael Biesecker in Washington, D. C., contributed to this story.
2016-03-24 20:54 Associated Press www.dailymail.co.uk
81 Mahmudullah should learn from his mistake: M. S Dhoni Bengaluru : Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni wants Bangladesh batsman Mahmudullah Riyad to 'learn from his mistake'. Bangladesh's Mahmudullah throws his bat into the air in frustration after being out in the last over against India. Pic/ AFP The in-form Bangladesh batsmen perished while trying to hit a full toss from Indian fast bowler Hardik Pandya out of the ground when Bangladesh needed just two runs from three balls to pull off a sensational victory over the hosts in a World Twenty20 Group 2 encounter here on Wednesday. His senior partner Mushfiqur Rahim had departed off the previous delivery, trying to pull a short delivery from Pandya for six. Both holed out to fielders in the deep as Dhoni took his time re-arranging the field and briefing Pandya after every delivery. With Mushfiqur and Mahmudullah gone off successive deliveries, Bangladesh failed to even tie up with the Indian score due to a last ball run out and the hosts won by one run, a match even the most ardent Indian supporter had given up as lost. "In-form bastmen often try to play big shots to finish the game. If that shot by Mahmudullah had crossed the ropes, he would have been hailed as a courageous gutsy batsman. Now he will face criticism for playing such a shot," Dhoni was quoted as saying by bdnews24.com And Dhoni's final advice for the promising Bangladesh batsman: "This is cricket. I hope Mahmudullah will learn from his mistake. " But despite the loss, the Bangladesh gave India the fright they rarely experience at home. Before the match, Indian veteran Virender Sehwag had written off Bangladesh. Commenting on Star Sports, Sehwag had said Bangladesh could be a 'cake walk' for the in- form Indian team after the hosts' facile win over Pakistan.
2016-03-24 20:46 By PTI www.mid-day.com
82 Queen Elizabeth hands out 90th birthday coins London: Ahead of her 90th birthday, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday handed out commemorative Maundy coins to 180 people in a traditional royal service at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. Queen Elizabeth II Ninety men and 90 women, representing her 90 years, were presented with the coins in recognition of service to the Church and community. The Queen was accompanied by Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. It is the first time that the service has been held at St George's Chapel since 1959, the BBC reported. Each recipient received two purses, one red and one white. This year the Red Purse contains a 5-pound coin, commemorating The Queen's 90th birthday, and a 50-pence coin commemorating the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings. The Queen will turn 90 on April 21. Royal Maundy can be traced back in England to the 13th Century. The service derives its name from the Latin 'mandatum', Jesus Christ's commandment to his disciples to 'love one another', after he had washed their feet on the day before Good Friday. This year the Queen gave coins, which are known as Maundy money, to 180 deserving senior citizens who have been recommended in recognition of their service to the Church and community. They are traditionally selected from a single diocese but this year have been chosen from across the country.
2016-03-24 20:34 By PTI www.mid-day.com
83 Editorial: Joy of Purim This week, on the occasion of the International Day of Happiness (yes, there is such a thing), the UN released a study of the state of international happiness. Countries were ranked on a happiness scale from the most to the least. The results were largely to be expected. Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden were ranked the top ten. What’s not to be happy about in peaceful, prosperous countries with long-established democracies and generous welfare for the needy located in the calmest regions of the world? Immediately after the top ten, however, came a surprise. Little, embattled Israel – complete with its diverse population; its antagonistic neighbors; its limited territory and natural resources; its constant battle with terrorism – was ranked No. 11. What is the source of this happiness? Israelis earn less and pay higher taxes than many countries that ranked lower on the happiness scale. Israelis are burdened by mandatory military service starting at the age of 18 and men do reserve duty well into their 40s. The country was established in the shadow of European Jewry’s destruction and to this day powerful enemies deny the Holocaust while vowing to perpetrate another. And the State of Israel is disproportionately criticized in international forums such as the UN for purported human rights’ abuses, while countries hosting real humanitarian crises go unmentioned by bodies like the UN Human Rights Council. Nor is the UN happiness report a blip. In 2015, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development published a survey that examined “general satisfaction with life.” Israel finished in a three-way tie for second place with Norway and Finland. And in 2013, 86 percent of Israelis over the age of 19 said they were “very satisfied with their lives,” the Central Bureau of Statistics reported. At least part of the reason must have to do with the way Jews have learned over the millennia not to let themselves be intimidated by hardship. No holiday better demonstrates Jews’ exceptional ability to remain happy in the face of adversity than Purim. In fact, as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has pointed out, one of the central messages of Purim is that joy – therapeutic joy – is the best way to cope with trauma. Unlike expressive joy – the joy we feel when something good and positive has happened to us or to our people – therapeutic joy is what is employed on Purim. We are joyous despite the attempt by Haman – with the consent of King Ahasuerus – “to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews – young and old, women and children – on a single day.” (Esther 3:13) We as Jews refused – and continue to refuse – to be intimidated by the first attempted genocide of the Jewish people. True, the salvation of the Jewish people was not complete. Even after the deliverance of Purim, the Jews remained under the rule of Ahasuerus, the same king who cooperated with Haman in his plan to wipe out the Jews. This is the reason the Talmud cites for why the Hallel prayer of praise is not recited on Purim. The message of Purim is more complex. Jewish response to the trauma of a barely avoided genocide is not simply to feel relief that this time we were spared a horrific fate. The Jewish way, says Rabbi Sacks, is to “defeat fear by joy... what you laugh at cannot hold you captive.” Terror is conquered by collective celebration. You retell the story of Esther, Mordecai, Haman and Ahasuerus. But you do so while wearing costumes and making noise. You drink a little too much. You fool around. You give treats to friends and neighbors. Of course, the nagging knowledge remains that we still have not reached the promised land, that the salvation is not complete, that there is evil in the world, that Jews are still not safe – not in Israel and not abroad. That was the case in Persia after the “happy” ending of Megilat Esther. And that is the case today. But we refuse to allow this uncomfortable fact to intimidate us. So if you’re searching for the reason why the citizens of the Jewish state scored so high on the UN’s state of international happiness study, Purim might be a good place to start.
2016-03-24 20:33 JPOST EDITORIAL www.jpost.com
84 Wow, Larry Wilmore’s perfect Brussels response sums it all up: “Donald Trump wants to wall Muslims out, Ted Cruz wants to fence Muslims in” Topics: nightly show with larry wilmore , Barack Obama , Ted Cruz , Donald Trump , Muslim ban , Muslim neighborhoods , Elections 2016 , Elections News , Social News , Media News , Entertainment News , Politics News “Nightly Show” host Larry Wilmore took on the varied responses among U. S. political leaders to the Brussels terror attacks. “Grandpa Munster Ted Cruz,” Wilmore said, “had some harsh words about the attacks.” Cruz said the attack “underscores” the fact that we are in “a war with radical Islamic terrorism,” and that “we need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.” “The Muslim community’s not a carton of milk,” Wilmore responded. “It doesn’t just go bad when you leave it out.” “So to recap,” he added, “Donald Trump wants to wall Muslims out, Ted Cruz wants to fence Muslims in.” Watch the full segment below:
2016-03-24 18:25 Brendan Gauthier salon.com.feedsportal.com
85 Mehbooba Mufti set to be next chief minister of J&K Srinagar: Mehbooba Mufti is all set to become the first woman chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, after she was unanimously nominated as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for the post, sources said. Mehbooba Mufti. Pic/AFP The PDP nominated Mehbooba, 56, as the legislature party leader and thus cleared decks for her to succeed her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, who died in January, as the chief minister of the state. The sources said Mehbooba's name to head the PDP in the state assembly was proposed by senior party leader Muzaffar Hussain Beigh and was seconded by his senior colleague Abdur Rehman Veeri. The decision came as the party held a crucial meeting of its lawmakers who had gathered to discuss the government formation in the state. It was a constitutional requirement before Mehbooba stakes claim to power in India's only Muslim majority state. She presently represents south Kashmir's Anantnag constituency in the Lok Sabha. She will now have to get elected to either house of the state's bicameral legislature and also resign her Lok Sabha seat. Jammu and Kashmir has been without an elected government after Mehbooba's father died in a Delhi hospital on January 7. She was tipped to take over the reins soon but she dragged her feet on continuing to ally with the BJP and wanted it to redraw the alliance terms that had father had authored. After remaining entrenched in their respective positions for more than two months, the two partners warmed up to each other following Mufti's meeting with Prime Minister Modi on Tuesday in Delhi. 2016-03-24 20:25 By IANS www.mid-day.com
86 Exelon closes deal to buy Pepco, creating largest US utility NEW YORK (AP) — Exelon has completed its nearly $7 billion deal to buy Pepco, creating America's largest electric utility company. The deal closed late Wednesday after the company received approval from its final regulator, almost two years after Exelon first made its offer for Pepco. The combined company becomes the largest electric utility company in the U. S., based on number of customers, according to the U. S. Energy Information Administration. Chicago-based Exelon Corp. owns Baltimore Gas and Electric Co., ComEd in Illinois and PECO in Pennsylvania. Pepco Holdings Inc.'s namesake utility powers homes in Maryland and Washington, D. C., where it is headquartered. Pepco also owns Atlantic City Electric in New Jersey and Delmarva Power, which provides electricity in parts of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. Exelon now has about 10 million customers, the company said. Pepco shareholders will receive $27.25 for each share they own. Exelon's CEO Chris Crane will keep his position. Pepco's CEO Joseph Rigby has retired and has been replaced by David Velazquez. Shares of Exelon Corp. rose 59 cents to $35.31 Thursday.
2016-03-24 20:23 Associated Press www.dailymail.co.uk
87 Woman arrested for DUI after driving to 'Coffee with a Cop' GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — A Montana woman who police said was stumbling and smelled of alcohol was arrested after driving to a cafe hosting a "Coffee with a Cop" event. Great Falls Lt. Doug Mahlum says 66-year-old Charlene Kranitz walked by more than a dozen uniformed officers in Schulte's Coffeehouse on Wednesday to get to a frozen yogurt machine. The Great Falls Tribune reports (http://gftrib.com/1UHCshn) Mahlum followed the woman to the parking lot, where he saw her vehicle resting against a light pole. He says he arrested Kranitz after establishing that she was well over the legal limit to drive. Mahlum said he was shocked and noted that his patrol car was parked in front of the building — lights flashing. Kranitz pleaded not guilty Thursday morning to a misdemeanor DUI count. Efforts to reach her for comment were not immediately successful Thursday. ___ Information from: Great Falls Tribune, http://www.greatfallstribune.com
2016-03-24 20:16 Associated Press www.dailymail.co.uk
88 Radovan Karadžić's sentence for Bosnia genocide exposes continuing divisions At the end of it all, 21 years since he was first charged, after 11 years on the run, a five-year trial and the 18 months the judges took to deliberate over a verdict, Radovan Karadžić’s moment of judgment came. The Bosnian Serb leader was convicted of genocide for the 1995 slaughter at Srebrenica, and nine other counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, terror and extermination. It was a conviction that ranks as the most serious handed down in Europe since Nuremberg. The judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia were definitive about Karadžić’s key involvement in the Srebrenica massacre , in which more than 7,000 men and boys were rounded up, executed and pushed into mass graves. The presiding ICTY judge delivering the ruling, O-Gon Kwon, said: “Karadžić was in agreement with the plan of the killings”, and had given a coded message to an underling for the doomed Muslim captives, which he referred to as “the goods”, to be moved to a warehouse, from where they were taken out and executed. During the 100-minute verdict and sentencing, Karadžić sat impassively, dressed in a dark blue suit, not in the dock but on the defence bench, as he opted throughout the five-year trial to act as his own lead counsel. He smiled and nodded to one or two familiar faces from the Serbian press in the gallery, but hardly glanced at the public gallery which was packed with survivors and victims’ family members, mostly women grieving lost sons and husbands. They obeyed the tribunal instructions to stay quiet throughout the proceedings, but there were quiet grunts of disappointment when Karadžić was acquitted of a second charge of genocide for the 1992 killings in Serbian municipalities around Bosnia. The only time he appeared nervous was when he stood to receive sentence, his arms stiff by his side, but as soon as the judges had gone, he called a huddle of his legal advisers to immediately begin planning his appeal. “He was surprised at the reasoning that the trial chamber used to convict him, so that was basically the first thing he said: ‘I can’t believe they convicted me like this,’” Peter Robinson, his chief legal adviser, said afterwards. Karadžić will now have 30 days to file an appeal and it will take three years to hear. The legal marathon will continue and Karadžić will stay in The Hague for the time being. The trial of his military commander, Ratko Mladić , is still under way. The experiment in international justice represented by the ICTY, created in 1993 as an exercise in western penance for failing to stop the killing in Bosnia, will go on for a few more years. For the survivors and victims’ families packed inside the courtroom, justice was served in a glass half-full. Karadžić was acquitted of a second genocide charge, concerning the massacres that marked the start of the Bosnian war in 1992. The tribunal said it was not beyond a reasonable doubt that he had genocidal intent when those killings took place. It meant that when the full verdict on all the charges were finally summed up, its first words were “not guilty”. That jarred for many. That and the fact he was given a 40-year sentence, not life. In practice, with time already served deducted, that will mean about 19 years in jail. So it was possible to imagine the 70-year-old former psychiatrist and still aspiring poet emerging alive from incarceration. “This judgment is a reward for Karadžić. We have no more faith in prosecutors and judges,” complained Hatidza Mehmedovic, a bereaved mother and widow from Srebrenica. Serge Brammertz, the chief prosecutor since 2007, who kept up the hunt for Karadžić until the fugitive was finally found disguised as a New Age healer in Belgrade, could not hide his frustration that the failure to get a second genocide conviction was being seen as a defeat for the prosecution and an escape for the defendant. “Sometimes I find it a little bit disappointing that the word genocide is receiving a totally different importance than war crimes and crimes against humanity, where in fact for the individual person ... the suffering for the family is similar, the same,” Brammertz told the Guardian. That was the law, but not the politics. The term genocide has become politically toxic on all sides of the ethnic divides, which remain as profound as ever more than 20 years after the conflict. The one thing the former warring nationalist parties could agree on is that they had been unfairly treated by the vagaries of international justice. In Karadžić’s home village of Petnjica, in the Montenegrin mountains, where all the residents share his surname, his cousin Vucko said the verdict “proved we were right to think that the UN court was set up only to punish one people – the Serbs”. Vucko, his wife, Dusanka, and son, Ranko, huddled to watch the verdict live on television in a small room decorated with Serbian flags, coats of arms, symbols of the Serbian Orthodox church, photos of Radovan and a drawing of a Karadžić family tree. They softly mumbled and grumbled to each other after each charge was read. “What about others? What about those who committed the same crimes against Serbs?” they asked. Despite the overwhelming evidence presented by the prosecution and accepted by the court, they remained defiant. “There is no justice,” Vucko said. Nedzad Avdic, in Srebrenica, agreed with the sentiment, but for very different reasons. As a teenager, he had survived a mass execution after the fall of Srebrenica by lying motionless and wounded in a tangle of bodies of his friends and relatives until the killers moved away. “Honestly, after 20 years it means nothing to me. I read his latest interview on some website, that he gave from prison, and now it seems to me that a bigger punishment would be if he had stayed a fugitive, running away, hiding in forests,” Avdic said by email. “Whatever punishment he gets, there is no punishment severe enough for people like that, given the horrors they put us through. They ruined our lives, us survivors, and as a community we are completely ruined.” For Avdic, the greater injustice is that the division of Bosnia into two halves, a Muslim-Croat Federation and a Serbian republic, meant the practice of ethnic cleansing had been legitimised. “Karadžić’s work remains in place here in Srebrenica and there’s no way a judgment can change that. If we look at things now, 20 years later, Karadžić fulfilled his goals, and those that were in his way were killed. The judgment would make sense only if it would somehow address his legacy here in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In any other case, the judgment, for me, is completely pointless. “I have nothing to lose, I lost so much already, my family is gone, and I have hoped the world would be a bit fairer and a bit less cruel.” Additional reporting by Ana Bogavac in Petnjica
2016-03-24 20:12 Julian Borger www.theguardian.com
89 Doctors remove wrong body part, patient says (CNN) A patient has filed a lawsuit against Yale New Haven Hospital for allegedly removing part of the wrong rib during surgery and then trying to cover up the mistake. See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter .
2016-03-24 20:04 Elizabeth Cohen rss.cnn.com
90 Joe Biden says he treated Supreme Court nominees fairly as senator Vice President Joseph R. Biden will engage in Supreme Court damage control Thursday, arguing in a speech that he treated nominees fairly as a senator, despite his infamous words in 1992 that a president shouldn’t nominate anyone to the high court in an election year. In remarks prepared for delivery, Mr. Biden will say that when he served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee or as the panel’s ranking Democrat, all eight Supreme Court nominees received confirmation votes. “Every nominee was greeted by committee members,” Mr. Biden will say, in excerpts released by the White House. “Every nominee got a committee hearing. Every nominee got out of the committee to the Senate floor. And every nominee, including Justice [Anthony] Kennedy — in an election year — got an up or down vote by the Senate. Not much of the time. Not most of the time. Every single time.” His appearance at Georgetown University Law Center is intended to minimize the damage that the so-called “ Biden rule” is causing for President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland. Senate Republicans say they won’t hold a hearing on the Garland nomination in this election year, and they’re citing Mr. Biden ’s comments in 1992 to justify their actions. As chairman of the Judiciary Committee at the time, Mr. Biden said that Republican President George H. W. Bush should delay filling a Supreme Court vacancy, should one arise, until the presidential election was over. Mr. Biden said it was “essential” that the Senate refuse to confirm a nominee to the court until after the presidential election. Mr. Biden also is credited with leading the opposition in 1987 against Robert Bork, President Reagan’s nominee for the Supreme Court who was rejected by the Senate. Mr. Biden was running for president at the time. In his speech Thursday, Mr. Biden now will say Senate Republicans “owe it to the American people to consider his nomination and to give him an up or down vote.” Mr. Obama tapped Judge Garland to fill the vacancy created by the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.
2016-03-24 20:03 Vice President www.washingtontimes.com
91 As Atlantic City falls, Christie returns to New Jersey scrum NEWARK, N. J. (AP) — With Gov. Chris Christie back full time in New Jersey, the political gamesmanship between him and Democrats around the state is heating up. He's tussled over charter schools with the mayor of the state's largest city, while the mayor of its second largest city launched a website calling for him to resign because of his support for Donald Trump. But it's a fight with a fellow Republican causing Christie the most immediate concern. Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian warned this week that the resort town's collapsing finances will force a weekslong shutdown of nonessential government services next month if it doesn't get state aid. Christie demands that a takeover measure already passed by New Jersey's upper house be approved by the Assembly. "The state is not providing any more money. It's over," Christie said Thursday. "The credit card has been cut up and canceled. They have to be responsible. " Atlantic City's tax revenues have plunged as a result of the steep decline of the casino industry over the last decade, including the closing of four of 12 gambling halls, leaving a large hole in the municipal budget. A key sticking point in the takeover plan is whether the state should be able to tear up the city's contracts with its municipal unions. Since ending his Republican presidential bid last month, Christie is once again making appearances to push his agenda and taking questions from the state's press corps. His return has also meant an increase in sniping from Democratic politicians who watched him fail and are now jockeying to replace him in 2017. Seven newspapers and Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop called for him to resign because of trips out of state to campaign for Trump. He was slammed by the state trooper's union for campaigning for Trump instead of attending a trooper's funeral. He has also mixed it up with Newark Mayor Ras Baraka over charter school expansion. Responding to Christie's comment that the state will "run over" Baraka to open more charters, Baraka shot back with a reference to the bridge lane closure case that enveloped Christie's administration. "This is Newark, not Fort Lee. You can't just stop traffic here without repercussions," Baraka said. Brigid Harrison, a political science professor at Montclair State University, said she thinks Christie has handled the controversies well. But she said the reality of Christie going from a Republican presidential favorite to dropping out after New Hampshire has created a new dynamic in New Jersey. "The reality is three years ago now, these kinds of actions would have been unheard of," Harrison said. "I think clearly he doesn't have the clout that he once has. And people know that so they can treat him that way. " The sniping has once again cast a light on the outsized role Christie plays in New Jersey politics. But it's the crisis in Atlantic City that is most pressing, and puts him in the middle of a fight between the state's top two Democrats and a fellow Republican. Guardian says the shutdown can be avoided if the state comes through with aid. But Christie says the state Assembly needs to get behind a pair of measures already passed in the Senate that would strip Atlantic City of most of its power and would give the state the right to break contracts, dissolve agencies and sell off city assets and land. A separate measure would let the casinos make payments in lieu of taxes in return for not filing tax appeals with the city. Christie appeared with Democratic Senate President Steve Sweeney and Guardian to announce the plan last month, but Guardian's tentative support quickly disappeared. Guardian and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, a Democrat, say the takeover bill goes too far in wresting control from city officials. Prieto said Atlantic City police and firefighters have already suffered enough from budget cuts and layoffs. He said New Jersey already has the power to rescue much of the Atlantic City's finances without hurting its employee unions, but Christie said he needs the authority to implement changes. "Collective bargaining is a right that is a democratic value," Prieto said. "These are people's lives. " Christie warned Prieto and Guardian not to "play chicken or test me" and said that the politicians are sucking up to public sector unions. ___ Associated Press writer Ben Finley, in Trenton, contributed to this story.
2016-03-24 19:56 Associated Press www.dailymail.co.uk
92 Belgium searches soul after home-grown jihadis slipped through net The fact that home-grown suicide bombers known to the authorities were able to hit Brussels precisely at a time when the city was saturated with police and intelligence services hunting terrorists has led to soul-searching in Belgium. There could be no denying mistakes had been made when two ministers offered to resign over failings in the tracking of the Bakraoui brothers, who blew themselves up on Tuesday at the airport and metro. The prime minister, Charles Michel, refused to allow the key ministers to stand down. Nevertheless, there was a damning revelation that one of the suicide bombers, Ibrahim el- Bakraoui, who Belgian authorities initially said was known only for criminality, had in fact been flagged by Turkey as a “foreign terrorist fighter” last year and deported to the Netherlands. Experts in the intelligence community warned that outright “Belgium bashing” from abroad was not going to help matters. France , which is itself facing criticism at home over failings in preventing terrorist attacks, had to calm a potential diplomatic spat after its finance minister, Michel Sapin, accused Belgian officials of a “lack of will” and “maybe also a kind of naivety” in failing to handle the spread of radical Islam. The European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, jumped to Belgium’s defence, dismissing accusations that it was a “failed state”. The task of unpicking exactly what type of gap in intelligence that the surveillance-savvy and well- organised bombers were able to slip through will take time, but it holds the key to preventing further Islamic State attacks. There is a long list of potential failings to consider. The first is how Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, who had skipped parole after serving less than half of a nine-year sentence for armed robbery, was able to leave for Syria and then be deported from Turkey as a “foreign terrorist fighter” without his domestic authorities noticing he was a militant. At the time of the Brussels attacks , he and his brother were actively being hunted by police following a raid on a terrorist hideout in Brussels connected to November’s Paris attacks. It is not certain whether the Bakraoui brothers were the two men known to have fled from a flat across rooftops, eluding police snipers. Only four days before the Brussels attacks, Europe’s most wanted man, Salah Abdeslam , the prime suspect in the Paris attacks that killed 130 people, had been cornered in Brussels. Police knew other dangerous suspects remained on the run, yet the Brussels bombers, who were linked to the Paris attacks , escaped detection. Najim Laachraoui, who is believed to have been the second Brussels airport suicide bomber, had been wanted by police since December over the Paris attacks , though under a false identity that was only unmasked last week. Laachraoui, who is thought to have been the Paris attacks’ bomb-maker, went to Syria in September 2013 in one of the first waves of jihadis to leave Belgium for the country. In February, a Belgian court convicted him in absentia for his involvement with Isis. “If you put all things in a row, you can ask yourself major questions,” said the Belgian interior minister, Jan Jambon. “When an attack happens, it by definition means there has been a failure,” Thomas Renard, a terrorism expert at the Egmont Institute , a Brussels-based thinktank, told the Guardian. It is unlikely that Belgium underestimated the overall threat from terrorism and jihadis returning from fighting abroad. For several years, it has been on the frontline of terrorist cells in northern Europe and was well aware of the danger. Per capita, Belgium is Isis’s most fertile recruiting ground in Europe. After November’s attacks in Paris, Belgian authorities shut down Brussels for almost a week, closing schools, offices and cultural centres, cancelling sporting events and putting the army on the streets as there were fears an attack was imminent. But questions will be asked about whether Belgian analysis of specific threats was correct and whether it was watching the right people. “It will be a long time before we know exactly what happened,” Renard said. “There is a question about whether they didn’t take the full measure of attacks being prepared in Belgium, or whether the role of certain individuals was missed. “Or perhaps they focused on individuals considered most dangerous and missed the bigger picture of other figures involved. They could have underestimated the size and scope of the cell.” This appeared to have earlier been the case with Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the ringleader of the Paris attacks. He was linked to the terrorist cell that was raided in Verviers near the Belgian- German border in January last year, in which the Belgian authorities said they had foiled an imminent attack. Yet Abaaoud’s importance did not seem to register, he escaped the net and later led the Paris attacks. Belgium’s difficulties in reconciling its French and Flemish-speaking communities were illustrated five years ago when it broke the modern-day world record for the longest time failing to form a government. It has so many layers of local and federal authority that information can slip through the gaps. The Brussels-born Abdeslam brothers involved in the Paris attacks were noticed by local police as having been radicalised and as potentially dangerous but when the information was transferred to federal police it appeared to get lost. Belgian intelligence staff have been evaluated positively by foreign intelligence services. “They’re good,” said Bernard Squarcini , a former head of French counter-intelligence, but he felt there were not enough of them. Figures are confidential but it is thought that between 600 and 800 people work in civil intelligence and up to 800 work in military intelligence – with perhaps about 500 devoted to tackling Isis. That could equate to a ratio of three officers per jihadi suspect who is considered dangerous. Permanent telephone or human surveillance needs more people than that. Last month the Belgian government announced a €400m (£315m) programme to combat “terrorism and radicalisation” that included the hiring of 1,000 additional police, prosecutors, state security agents and other personnel. As far back as November, Michel, the prime minister, said: “We have to do more, and we have to do better.” After this week’s attacks, those words seem more pertinent than ever.
2016-03-24 19:53 Angelique Chrisafis www.theguardian.com
93 Probing the cosmos: Is anybody out there? - CNN.com (CNN) -- From a remote valley in Northern California, Jill Tarter is listening to the universe. Her ears are 42 large and sophisticated radio telescopes, spread across several acres, that scan the cosmos for signals of extraterrestrial origin. If intelligent life forms do exist on other planets, and they try to contact us, Tarter will be among the first to know. Are we citizens of Earth alone in the universe? It's a question that has long fascinated astronomers, sci-fi authors, kids with backyard telescopes and Hollywood executives who churn out spectacles about alien encounters. Polls have found that most Americans believe that some form of life exists beyond our planet. "It's a fundamental question," said Tarter, the real-life inspiration for Jodie Foster's character in the 1997 movie "Contact. " "And it's a question that the person on the street can understand. It's not like a... super-collider or some search for neutrinos buried in the ice. It's, 'Are we alone? How might we find out? What does that tell us about ourselves and our place in the universe?' "We're trying to figure out how the universe began, how galaxies and large-scale structures formed, and where did the origins of life as we know it take place? " Tarter said. "These are all valid questions to ask of the universe. And an equally valid question is whether the same thing that happened here [on Earth] has happened elsewhere. " Watch a preview of CNN's "In Search of Aliens" series » Thanks to advancements in technology, scientists hope to get an answer sooner rather than later. Rovers have snapped photographs of the surface of Mars that show fossil-like shapes. NASA hopes to launch within a decade a Terrestrial Planet Finder, an orbiting observatory that would detect planets around nearby stars and determine whether they could support life. Such developments are catnip to scientists like Geoffrey Marcy, a professor of astronomy at the University of California-Berkeley who has discovered more extrasolar planets than anyone else. "It wasn't more than 13 years ago that we hadn't found any planets around the stars, and most people thought that we never would. So here we are not only having found planets, we are looking for habitable planets, signs of biology on those planets," Marcy told CNN. "It's an extraordinary explosion of a field of science that didn't even exist just a few years ago. " Then there's Tarter, whose quest for signs of extraterrestrial life kept her on the fringes of mainstream science for decades. While pursuing her doctorate at UC-Berkeley, Tarter came across an engineering report that floated the idea of using radio telescopes to listen for broadcasts by alien beings. It became her life's work. In 1984 Tarter founded the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI) in California. Using telescopes in Australia, West Virginia and Puerto Rico, she conducted a decade-long scouring of about 750 nearby star systems for extraterrestrial radio signals. None was found, although Tarter had some false alarms. In 1998, she intercepted a mysterious signal that lasted for hours. Tarter got so excited she misread her own computer results: The signal was coming from a NASA observatory spacecraft orbiting the sun. Today, Tarter listens to the heavens with the Allen Telescope Array, a collection of 20-foot-wide telescopes some 300 miles north of San Francisco. The dish-like scopes are a joint effort of SETI and UC-Berkeley's Radio Astronomy Lab and have been funded largely by Microsoft co- founder Paul Allen, who donated more than $25 million to the project. Unlike previously existing radio telescopes, which scan the sky for limited periods of time, the Allen Telescope Array probes the universe round the clock. Each of the 42 scopes is aimed at a different area of the sky, collecting reams of data that are continually studied by computers for unusual patterns. Then the listeners must filter out noise from airplanes and satellites. "We're listening for something that we don't think can be produced by Mother Nature," Tarter said. "We're using the radio frequency, other people are using optical telescopes... and in both cases we're looking for an artificial nature to a signal. "In the case of radio, we're looking for a lot of power being squished into just one channel on the radio dial. In the optical, they're looking for very bright flashes that last a nanosecond... or less, not slow pulsing kinds of things. To date we've never found a natural source that can do that. " Signals that any extraterrestrials might be transmitting for their own use would be difficult to detect, Tarter said. Astronomers are more likely to discover a radio transmission broadcast intentionally at the Earth, she said. Astronomers at SETI, however, are not sending a signal into space in an attempt to communicate with aliens. University of California professor Marcy is skeptical about the existence of intelligent alien life and believes our galaxy's vast distances would make communication between Earth and beings on other planets almost impossible. "The nearest neighbor might be halfway across our galaxy, 50,000 light-years away. Communicating with them will take a hundred thousand years for a round-trip signal," he said. Still, Tarter remains undaunted. The Allen Telescope Array already does in 10 minutes what once took her scientists 10 days. When the project is completed, it will have 350 telescopes that, combined, can survey tens of thousands of star systems. "We can look in more places and more frequencies faster than we ever could. And that will just get better with time. We're doing something now we couldn't do when we started, we couldn't do five years ago," she said. "Think of it as a cosmic haystack. There's a needle in there somewhere. If you pull out a few straws, are you going to get disappointed because you haven't found the needle yet? No. We haven't really begun to explore. " All About Astronomy • UFOs and Alien Abductions • SETI Institute 2016-03-24 06:35 By Brandon rss.cnn.com
94 Medical experts call for global drug decriminalisation An international commission of medical experts is calling for global drug decriminalisation, arguing that current policies lead to violence, deaths and the spread of disease, harming health and human rights. The commission, set up by the Lancet medical journal and Johns Hopkins University in the United States, finds that tough drugs laws have caused misery, failed to curb drug use, fuelled violent crime and spread the epidemics of HIV and hepatitis C through unsafe injecting. Publishing its report on the eve of a special session of the United Nations devoted to illegal narcotics, it urges a complete reversal of the repressive policies imposed by most governments. “The goal of prohibiting all use, possession, production, and trafficking of illicit drugs is the basis of many of our national drug laws, but these policies are based on ideas about drug use and drug dependence that are not scientifically grounded,” says Dr Chris Beyrer of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health , a member of the commission. “The global ‘war on drugs’ has harmed public health, human rights and development. It’s time for us to rethink our approach to global drug policies, and put scientific evidence and public health at the heart of drug policy discussions.” The commission calls on the UN to back decriminalisation of minor, non-violent drug offences involving the use, possession and sale of small quantities. Military force against drug networks should be phased out, it says, and policing should be better targeted on the most violent armed criminals. Among its other recommendations are: The commission comprises doctors, scientists and health and human rights experts from around the world. It is jointly chaired by Prof Adeeba Kamarulzaman from the University of Malaya and Prof Michel Kazatchkine, the UN special envoy for HIV/Aids in eastern Europe and central Asia. Its report says scientific evidence on repressive drug policies is wanting. The last UN special session on drug use was in 1998, under the slogan, “a drug-free world – we can do it”. It backed a total clampdown, urging governments to eliminate drugs through bans on use, possession, production and trafficking. The commission says that has not worked and that the casualties of that approach have been huge. The decision of the Calderón government in Mexico in 2006 to use the military in civilian areas to fight drug traffickers “ushered in an epidemic of violence in many parts of the country that also spilled into Central America”, says the report. “The increase in homicides in Mexico since 2006 is virtually unprecedented in a country not formally at war. It was so great in some parts of the country that it contributed to a reduction in the country’s projected life expectancy.” Prohibitionist drug policies have had serious adverse consequences in the US, too. “The USA is perhaps the best documented but not the only country with clear racial biases in policing, arrests, and sentencing,” the commissioners write. “In the USA in 2014, African American men were more than five times more likely than white people to be incarcerated for drug offences in their lifetime, although there is no significant difference in rates of drug use among these populations. The impact of this bias on communities of people of colour is inter-generational and socially and economically devastating.” The commission cites examples of countries and US states that have moved down the decriminalisation road. “Countries such as Portugal and the Czech Republic decriminalised minor drug offences years ago, with significant financial savings, less incarceration, significant public health benefits, and no significant increase in drug use,” says the report. “Decriminalisation of minor offences along with scaling up low-threshold HIV prevention services enabled Portugal to control an explosive, unsafe injection-linked HIV epidemic, and probably prevented one from happening in the Czech Republic.” Beyrer told the Guardian the commission was “cautiously optimistic” that it would have an impact on the UN meeting, although it was aware of forcible opposition there to decriminalisation. “There certainly are a number of countries and some powerful countries like the Russian Federation that are vigorously opposed to any reform of current drug regimes and they will do anything they can to influence UNGASS [the UN special session],” he said. “UNGASS is going to be a real struggle but there are a number of governments and civil society organisations that are really seeing the need for change.” In the US, the issue of overdose on prescription opioid medicines has become part of the presidential contest, he pointed out. “I think this is a moment. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity,” said Beyrer. At a release of the paper in New York, researcher Joanne Csete of Columbia University said she believed that US actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died of a heroin overdose, “would be alive today” were it not for regressive drug policies that she said made safe opioid maintenance almost impossible to obtain. “Our report is about political choices,” she said. “The failure to invest in programmes that can help people always inject with sterile equipment is a political choice,” she said. “We’re dealing with a war on drugs … These policies have their roots in a racist and reactionary calculation.” Prof Carl Hart, a research psychologist also at Columbia University who is well-known for activism against the war on drugs, echoed Csete’s comments. “One in three black males can expect to spend some time in prison,” Hart said. “I have three sons, one has spent time in prisons, and in part because we have vilified drugs, and [convinced the public] that drug users deserve that kind of punishment. So I can’t be silent this is personal.” In Britain, the Home Office said drugs were illegal when there was scientific evidence they were harmful to health and society. A spokesman said that the approach was to enforce the existing law, prevent usage and help addicts recover. He added: “There are promising signs this approach is working, with a downward trend in drug use over the last decade and more people recovering from dependency now than in 2009/10. Decriminalising drugs would not eliminate the crime committed by their illicit trade, nor would it address the harms and destruction associated with drug dependence.” Norman Lamb, a former British government minister and Liberal Democrat MP, said that he supported the Lancet commission’s findings: “The war on drugs has failed and it is Liberal Democrat policy to decriminalise the personal possession and use of all drugs, and introduce a regulated, legalised market for cannabis. Drug use should be treated as a health issue, not as a criminal issue.”
2016-03-24 19:43 Sarah Boseley www.theguardian.com
95 NFL's Carl Banks returns to present NFL Golden Football at Flint Beecher MT. MORRIS TOWNSHIP, MI -- High school students at Beecher were excused from first hour on Thursday for a special presentation in the cafeteria. Two-time Super Bowl champion Carl Banks returned to his high school alma mater to speak to more than 300 kids before delivering his keynote speech at the Flint & Genesee Chamber of Commerce annual meeting. The 1980 Beecher graduate dropped off a commemorative Golden Football produced by Wilson as part of the NFL’s "On the Fifty" campaign to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Super Bowl this season. He also helped motivate the Bucaneers boys basketball team who are heading back to the Breslin Center in East Lansing today to compete in the MHSAA’s Final Four for the seventh time in nine seasons. Beecher (23-2) will face Detroit Loyola (21-5) next in the Class C semifinals at 2:50 p.m. The Bucs have won three of the past four state championships. “It’s no greater feeling than being a champion and you guys know that because this school is all about champions, right?” He announced before cheers. “So that championship legacy dates back to me and before me and the thing that makes a champion is not always about your skillset but your mindset to be willing to do more than everybody else.” Banks snapped group pictures with the team and let some of the players try on his Super Bowl championship ring. All-state basketball player Aquavius Burks wasn’t even born when Banks roamed the Beecher hallways, but said he heard many great stories about his legendary career. “Everybody looked up to him and wanted to be like him,” Burks said. “For those that have made it out of the program to see the potential in us that we can be great just like them is good.” Beecher coach Mike Williams had never met Banks, either. Although his team wasn’t searching for any additional motivation to beat Loyola, Banks couldn’t have picked a better day to visit the school. “It’s good for the kids to see how far they can actually go from Beecher,” Williams said. “It’s great that he comes to give back on a day as special as today.” Banks hadn’t returned to Beecher in over a decade but said it felt good to be home. Athletic director and football coach Courtney Hawkins also presented Banks with a Buccaneers shirt and named him an honorary coach. “This is your official coaching shirt; you’re always welcome on the sidelines,” Hawkins told Banks. He wasn’t able to stay for Bucs basketball game but will be following from afar. Banks, 53, lives in the New Jersey area where he runs and operates his G-III Sports clothing company. “It worked out great,” Banks said. “It’s just a long legacy of champions that have come through this community. This high school, as small as it’s been, has been a giant amongst men.” See More Sports News »
2016-03-24 19:37 Eric Woodyard highschoolsports.mlive.com
96 Obama admits US 'too slow' to condemn atrocities of Argentina's dictatorship Barack Obama has said the United States was too slow to condemn human rights atrocities after Argentina’s military coup in 1976, but stopped short of apologizing for Washington’s initial support for the military dictatorship. Speaking at a ceremony to mark the 40th anniversary of the coup which ushered in seven years of violence, Obama said: “Democracies have to have the courage to acknowledge when we don’t live up to the ideals that we stand for. And we’ve been slow to speak out on human rights and that was the case here.” Obama and Argentina’s president Mauricio Macri threw white flowers into the brown waters of the wide Río de la Plata from the imposing overhanging pier of the Parque Memorial. The park on the coastline of Buenos Aires commemorates the thousands of victims of Argentina’s dictatorship, many of whom were made to “disappear” by being pushed alive from military planes into the waters of the Río Plata and of the south Atlantic Ocean. Several of the country’s most prominent human rights groups, including the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo association, boycotted the event . “First the US encouraged the killing, then they scolded Argentina for carrying it out,” said 86- year-old Nora Cortiñas, whose son was “disappeared” by the regime. “There’s no way we would go meet Obama.” Activists in Argentina remain bitter over a meeting in 1976 between former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and admiral César Guzzetti, foreign minister of Argentina’s regime. Kissinger advised the admiral to move swiftly against left-wing opponents. “ The quicker you succeed, the better ,” said Kissinger, according to US diplomatic documents declassified in 2002. In an effort to soothe over those bitter memories, Obama Thursday emphasized the human rights policies of former US president Jimmy Carter , who placed an arms embargo on Argentina and pushed the country’s generals to put an end to atrocities. In August 1977, then state secretary Cyrus Vance personally delivered a list of 7,000 “desaparecidos” compiled with the help of the US embassy in Buenos Aires to Argentina’s dictator, general Jorge Videla. Obama referred to the work compiling such lists by retired US diplomat F Allen “Tex” Harris, who flew to Buenos Aires with Obama and was present at Thursday’s ceremony. Obama underlined how Harris “worked in the US embassy here to document human rights abuses and identify the disappeared”. Also present at Obama’s invitation was British journalist Robert Cox, former editor of the Buenos Aires Herald, a British-community newspaper that saved lives by publishing the cases of missing persons who were subsequently released by the military. “Bob Cox bravely reported on human rights abuses despite threats,” said Obama. The US president reiterated his announcement here Wednesday that the US will soon declassify additional records relating to Argentina’s dictatorship, including “for the first time military and intelligence records, because I believe we have a responsibility to confront the past with honesty and transparency.” Obama arrived in Argentina from Havana where he became the first sitting US president to visit Cuba in 88 years. The tour comes amid a wider push to reset the United States’ relationship with Latin America. Obama will spend Thursday afternoon in the southern lake resort of Bariloche, where he will be joined by President Macri, before flying back to the US around midnight.
2016-03-24 19:39 Uki Goñi www.theguardian.com
97 Dutch football legend Johan Cruyff passes away at 68 Dutch football legend Johan Cruyff, died on Thursday in Barcelona at the age of 68 surrounded by his family after a hard fought battle with lung cancer. This file photo taken on June 26, 1974 shows Dutch midfielder Johann Cruyff dribbling past Argentinian goalkeeper Daniel Carnevali on his way to scoring a goal during the World Cup quarterfinal soccer match between the Netherlands and Argentina on June, 26, 1974 in Gelsenkirchen. Pic/AFP His death was announced on his official Twitter account. On March 24 2016 Johan Cruyff (68) died peacefully in Barcelona, surrounded by his family after a hard fought battle with cancer. It’s with great sadness that we ask you to respect the family’s privacy during their time of grief,” read a statement on the World of Johan Cruyff website. One of the greatest footballers in history, he has won three European Cups as a player with Ajax as well as three Ballon d'Or titles (1971, 1973, 1974). He was the founder of the football philosophy known as Total Football. As a manager, Cruyff led Barcelona to four successive La Liga titles (1991-94) while also winning the 1992 European Cup at Wembley. Cryuff was chosen on the World Team of the 20th Century in 1998, the FIFA World Cup Dream Team in 2002, and in 2004, he was named in the FIFA 100 list of the world's greatest living players.
2016-03-24 19:36 By A www.mid-day.com
98 Syria peace talks: Putin urged to wield influence over Bashar al-Assad The Syrian opposition has left a first round of peace talks in Geneva with a warning that there is no hope of progress unless Vladimir Putin exerts influence on Bashar al-Assad, adding that a ceasefire will collapse if planned reconvened talks on the target date of 9 April do not move quickly to the issue of a political transition. The warning by Bassma Kodmani, a spokeswoman for the high negotiating committee (HNC), came as John Kerry, the US secretary of state, met Putin in Moscow to gauge his willingness to pressure Assad to step down, and the price Russia is likely to demand in return. Wrapping up two weeks of talks, Staffan de Mistura, the UN Syria envoy, strove to give the impression of progress by producing a statement of 12 guiding principles . It makes no mention of the fate of Assad – an issue the Syrian government insists is excluded from the talks – or a transitional governing body. “I am expecting and hoping that the next round of talks will not be focusing on principles again – we have had enough of that – but will start to focus on the political process and for us that is political transition,” De Mistura said. A cessation of hostilities will be impossible to sustain without a political process, he added. De Mistura said his target date for resuming the talks was 9 April, but appeared to acknowledged the government delegation may not return to Geneva until later. “If people want to come on [13 or 14 April] they are warmly welcome,” he said. Assad is staging parliamentary elections on 14 April, a round of elections the UN does not recognise. Asked how he would prevent the Syrian government continuing to prevaricate, De Mistura said the art of diplomacy was creativity. The statement of principles includes commitments to a democratic non-sectarian state based on political pluralism, a rejection of revenge, equal treatment for women (including 30% of parliamentary seats), the rebuilding of a strong unified army, a right of return for refugees, retention of the territorial integrity of Syria and a future democracy in which the Syrian people have the exclusive right to to choose their political system without foreign interference. Privately, the HNC claims De Mistura admits he is powerless to force the government to negotiate on this vision, and is left largely waiting for Putin, or, less likely, Iran, to pressurise Assad to move at a faster pace. The Americans accept that Putin, following his successful military intervention, is now the lead power broker in Syria. Kodmani, a distinguished Paris-based political academic, said: “This is a precious, unique moment and we hope Russia will seize this moment and use its leverage to ensure that the international consensus is implemented. “Without this leverage on the regime we have little hope that anything can happen or that talks here in Geneva can produce any significant results.” She added: “Violations by the regime are increasing every day and the sustainability of it may be under threat if no progress is achieved on the level of political talks.” Kerry said ahead of his talks with Putin : “It is fair to say the serious approach we’ve been able to cooperate on has made a difference to the life of people in Syria and the possibilities of making progress peace.” “I know [Putin has] have ideas and made a very critical decision with respect to the drawdown of forces in Syria , and we have some ideas for how we can most effectively make progress in Geneva.” The HNC nevertheless left Geneva feeling positive that the talks served to put the spotlight on the government, something Assad dislikes. Kodmani said: “I think out of these two weeks we come out with the feeling that we have perhaps laid the basis for substantive talks that will lead us directly to a discussion about political transition in April.” She also claimed the opposition had shown itself to be “diverse, inclusive, representative, capable of making decisions and implementing then”. She added the Assad tactics only offered the world, and his own constituents, more violence. Kodmani said the HNC was committed to to a continuity of state institutions, including the army. There was no intention to dismantle the army, she said. Instead the aim was to rebuild it on new foundations. Syria needed a form of transitional justice involving different prosecution, reconciliation and reparation, Kodmani said. 2016-03-24 19:33 Patrick Wintour www.theguardian.com
99 Illinois Supreme Court strikes down Chicago pensions plan SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The Illinois Supreme Court dealt another devastating blow Thursday to the state's impatient attempts to control its ballooning public pension debt by striking down a state law that would have cut into an $8 billion hole in two of Chicago's employee pension accounts. The law forced the city to significantly ramp up its taxpayer-fueled contributions, but also cut benefits and required larger contributions from about 61,000 current and retired municipal civil servant workers. The high court unanimously sided with workers who sued the city, arguing that the law violated the Illinois Constitution's protections against reducing promised pension benefits. The city — whose decades of underfunding is overwhelmingly to blame for the crisis — has warned that the funds would be insolvent within 15 years without the change. But the Supreme Court said that despite those warnings, the law's provisions "exceed the General Assembly's authority. " Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who inherited the crisis, disagreed with the ruling but pledged to re-convene negotiations on a new framework. "My administration will continue to work with our labor partners on a shared path forward that preserves and protects the municipal and laborers' pension funds, while continuing to be fair to Chicago taxpayers and ensuring the city's long-term financial health," the Democrat said in a statement. The ruling mimicked one by the high court less than a year ago involving a separate pension bailout: the $111 billion deficit in state-employee retirement accounts. The four unions representing the plaintiffs, led by retired Chicago Public Library clerk Mary Jones, said Thursday's court decision was another victory for public-sector workers. "This ruling makes clear again that the politicians who ran up the debt cannot run out on the bill or dump the burden on public-service workers and retirees instead," the unions said in a joint statement. The city has argued that the law didn't skirt the "pension protection clause" because the huge increase in tax-dollar contributions required by the law was a benefit that ensured there would be pensions to pay out to 61,000 workers and retirees in the coming decades. Determining how the state pays its obligations doesn't constitute a benefit, Justice Mary Jane Theis wrote in the court's opinion. The city also has noted that the plan was agreed to in negotiations by 30 unions representing the affected workers. The court found those discussions did not invite members' input and therefore violated individual workers' rights. Critics targeted the law from the start, in part because it addressed only two of the city's pension funds. When including police and fire pension programs, the city's total liability was $20 billion — not counting a $9.6 billion shortfall in the Chicago Public Schools teachers' pension account. The law eliminated 3 percent cost-of-living increases on benefits, compounded annually. It also limited benefits to simple cost increases at the level of 3 percent or half of the inflation rate, whichever was less. It inserted three "pause years" — 2017, 2019 and 2015 — when no cost-of-living jumps would be paid. And it dunned employees for gradual increases in contributions to their retirements. The city was required to sharply increase its contributions based on a multiplier tied to employee contributions: from $267 million in 2014, to $623 million in 2020. It's funded by a 56 percent increase in the 911 emergency communication tax, which freed up for pension payments general corporate dollars that had been shoring up emergency dispatch operations. Without the changes, the city estimates the liability in the municipal and laborers' funds alone would grow $900 million a year, busting the municipal fund by 2026 and the laborers' fund by 2029. Two justices took no part in the decision but didn't indicate why. ___ The case is Jones v. Municipal Employees' Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago Online: http://www.illinoiscourts.gov/ ___ Contact John O'Connor at https://twitter.com/apoconnor. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/john- oconnor . 2016-03-24 19:30 Associated Press www.dailymail.co.uk
100 Holy Week provides welcome respite for ailing PBA players If there’s one thing evident this 2016 PBA Commissioner’s Cup, it’s that no one is safe. Injuries have already taken down four players in the top 10 of last conference’s Best Player of the Conference race, mightily affecting the complexion of the playoff race so far. That’s why the Holy Week provides a welcome respite for the injured players, who hope to return to the court as fast as possible. And for two-time MVP June Mar Fajardo, he wants to do just that in San Miguel’s next game. “Mahaba naman ang pahinga namin. Baka by next game, pwede na ako,” he said, as he plans a Easter Sunday return against Star with his swollen right knee already feeling better. The same goes with Rain or Shine’s Paul Lee, who re-injured his left knee after colliding with Ryan Reyes last Monday. “Malaking bagay yung break kasi kahit papaano, makakarecover ako,” he said. No team was more decimated by the injury bug than GlobalPort, which saw its lethal backcourt duo fall down with injuries. Stanley Pringle sprained his ankle, and was followed by Terrence Romeo hurting his calf as the Batang Pier spiraled down the cellar. The GlobalPort management is still hopeful that the two can return just in time to salvage the team’s 2-6 record late in the eliminations. They will start joining practice in the coming week. In contrary, TNT skipper Jayson Castro’s status was more promising. The Bacolor native already returned from his Achilles injury in the Tropa’s 114-103 win against the Elasto Painters, where he posted 26 points, on a 10-of-14 shooting, to go with four rebounds and four assists. Still, Castro said admits he’s still hurting a bit. “Medyo masakit pa rin pero after this game, may break pa. Kailangan ulit mag-rehab.” Castro is still expected to come off the bench and provide the spark anew for TNT against Ginebra on Wednesday. “Ready na lang sa next game ulit. Kailangan naming manalo against Ginebra,” he said.
2016-03-24 19:26 Randolph B sports.inquirer.net
Total 100 articles. Created at 2016-03-25 00:04