PENINSULA DAILY NEWS for Monday, September 1, 2014 P A G E
A3 Briefly: Nation Mom charged in girl’s death to get trust? WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — A special education teacher accused of killing her severely disabled 8-year-old daughter by withholding food and medical care could inherit nearly $1 million from the girl’s trust fund — even if she’s convicted. Nicole Diggs and her husband have pleaded not guilty to charges of negligent homicide and child endangerment in the 2012 Diggs death of Alayah Savarese, who was the beneficiary of a trust fund created from the settlement of a malpractice suit that stemmed from complications during her birth. The indictment doesn’t allege that the trust fund was a motive, but Diggs’ attorney said prosecutors are nevertheless implying that her client “somehow disposed of her daughter in order to obtain the money.”
Calif. wildfires slowing HAPPY CAMP, Calif. — The U.S. Forest Service said cloudy skies and lower temperatures have slowed the spread of two forest wildfires that are threatening as many as 250 homes in Northern California. The Forest Service reported Sunday that the fires had burned 98 square miles in the Klamath National Forest by Sunday. That was 8 square miles more than a day earlier but rep-
resented a significant reduction in the growth of the blazes that had picked up steam as humidity declined and winds increased late last week. The two wildfires are the largest among 17 that were sparked by lightning in the forest Aug. 11. They remained 15 percent contained. More than 2,100 firefighters and 19 helicopters are taking advantage of the better weather by laying hoses, constructing fire lines and clearing brush from around evacuated communities.
Campaign cash in ads DES MOINES, Iowa — Iowa’s airwaves are already jammed with ads, most of them negative, in one of the Senate races nationwide that will decide which party claims the majority. The ads come one after another in an onslaught of spin that galls voters. “In Iowa, you see a lot of ads. You learn to identify the ones that are trying to feed you full of crap,” said 62-year-old Mike Vincent of Keota, a registered Republican. The inescapable deluge is not confined to Iowa, and it’s only going to get worse. Election Day is just two months off, and the national tab for the 2014 campaign already stands at $1 billion. Before it’s all over, the bill for the first midterm election since both Democrats and Republicans embraced a historic change in campaign finance is likely to grow to $4 billion or more. TV ads try to reach the few who are able to be swayed and willing to vote. In the closest Senate races, that translates into a price per vote that could double that of the 2012 presidential election. The Associated Press
House, Senate chiefs flag Islamic State risk gets, lawmakers said. Without offering specifics on any threats or suggestions how to confront them, the lawmakers said Obama soon needs to develop a comprehensive strategy to crush the fighters. “His foreign policy is in absolute free-fall,” said Rep. Mike RogBY PHILIP ELLIOTT ers, a Michigan Republican who THE ASSOCIATED PRESS heads the House Intelligence WASHINGTON — Leaders of Committee. the House and Senate intelligence committees Sunday prodded ‘Too cautious’ President Barack Obama to take In another TV interview, Sen. decisive action against what they Dianne Feinstein, the California said are growing threats from Democrat who leads the Senate Islamic State militants on U.S. intelligence panel, said Obama is soil. perhaps “too cautious” in his The lawmakers, one Republi- approach to combatting the can and one Democratic, offered Islamic State group. bipartisan pressure on the White “This is a group of people who House to turn back the hazard of are extraordinarily dangerous,” Islamist fighters who have taken Feinstein said. “And they’ll kill control of vast swaths of Syria with abandon.” and Iraq. The pair of lawmakers, who Those militants now are look- have access to some of the nation’s ing toward the United States or most sensitive secrets and receive Western Europe for its next tar- regular and detailed briefings
Leaders urge action against group’s threats
from the nation’s spy agencies, offered dire predictions of an attack on the United States or its European allies if the militants are not confronted. “They have announced that they don’t intend to stop,” Feinstein said. “They have announced that they will come after us if they can, that they will, quote, ‘spill our blood.’” The threat, Rogers said, could include Americans who have trained with Islamic State fighters. He said there are hundreds of Islamic State-trained Americans who can return to the U.S. with their American passports. “I’m very concerned because we don’t know every single person that has an American passport that has gone and trained and learned how to fight,” Rogers said. Rogers said U.S. intelligence agencies were tracking the Americans who are known to have traveled to the region.
Briefly: World Ukraine: Rebels fire on vessel in border area KIEV, Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday called on Ukraine to immediately start talks on a political solution to the crisis in eastern Ukraine. Hours later, Ukraine said a border guard vessel operating in the Azov Sea was attacked by land-based forces. Pro-Russian rebels Putin have recently opened a new offensive along the seacoast. A spokesman for Ukraine’s offensive against Russia-backed rebels said a border guard vessel has been fired on with artillery — apparently the first incident at sea in the fighting.
Senegal Ebola case DAKAR, Senegal — The effort to contain Ebola in Senegal is “a top priority emergency,” the World Health Organization said Sunday, as the government continued tracing everyone who came in contact with a Guinean
student who has tested positive for the deadly disease in the capital, Dakar. Senegal faces an “urgent need” for support and supplies including hygiene kits and personal protective equipment for health workers, the WHO said in a statement Sunday. Senegal confirmed that the student had tested positive for Ebola on Friday, making the country the fifth in West Africa to be affected by an outbreak that has killed more than 1,500 people.
U.S. Embassy in Libya TRIPOLI, Libya — An Islamist-allied militia group in control of Libya’s capital now guards the U.S. Embassy and its residential compound, a commander said Sunday, as onlookers toured the abandoned homes of diplomats who fled the country more than a month ago. An Associated Press journalist saw holes left by small-arms and rocket fire dotting the residential compound, reminders of weeks of violence between rival militias over control of Tripoli that sparked the evacuation. The breach of a deserted U.S. diplomatic post likely will reinvigorate debate in the U.S. over its role in Libya, more than three years after supporting rebels who toppled dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The Associated Press
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
RALLYING
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Protesters attend a rally in Hong Kong on Sunday after China’s legislature ruled out allowing open nominations in the inaugural election for Hong Kong’s leader.
U.S. trained Alaskans to be secret ‘stay behind agents’ BY ROBERT BURNS THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Fearing a Russian invasion and occupation of Alaska, the U.S. government in the early Cold War years recruited and trained fishermen, bush pilots, trappers and other private citizens across Alaska for a covert network to feed wartime intelligence to the military, newly declassified Air Force and FBI documents show. Invasion of Alaska? Yes. It seemed like a real possibility in 1950. “The military believes that it would be an airborne invasion involving bombing and the dropping of paratroopers,” one FBI
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memo said. The most likely targets were thought to be Nome, Fairbanks, Anchorage and Seward. So FBI director J. Edgar Hoover teamed up on a highly classified project, code-named “Washtub,” with the newly created Air Force Office of Special Investigations, headed by Hoover protege and former FBI official Joseph F. Carroll. The secret plan was to have citizen-agents in key locations in Alaska ready to hide from the invaders of what was then only a U.S. territory. The citizen-agents would find their way to survival caches of food, cold-weather gear, messagecoding material and radios.
In hiding they would transmit word of enemy movements. This was not civil defense of the sort that became common later in the Cold War as Americans built their own bomb shelters. This was an extraordinary enlistment of civilians as intelligence operatives on U.S. soil. This account of the “Washtub” project is based on hundreds of pages of formerly secret documents. The heavily censored records were provided to The Associated Press by the Government Attic, a website that publishes government documents it obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
. . . more news to start your day
West: 3 killed, 2 injured in plane crash in Colorado
Nation: 3 are hurt in N.Y. lightning strike on beach
Nation: ‘Guardians’ leads sluggish Labor Day weekend
World: Iraqi forces break militant siege of Shiite town
THREE PEOPLE WERE killed and two others were injured when their small plane crashed near an airport north of Denver, authorities said Sunday. The Piper PA-46 airplane crashed near the Erie Municipal Airport at about 11:50 a.m., said Peter Knudson, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board. Knudson did not know how badly the survivors were injured. Erie Police Cmdr. Lee Mathis said the six-passenger plane crashed a few hundred yards northwest of the runway, but he did not know if it was landing or taking off.
A LIGHTNING STRIKE at a New York City beach has injured three people. The fire department said the men were injured at Orchard Beach on Pelham Bay in the Bronx on Sunday evening as bad storms rolled through the area. The men are being treated at a hospital. The extent of their injuries is unknown. The lightning strike happened as heavy thunderstorms swept through the city. Dozens of commercial flights into the city’s airports were delayed because of the severe weather.
JAMES GUNN’S “GUARDIANS of the Galaxy” has become the No. 1 film of the year to date at the North American box office, flying by fellow Marvel Studios superhero film “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” The quirky tentpole, made by Marvel and Disney, took in an estimated $3.8 million on Friday, pushing its domestic total to $262.1 million New Labor Day weekend entries “The November Man” and “As Above, So Below” are doing only modest business so far and are likely to come in behind “Guardians,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “If I Stay” for the fourday holiday weekend.
IRAQI SECURITY FORCES and Shiite militiamen Sunday broke a sixweek siege imposed by the Islamic State extremist group on the northern Shiite Turkmen town of Amirli, as a suicide bombing killed 14 people in Anbar western province, officials said. Army spokesman Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said the operation started at dawn Sunday and the forces entered the town shortly after midday. Speaking live on state TV, al-Moussawi said the forces suffered “some causalities” but did not give a specific number. He said fighting was “still ongoing to clear the surrounding villages.”