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MUSLIMS THREW CHRISTIANS OVERBOARD D U R I N G M E D VO YA G E Police search a building on the U.S. Census Bureau headquarters campus for an armed man who, according to a fire official, shot a security guard at a gate to the facility in Suitland, Md., Thursday, April 9,

ROME (AP) -- Italy’s migration crisis took on a deadly new twist Thursday as police in Sicily reported that Muslim migrants had thrown 12 Christians overboard during a recent crossing from Libya, and aid groups said another 41 were feared drowned in a separate incident.

Palermo police said they had detained 15 people suspected in the high seas assault, which they learned of while interviewing tearful survivors from Nigeria and Ghana who had arrived in Palermo Wednesday morning after being rescued at sea.

The 15 were accused of multiple homicide aggravated by religious hatred, police said in a statement.

The survivors said they had boarded a rubber boat April 14 on the Libyan coast with 105 passengers aboard, part of the wave of migrants taking advantage of calm seas and warm weather to make the risky crossing from Libya, where most smuggling operations originate. continued on page 2

S E AT T L E C E O TO C U T H I S PAY S O E V E R Y WORKER EARNS $70,000

Volume 004 Issue12

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FRIEND FEARED GYROCOPTER PILOT WOULD GET SHOT DOWN

“As I have informed the authorities, I have no violent inclinations or intent,” Hughes wrote. “An ultralight aircraft poses no major physical threat - it may present a political threat to graft. I hope so.

There’s no need to worry - I’m just delivering the mail.”

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) -- A Florida postal worker who piloted a gyrocopter onto the U.S. Capitol lawn to call attention to his belief that campaign finance laws are too weak is “a patriot” who first came up with the idea about a year ago, a friend said.

Doug Hughes, 61, called his friend Mike Shanahan on Wednesday and said he was in the D.C. area and ready to take off, Shanahan was quoted by The Tampa Bay Times as saying. Shanahan said he feared law enforcement would shoot down the small aircraft emblazoned with the Postal Service logo, so he alerted the U.S. Secret Service. The gyrocopter landed about half a city block from the Capitol building.

He said he told the Times about his stunt because he feared being hurt or arrested. He also said he kept his Russian-born wife and 12-year-old daughter in the dark about his plan.

A member of a bomb squad checks a small helicopter after a man landed on the West Lawn of the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, April 15, 2015. Police arrested a man who steered his tiny, one-person helicopter onto the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol Wednesday, astonishing spring tourists and prompting a temporary lockdown of the Capitol Visitor Center. Capitol Police didn’t immediately identify the pilot or comment on his motive, but a Florida postal carrier named Doug Hughes took responsibility for the stunt on a website where he said he was delivering letters to all 535 members of Congress in order to draw attention to campaign finance corruption.

“I was scared to death they were going to kill him,” Shanahan said.

Hughes steered his tiny aircraft onto the Capitol’s West Lawn after flying through restricted airspace around the National Mall, police said. A Senate aide told The Associated Press the Capitol Police knew of the plan shortly before Hughes took off. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because the aide was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation.

Hughes is a married father of four who wanted to “spotlight corruption in DC and more importantly, to present the solution(s) to the institutional graft,” reads a statement on his website, The Democracy Club. He lives in the Tampa Bay area community of Ruskin.

In an interview with the Times before his flight, Hughes told the paper he sees himself as a showman patriot - a mix of Paul Revere and legendary circus owner P.T. Barnum.

The stunt, which led to breathless reports on national cable TV networks, involved delivering letters to all 535 members of Congress to draw attention to campaign finance corruption.

His website talks of “bi-partisan corruption” and urges readers not to focus on him.

“Let’s keep the discussion focused on reform - not me - I’m just delivering the mail,” he wrote.

According to his website, Hughes was born and raised in Santa Cruz, California, where his first job was at a McDonald’s. Upon graduating from high school, he joined the Navy, he wrote, and then worked in restaurant management on the West Coast. He lived in North Carolina and then moved to Florida following a divorce.

He’s worked for the Postal Service for 11 years.

Cary Chin works Wednesday, April 15, 2015, at the front desk of Gravity Payments, a credit card payment processor based in Seattle. Gravity CEO Dan Price told his employees this week that he was cutting his roughly $1 million salary and using company profits so they would each earn a base salary of $70,000, to be phased in over three years.

SEATTLE (AP) -- A Seattle CEO who announced that he’s giving himself a drastic pay cut to help cover the cost of big raises for his employees didn’t just make those workers happy.

Washington state already has the nation’s highest minimum wage at $9.47 an hour, and earlier this month Seattle’s minimum wage law continued on page 2

About two hours after Hughes landed, police announced that a bomb squad had cleared his gyrocopter and nothing hazardous had been found. The authorities then moved it off the Capitol lawn to a secure location.

House Homeland Security panel Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said Hughes landed on his own, but authorities were prepared to shoot him down if he had made it much closer to the Capitol. “Had it gotten any closer to the speaker’s balcony, they have long guns to take it down, but it didn’t. It landed right in front,” McCaul said.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the pilot had not been in contact with air traffic controllers and the FAA didn’t authorize him to enter restricted airspace.

Airspace security rules that cover the Capitol and the District of Columbia prohibit private aircraft flights without prior coordination and permission.

Violators can face civil and criminal penalties.

The White House said President Barack Obama had been briefed on the situation.

Witnesses said the craft approached the Capitol from the west, flying low over the National Mall and the Capitol reflecting pool across the street from the building. It barely cleared a row of trees and a statue of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

John Jewell, 72, a tourist from Statesville, North Carolina, said the craft landed hard and bounced. An officer was already there with a gun drawn.

“He didn’t get out until police officers told him to get out. He had his hands up” and was quickly led away by the police, Jewell said. “They snatched him pretty fast.”

“We want to get people off of public assistance and into private-sector employment, and we’ve had a lot of success with that,” Brownback during an interview this week with The Associated Press.

A 2012 federal law requires states to prevent benefit-card use at liquor stores, gambling establishments or adult-entertainment businesses.

At least 23 states have their own restrictions on how cards can be used, mostly for alcohol, tobacco, gambling and adult-oriented businesses, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Dan Price, chief executive of the company, stunned his 100-plus workers on Monday when he told them he was cutting his roughly $1 million salary to $70,000 and using company profits to ensure that everyone there would earn at least that much within three years.

“It’s an alternative way to think about a tough problem, and I give these guys a lot of credit for laying it out there,” Larcker said.

“Whether this would scale to a bigger organization, it’s hard to know. But it’s clever, it’s interesting and it’s fun to think about.”

“He paid far too high a price for an unimportant issue,” Hughes told the paper. “But if you’re willing to take a risk, the ultimate risk, to draw attention to something that does have significance, it’s worth doing.”

It is part of a broader welfare law taking effect in July that Brownback and his allies say is aimed at moving poor families from social services into jobs.

“We’ve definitely gained a handful of customers in the last day or two,” said Stefan Bennett, a customer relations manager at Gravity Payments, a credit card payment processing firm. “We’re showing people you can run a good company, and you can pay people fairly, and it can be profitable.”

At a time of increasing anger nationally over the enormous gap between the pay of top executives and their employees, the announcement received immense attention. But corporate governance professor David Larcker of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business said it’s unclear if Price’s unusual gesture will start a trend.

Hughes has three other children, including one son who took his own life by driving his car headon into another vehicle, killing both himself and the other driver nearly three years ago. Hughes said his son’s suicide was a catalyst for him.

NEW KANSAS RULES WOULD LIMIT S P E N D I N G O F W E L FA R E B E N E F I T S

He’s already gained new customers, too.

For some workers, the increase will more than double their pay.

One 21-year-old mother said she’ll buy a house.

April 20 thru April 27, 2015

Kansas Republican Gov. Sam Brownback makes a point during an interview in his office in the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. Brownback is preparing to sign welfare legislation restricting how poor families can spend cash assistance from the state. The Republican governor scheduled a Thursday, April 16, 2015, morning signing ceremony at the Statehouse.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- A new Kansas law tells poor families that they can’t use cash assistance from the state to attend concerts, get tattoos, see a psychic or buy lingerie. The list of don’ts runs to several dozen items.

More than 20 other states have such lists. But, the one included by the Republican-dominated Kansas Legislature in a bill that GOP Gov. Sam Brownback planned to sign Thursday appears to be the most exhaustive, according to state Department for Children and Families officials.

It’s inspired national criticism and mockery from “The Daily Show.” Host Jon Stewart suggested that in accepting federal funds, Kansas should be forced to give up items like roads “paved with luxurious asphalt.”

“The list has attracted attention because it feels mean-spirited,” said Shannon Cotsoradis, president and CEO of the advocacy group Kansas Action for Children. “It really seems to make a statement about how we feel about the poor.”

A few states - not Kansas - prohibit buying guns, according to the NCSL, and a few ban tattoos or body piercings. Massachusetts prohibits spending on jewelry, bail bonds, or “vacation services.” A 2014 Louisiana law bars card use on cruise ships, which is also on the Kansas list.

Kansas Department for Children and Families officials said that it’s difficult to track how often cash assistance is used for items on the state’s new list because recipients can use their benefits cards to obtain cash. The law will limit ATM withdrawals of cash assistance to $25 a day.

The department said it reclaimed $199,000 in cash assistance from 81 fraud cases from July through February, but said most involved questions about eligibility. The state provided $14 million in cash assistance during the same period.

A 2014 federal report said a check of eight states’ data showed transactions with benefit cards at liquor stores, casinos or strip clubs accounted for less than 1 percent of the total.

Critics question whether such restrictions can be enforced. Elizabeth Schott, senior fellow with the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said enacting them simply creates an “aura of abuse.”

continued on page 5

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S TO C K O F O N L I N E M A R K E TPLACE ETSY SURGES IN TRADING

nese e-commerce powerhouse.

In addition to taking a small percentage of each transaction made on Etsy, it is increasingly offering services like marketing and payment processing to its sellers. About 42 percent of its revenue in 2014 came from services.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The place where you can buy handmade dresses and crocheted dog costumes has a new hot seller: its own stock.

Shares of arts and crafts retailer Etsy surged in opening trading on the Nasdaq Thursday. After pricing at $16 late Wednesday the stock opened at nearly double that, and hit a high of $35.73 in morning trading. The company is valued at $3.33 billion, based on afternoon trading just below $30.

Etsy is a B Corporation, a for-profit company with a stated social mission certified by Kristina Salen, center left, Etsy’s Chief Financial Officer, stands with Chad Dickerson, center right, Chairman and CEO, to celebrate the company’s IPO a nonprofit organization called with employees and guests at the Nasdaq MarketSite, Thursday, April 16, B Lab. That could make for a 2015, in New York. tricky balancing act of keeping its socially conscious ethos alive while satisfying stockholdThe healthy stock surge shows that Wall Street has a big er demands. But it could help that some shareholders will be appetite for a well-known retail brand, even one that doesn’t Etsy sellers themselves - Etsy planned for 5 percent of the yet make a profit. Thursday was one of the biggest days for shares sold to be set aside for individual investors, including initial public offerings so far this year, with party-store oppeople who use its site. And it is using $300,000 of the proerator Party City and electronic trading firm Virtu Financial ceeds from the debut to fund Etsy.org, a website established also making big debuts. to promote entrepreneurship for women in disadvantaged communities.

“It’s been a very slow IPO market so far this year and investors have been on the sideline waiting for a new name, So far on Thursday, Wall Street seems to be willing to gamespecially a new name that’s familiar,” said Sam Hamadeh, ble they’ll be able to maintain both.

CEO of research firm Privco.

Founded in 2005, Brooklyn-based Etsy sells anything from a $110,000 antique desk from the 1800s to a $20 handmade antler pendant and everything in between. In 10 years it’s grown from a scrappy startup offering craftspeople a way to sell necklaces and needlepoint online to a marketplace of 54 million members that generated $1.93 billion in sales in 2014.

While it doesn’t make a profit - it reported a loss of $15.2 million in 2014 - it has a very loyal customer base and room for revenue growth. The company says 78 percent of people who bought items on the site in 2014 were return customers.

And although it has a reputation for being a grassroots site, its revenue model is becoming more like Alibaba, the Chi-

S E A T T L E

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went into effect. It will eventually raise base hourly pay to $15.

Children Incorporated 4205 Dover Road Richmond, VA 23221-3267

www.childrenincorporated.

Labor unions and workers in the Seattle area on Wednesday joined national protests for better pay. Drivers for Uber and Lyft - the app-based car-hailing services - gathered in Seattle, while airport workers rallied at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. In Seattle, police arrested 21 demonstrators who opted for civil disobedience to dramatize their point, refusing to move out of an intersection at the conclusion of their march.

Gravity’s CEO launched the company from his dorm room at Seattle Pacific University when he was just 19. He’s long taken a progressive approach that included adopting a policy allowing his workers to take unlimited paid vacation after their first year.

“I think this is just what everyone deserves,” Price told workers in a video of Monday’s announcement released by the company.

But he also acknowledged it won’t be easy: The increased pay will eat into at least half the company’s profits, he said, and he has no plans to simply raise rates on clients.

POTECTING SPEICIES worldwildlife.org

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“We think that it’s a very interesting company and investors are going to like the growth they see,” said Kathleen Smith, IPO exchange-traded fund manager at IPO research firm Renaissance Capital.

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CHRISTIANS OVERBOARD continued from page 1

During the crossing, the migrants from Nigeria and Ghana - believed to be Christians - were threatened with being abandoned at sea by some 15 other passengers from the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mali and Guinea Bissau.

The statement said the motive was that the victims “professed the Christian faith while the aggressors were Muslim.”

“It’s up to us to find a way to make it work,” he said.

Earlier Thursday, the International Organization of Migration said four migrants who were picked up in recent days by the Italian Navy reported a shipwreck to aid workers after arriving in the Italian port of Trapani Thursday. They were among 580 migrants brought to the port on Thursday and said 41 others were believed to have died.

Bennett, 28, went to college with Price and has worked for Gravity since graduation. He said he was already happy to work for a company that treats its employees and customers well in what he otherwise considers a predatory industry. For him, the raise will amount to about $10,000.

The IOM said the migrants - two Nigerians, a Ghanaian and one Nigerien - were found floating in the sea by a helicopter and were rescued by the Italian Naval ship Foscari. They had left Tripoli in Libya on Saturday and stayed adrift for four days. The location of the rescue was not immediately known.

“I don’t care as much about the money,” he said. “But if I look at my colleagues, and what they talk about on a day-to-day basis and what their concerns are - just looking at their faces when Dan announced the pay increase, it was pretty phenomenal.”

The new tragedies come just days after aid agencies reported 400 presumed dead in the sinking of another ship near the Libyan coast.

The deaths have raised calls for a more robust search and rescue of the seas between Libya and Europe amid a surge in migration between the Middle East and Africa toward Italy.

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________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Weekly News Digest, April 20, thru April 27, 2015

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SEARCH AREA FOR FLIGHT 370 TO BE DOUBLED IF PLANE NOT FOUND KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- The search area for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 will be expanded by another 60,000 square kilometers (23,000 square miles) in the Indian Ocean if the jetliner is not found by May, officials said Thursday, affirming their commitment to not give up until it is located.

The two ministers said they expect the second phase to take the rest of this year, but a subsequent statement said it could take up to a year. Bad weather during the southern hemisphere’s upcoming winter and rough, rugged terrain under the remote seas are expected to hinder the search and cause delays.

Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said that Malaysia, Australia and China, which are leading the hunt for the Boeing 777 that went missing on March 8 last year, are “committed to the search.”

The statement issued after the meeting said the ministers also agreed on plans for recovery activities, including securing evidence, in the event the aircraft is found, but gave no details.

He told reporters after meeting with his counterparts from the other two countries that so far 61 percent of the 60,000 kilometer (23,000-squaremile) search area has been scoured off Australia’s west coast. The remaining 39 percent would have been searched by the end of May, he said.

In late January this year, Malaysia’s government formally declared the plane’s disappearance an accident and said all those on board were presumed dead. A comprehensive report into the disappearance found no significant anomalies in the flight, except that the battery of the locator beacon for the plane’s data recorder had expired more than a year before the jet vanished.

“If the aircraft is not found within the 60,000 square kilometers, we have collectively decided to extend the search to another 60,000 square kilometers within the highest probability area,” he said. However, searchers are hopeful that they can find the plane in the current search area, he said.

The announcement removes some ambiguity about the future of the search as it was never made clear what would happen if the plane is not found. It will also come as a solace to the relatives of the victims, who are holding out the hope of recovering the bodies.

Liow said the two areas together would cover 95 percent of the Indian Ocean flight path of the plane, which went missing while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. Most of the passengers were Chinese. It dropped off radars, and investigators using satellite data later figured out that it made a series of turns and flew in a direction opposite from its original heading before crashing into the Indian Ocean.

“We are confident we are searching in the right area,” Australian Deputy Prime Minister and transport minister Warren Truss said at the news conference, alongside Liow. “We are confident we have the best search

Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai, center, speaks as Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss, left, and Chinese Minister of Transport Yang Chuantang listen during a press conference following their meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Thursday, April 16, 2015. The search area for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 will be expanded by another 60,000 square kilometers (23,000 square miles) in the Indian Ocean if the jetliner is not found by May, officials said Thursday. Liow told reporters that the three countries, which are leading the hunt for the Boeing 777 that went missing on March 8 last year, are “committed to the search.”

equipment ... if the plane is in the area we will find it.”

In the first phase, a total of 120 million Australian dollars ($93.6 million) was spent by the Australia and Malaysia, split equally, and Liow said the next phase is estimated to cost A$50 million ($39 million). The costs are lower in part because the vessels and equipment are already in place.

“Australia and Malaysia have been sharing the cost and we will continue to do that,” Truss said. “We are confident we will be able to fund whatever is necessary.”

The lower cost is because the equipment has already been purchased.

That still does not explain what caused the plane to veer so off course in what has become aviation’s biggest mystery that continues to confound experts and investigators alike. At the same time, the relatives of the dead have had no closure and many still believe that their loved ones may be alive amid a host of conspiracy theories including one that the plane was hijacked and landed somewhere safely.

One theory also has the plane flying west to Maldives. Truss said the plane may have had enough fuel to reach Maldives but it would have been impossible for it to be in the reported area in daylight and not be seen by anyone. Also, the flight path to Maldives would be inconsistent with satellite and radar data. “It is not considered a likely possibility,” he said.

China’s transport minister Yang Chuantang said China may contribute vessels and other assets in the next search phase.

“We will marshal some physical assets including vessels to participate in the search,” he said. “We will not waver in our commitment to continue the search until we find the plane and resolve the mystery.”

AL-QAIDA CAPTURES MAJOR AIRPORT, WIKILEAKS CREATES ONLINE O I L T E R M I N A L I N S O U T H Y E M E N ARCHIVE OF HACKED loyal to ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh should adhere to the U.N. Security Council resolution passed earlier this week that calls on Yemenis, especially the Houthis, to end the violence and return to U.N.-led peace talks.

SONY DOCUMENTS

A Saudi-led coalition began an air campaign against the Houthis and their allies on March 26. The U.N. resolution makes no mention of an end to the airstrikes, now in their fourth week.

Bahah said no initiative for ending the conflict would be considered without a “halt to the war machine,” particularly in Aden, Yemen’s second largest city. Yemen’s internationally recognized President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi had set up a temporary capital in Aden before fleeing to Saudi Arabia last month.

SANAA, Yemen (AP) -- Military officials and residents say al-Qaida has taken control of a major airport, a sea port and an oil terminal in southern Yemen after brief clashes with troops.

The officials said al-Qaida fighters clashed Thursday with members of one of Yemen’s largest infantry brigades outside Mukalla, a city the militants overran earlier this month. The officials, speaking from Sanaa on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the press, said the leaders of the brigade fled.

The brigade is in charge of securing the coast of Mukalla, the provincial capital of Yemen’s largest province, Hadramawt. After seizing the airport, the militants easily captured the sea port and oil terminal.

Al-Qaida’s Yemeni branch has long been seen as the network’s most lethal franchise.

Bahah also called on all military units to stop fighting for Saleh and return to the fold of the legitimate government.

He said the kidnapping of the defense minister by the Houthi rebels at the outset of their offensive on Aden has left the military in exceptional disarray, but called on military units to end their fighting on behalf of “individuals.”

“We consider Aden to be the key to peace, the key to the solution,” Bahah said. “We will not talk about any initiatives until we see the war machine has stopped in Yemen, and in Aden in particular.”

Bahah was speaking for the first time since Hadi appointed him vice president on Sunday. He said Hadi will return to Aden when the security and political situation improves. For now, he said a small government will operate out of Riyadh, focusing on organizing and coordinating humanitarian efforts.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

The Houthis swept down from their northern strongholds and seized the capital, Sanaa, in September. Iran supports the Shiite rebels, but both Tehran and the rebels deny it has armed them.

Military officials and residents say al-Qaida has taken control of a major airport in southern Yemen after briefly clashing with troops.

Ground fighting has been fiercest in Aden, where rebels and proSaleh military units are trying to take control of the city.

The officials say al-Qaida fighters clashed Thursday with members of the infantry brigade in charge of protecting the Riyan airport in the city of Mukalla, a major port city and the provincial capital of Yemen’s largest province, Hadramawt.

Humanitarian groups have struggled to meet the needs of a population that was already struggling with food security, water scarcity and fuel shortages. Medical supplies are now running low.

Al-Qaida overran the city itself earlier this month and freed inmates, including a militant commander, from its prison.

The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that at least 364 civilians are reported to have been killed since the start of the airstrikes on March 26, including at least 84 children and 25 women. This is in addition to hundreds of fighters killed.

Nasser Baqazouz, an activist in the city, said the troops guarding the airport put up little resistance.

Al-Qaida’s powerful local branch has exploited the chaos in Yemen, where Shiite rebels and military units loyal to a former president captured the capital in September and have been advancing despite a three-week Saudi-led air campaign.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

On Thursday, Human Rights Watch said at least 31 civilians were killed on March 31, during repeated coalition airstrikes on a dairy factory located near military bases operated by the Houthis and their allies.

Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North African director at Human Rights Watch, said the attack may have violated the laws of war, and called for countries involved to investigate and take appropriate action.

Yemen’s exiled vice president on Thursday called on Shiite rebels and their allied military units to end their offensive on the southern port city of Aden, saying that ground fighting must halt ahead of any peace initiatives.

“Repeated airstrikes on a dairy factory located near military bases shows cruel disregard for civilians by both sides to Yemen’s armed conflict,” he said.

Khaled Bahah, speaking from Riyadh, said the rebels and troops

Bahah said the coalition and its allies have tried to avoid killing civilians.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Sony’s hacking problems aren’t over yet.

Whistleblower site WikiLeaks on Thursday put hundreds of thousands of emails and documents from last year’s crippling cyberattack against Sony Pictures Entertainment into a searchable online archive. It’s the latest blow for the entertainment and technology company struggling to get past the attack, which the company estimates caused millions in damage.

The website founded by Julian Assange said that its database includes more than 170,000 emails from Sony Pictures and a subsidiary, plus more than 30,000 other documents.

Sony Pictures blasted WikiLeaks for creating the archive, saying the website was helping the hackers disseminate stolen information.

“We vehemently disagree with WikiLeaks’ assertion that this material belongs in the public domain,” the company said in a statement.

But Assange said the documents should be available to the public. Although they had been online, it was in a compressed format that wasn’t easily searchable.

“This archive shows the inner workings of an influential multinational corporation,” Assange said. “It is newsworthy and at the center of a geo-political conflict.

It belongs in the public domain. WikiLeaks will ensure it stays there.”

The WikiLeaks site lets users find emails, documents or an entire cache of files through searches using keywords, people who sent or received emails and types of files. The site made a name for itself in 2010 when it began publishing diplomatic cables leaked by Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradley Manning.

Assange is currently battling a detention order in Sweden, where he is wanted by prosecutors in an investigation of alleged sex crimes. He has avoided being extradited to Sweden by taking shelter in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012.

Sony Pictures’ troubles began last December after it suffered an extensive hacking attack and release of confidential emails ahead of its release of “The Interview,” a comedy that centers around the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. A group calling itself Guardians of the Peace took credit for the attack, and U.S. intelligence officials said the group was linked to North Korea, but no official link has been made.

The attack exposed tens of thousands of sensitive documents, including studio financial records, employment files and emails between Sony executives. Some emails revealed exchanges between Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin and Sony Pictures’ co-chair Amy Pascal that contained a frank assessment of Angelina Jolie’s talent and racially offensive jokes about President Barack Obama’s presumed taste in movies. The company announced in February that Pascal would transition to a job as the head of a new production venture at the studio.

Sony Pictures at first shelved “The Interview,” but it was later opened in a limited release.

The studio’s parent, Tokyo-based Sony Corp., launched an overhaul of its own security in 2011 after hackers broke into its PlayStation Network gaming system and stole data of 77 million users.

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The Weekly News Digest, April 20, thru April 27, 2015

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F L O R I D A C R A S H S TAT I S T I C S A l l I - 9 5

l a n e s o p e n o n s o u t h b o u n d i n B o c a R a t o n

All lanes are open on Interstate 95 southbound at Palmetto Park Road after an earlier wreck Thursday morning, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. CLEARED: Crash in Palm Beach on I-95 south at Exit 44 Palmetto Park Rd, 2 right lanes blocked.[...]

T r a c t o r - T r a i l e r b y L a k e l a n d M a n o n I - 4

D r i v e n C r a s h e s

A Lakeland man driving east on Interstate 4 crashed a tractor-trailer carrying concrete beams at the U.S. 301 exit this morning, the Florida Highway Patrol reported.[...]

Car struck back of cruiser investigating earlier accident A Florida Highway Patrol cruiser was rear-ended on Interstate 95 in St. Johns County on Wednesday morning, one of two state troopers who had stopped to assist with an earlier accident was injured, and a woman suffered life-threatening injuries,

Ta m p a

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A 62-year-old Tampa man died Wednesday morning after he had medical condition while driving on Interstate 275 and crashed, the Florida Highway Patrol said.[...]

Pick-up lodged under semi, WB I-4 lanes blocked at Thonotosassa Rd. All westbound lanes of I-4 are blocked after an accident involving a Publix semi-truck and a pick-up truck. The Florida Highway Patrol said it happened shortly before 7 a.m. near Thonotosassa Road.

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John Muir (1838-1914) was America’s most famous and influential naturalist and conservationist, and founder of the Sierra Club. This website, known as the “John Muir Exhibit” features his life and contributions.

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_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________The Weekly News Digest, April 20, thru April 27, 2015

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T H O U S A N D S F L E E A S I S G R O U P A D VA N C E S O N I R A Q ’ S R A M A D I BAGHDAD (AP) -- More than 2,000 families have fled the Iraqi city of Ramadi with little more than the clothes on their backs, officials said Thursday, as the Islamic State group closed in on the capital of western Anbar province, clashing with Iraqi troops and turning it into a ghost town.

trying to verify the reports of fleeing residents. Prior to the current bout of fighting, some 400,000 Iraqis were already displaced, including 60,000 in Ramadi district, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Al-Bayan, the Islamic State group’s English-language radio station, claimed IS fighters had seized control of at least six areas and most of a seventh to the east of Ramadi since Wednesday, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant websites.

The extremist group, which has controlled the nearby city of Fallujah for more than a year, captured three villages on Ramadi’s eastern outskirts on Wednesday. The advance is widely seen as a counteroffensive after the Islamic State group lost the city of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, earlier this month.

American troops fought some of their bloodiest battles in Anbar during the eight-year U.S. intervention, when Fallujah and Ramadi were strongholds of al-Qaida in Iraq, a precursor to the IS group.

Fallujah was the first Iraqi city to fall to the militants, in January 2014.

Hundreds of U.S. troops are training Iraqi forces at a military base west of Ramadi, but a U.S. military official said the fighting had no impact on the U.S. soldiers there, and that there were no plans to withdraw them.

The fleeing Ramadi residents were settling in the southern and western suburbs of Baghdad, and tents, food and other aid were being sent to them, said Sattar Nowruz, an official of the Ministry of Migration and the Displaced.

The ministry was assessing the situation with the provincial government in order “to provide the displaced people, who are undergoing difficult conditions, with better services and help,” Nowruz said.

Sporadic clashes were still underway Thursday, according to security officials in Ramadi. Government forces control the city center, while the IS group has had a presence in the suburbs and outskirts for months. They described Ramadi as a ghost town, with empty streets and closed shops.

Video obtained by The Associated Press showed plumes of thick,

People leave their hometown Ramadi, 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, April 16, 2015. Clashes between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants pressing their offensive for Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province, has forced more than 2,000 families to flee from their homes in the area, an Iraqi official said Thursday.

The Sunni militants’ push on Ramadi, launched Wednesday when the Islamic State group captured three villages on the city’s eastern outskirts, has become the most significant threat so far to the provincial capital of Anbar.

black smoke billowing above the city as fighter jets pounded militant targets. On the city outskirts, displaced residents frantically tried to make their way out amid the heavy bombardment.

U.S.-led coalition airstrikes targeted the IS group in Sjariyah, Albu-Ghanim and Soufiya, the three villages the extremists captured Wednesday, the officials added. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to talk to the media.

Anbar’s deputy governor, Faleh al-Issawi, described the situation in Ramadi as “catastrophic” and urged the central government to send in reinforcements.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who was visiting Washington on Wednesday, made no mention of the events in Ramadi. Instead he spoke optimistically about recruiting Sunni tribal fighters to battle the extremists, saying about 5,000 such fighters in Anbar had signed up and received light weapons.

The IS-run Al-Bayan station also reported that an attempt by Iraqi troops to advance on the Beiji oil refinery in Salahuddin province, about 250 kilometers (115 miles) north of Baghdad, was pushed back and that fighters “positioned themselves in multiple parts of the refinery after taking control of most of it,” according to SITE. Iraqi officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the fighting around Beiji. On Monday, Oil Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi said that Iraqi forces, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, had repelled an IS attack on Beiji over the weekend.

“Undermining support for the programs is what the restrictions do,” she said.

“We urge the Baghdad government to supply us immediately with troops and weapons in order to help us prevent the city from falling into the hands of the IS group,” he told the Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Meanwhile, a senior U.S. military official told The Associated Press that there were no plans to evacuate U.S. troops from the Ain al-Asad air base, about 110 kilometers (70 miles) west of Ramadi and stressed that the current fighting around Ramadi had no impact on the base. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Phyllis Gilmore, Kansas secretary for children and families, said her state’s list is a “composite” of others and has educational value, sending the message that cash assistance should be used for necessities.

The spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric, said access to the city was limited but humanitarian workers were

Since January, hundreds of U.S. forces have been training Iraqi troops at the base.

WELFARE BENEFITS continued from page 1

“Every dollar that is used fraudulently is a dollar that is not going to an American who is struggling,” said state Sen. Michael O’Donnell, a Wichita Republican who supported the bill.

Much of the new Kansas law codifies administrative policies enacted after Brownback took office in January 2011, so they’ll be harder to undo later.

They include a requirement that cash assistance recipients work at least 20 hours a week, be looking for work or enroll in job training. The new law also includes a much-criticized provision shortening the lifetime cap on cash assistance to 36 months from 48 months, although the state Department for Children and Families said recipients rarely bump up against the lower limit.

The number of cash assistance recipients in Kansas has dropped 63 percent since Brownback took office, to about 14,700 in February. Brownback said the decline confirms the success of his policies, but critics note that U.S. Census Bureau figures show the state’s child poverty rate remaining at about 19 percent through 2013.

Brownback said his state’s list of prohibited cash-assistance uses has become a way for the left to argue against welfare-to-work policies.

“I think you’re seeing the left trying to pillory this,” Brownback said. “They’re just trying to poke fun at it, when it’s not what the debate is really about.”

WIKILEAKS CREATES ONLINE ARCHIVE OF HACKED SONY DOCUMENTS

This artist’s rendering provided by NASA shows the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft around Mercury. On Thursday, April 16, 2015, NASA announced that after years of orbiting the planet, the spacecraft will crash into the planet at the end of the month.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- After years of orbiting Mercury, NASA’s Messenger spacecraft will crash into the planet at the end of this month.

NASA announced Messenger’s impending demise Thursday. But instead of mourning, scientists and engineers celebrated the success of this first spacecraft to orbit the planet closest to our sun.

Messenger is expected to slam into Mercury on April 30, succumbing to gravity after running out of fuel. It will be traveling more than 8,700 mph at the time of impact, and create a crater about 52 feet across. The impact will occur on the side of Mercury facing away from Earth, out of view of telescopes. Scientists expect to collect data until almost the bitter end.

Messenger was launched in 2004 and entered into Mercury’s orbit in 2011.

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The Weekly News Digest, April 20, thru April 27, 2015

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E U R O P E D I T H E R S I N F A C E O F U N P R E C E D E N T E D WAV E O F M I G R A N T S them stay while their cases are assessed - by which time many have settled in Europe.

BRUSSELS (AP) -- An unprecedented wave of migrants has headed for the European Union’s promised shores over the past week, with 10,000 people making the trip. Hundreds - nobody knows how many - have disappeared into the warming waters of the Mediterranean, including 41 migrants reported dead Thursday after a shipwreck.

The EU has of course spent money on defending its borders - it spends 90 million euros ($96 million) a year on its Frontex border agency, whose widely criticized Operation Triton program is designed to control the EU’s territorial waters, not to rescue people.

Unlike Italy’s Mare Nostrum program, which was closed last year because it was expensive and politically unpopular, Triton does not patrol close to the Libyan coast to pick up migrants in need.

Amid these scenes of desperation, none of the 28 nations from the world’s wealthiest trade bloc has pledged a single ship, a single plane or a single cent to add to the rescue efforts. With the spring crossing season kicking off, the EU has no relevant legislation in the works, and no emergency meeting on the agenda.

Instead, the EU says it will unveil a migration agenda for discussions by the end of May and draw up a report by Christmas.

The most visible action has come from aid group Doctors Without Borders, which pledged to put medical workers on board a rescue ship beginning in May. “We are acutely aware that we are only one boat,” said Hernan del Valle, the group’s head of humanitarian affairs. “It’s a tragedy that Europe has turned its back on this problem.”

The EU acknowledges it doesn’t have a plan for the humanitarian catastrophe. There is no appetite to launch an emergency operation, like Italy did in 2013-14 when migrants started drowning in big numbers.

“We do not have a silver bullet,” EU migration spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said Thursday, citing political and financial constraints. “The European Commission alone cannot do it all.”

The 28 EU nations have long argued about how to share the burden that migration places on the continent. Italy, Greece and tiny Malta are bearing the brunt of the influx. Germany and Sweden are accepting large numbers of asylum seekers.

Other countries are doing less. Many EU nations are mired in economic crisis, facing a growing anti-foreigner electorate at home and an increasing bent to look inward instead of out to the wider world.

The EU’s own institutions, so often the first target of scorn, are

In this picture taken on Tuesday, April 14, 2015 a woman waits to disembark from an Italian Navy vessel in the harbor of Reggio Calabria, southern Italy. The precise number of migrants who have perished in the Mediterranean sea as they flee poverty, war and other conflicts in Africa, the Middle East and Asia is unknown. Only the bodies that wash ashore or are found drowned in the sea or dead aboard, of thirst or exposure, by rescuers are counted.

hamstrung unless the member nations agree that forceful action should be taken.

That leaves migrants and asylum seekers - driven chiefly by poverty and conflict - on their own.

On Tuesday, survivors of a capsizing told the aid group Save the Children that some 400 of their shipmates were missing. On Thursday, the International Organization for Migrants said 41 more were feared drowned in another shipwreck, citing four survivors rescued by a helicopter after four days adrift at sea.

The EU’s top migration official, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said such events are “unfortunately the new norm and we will need to adjust our responses accordingly.”

According to the UN’s refugee agency, 219,000 refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean last year, and at least 3,500 died trying. The numbers crossing in the first two months of 2015 were already up by a third over the same span the previous year, according to the EU’s Frontex border agency.

Many migrants pay thousands of euros to be shoe-horned by smugglers onto old boats and rafts on the coast of conflict-torn Libya and pointed toward Europe. If they are rescued, the EU lets

VAT I C A N U N E X P E C T E D LY E N D S TA K E O V E R O F U S N U N G R O U P of Mary. “LCWR investigation by CDF is over!”

The Vatican takeover, combined with a separate Vatican investigation into the quality of life of U.S. nuns, had deeply wounded the U.S. sisters who oversee the lion’s share of the Catholic Church’s social programs, running schools, hospitals, homeless shelters and soup kitchens. The crackdown resulted in a remarkable outpouring of popular support for their work and fueled allegations of the church’s heavy-handed, misogynistic treatment of women.

In December, the Vatican’s quality of life investigation ended with sweeping praise for the sisters for their selfless work caring for the poor. Thursday’s conclusion of the doctrinal assessment signaled a similar positive conclusion.

Pope Francis, right, talks with a delegation of The Leadership Conference of Women Religious during an audience in the pontiff’s studio at the Vatican, Thursday, April 16, 2015.

The Vatican has announced the unexpected conclusion of a controversial overhaul of the main umbrella group of US nuns in a major shift in tone and treatment of American nuns under the social justice-minded Pope Francis.

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- The Vatican on Thursday unexpectedly ended its controversial takeover of the main umbrella group of U.S. nuns, signaling a major shift in tone and treatment of U.S. sisters under the social justice-minded Pope Francis.

The Vatican said it had accepted a final report on its overhaul of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and declared that the “implementation of the mandate has been accomplished.”

When the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith took over the LCWR in 2012, it accused the group of taking positions that undermined Catholic teaching on the priesthood and homosexuality while promoting “certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

It envisioned a five-year overhaul to fix a “grave” doctrinal crisis, fueled by concerns among U.S. conservatives that the group had strayed from church teaching by not focusing enough on issues like abortion and euthanasia. The Vatican appointed a bishop to oversee rewriting the statutes of the LCWR, which represents 80 percent of the 57,000 Roman Catholic nuns in the U.S., reviewing all its plans and programs - including approving speakers - and ensuring the organization properly followed Catholic prayer and ritual.

Christopher Bellitto, a church historian at Kean University in New Jersey, said the announcement Thursday was “a complete vindication” of the sisters’ group and American nuns in general.

“Anything coming out of the Vatican this morning is nothing other than a fig leaf because they can’t say `oops’ in Latin,” Bellitto said.

After presenting the final report to the congregation’s prefect, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, a delegation of LCWR officials met with Francis and discussed his “Joy of the Gospel” apostolic exhortation, which lays out much of his vision of a church that is merciful and looks out for the poorest. While insisting on a message of mercy over morals, Francis has also frequently dismissed legalistic and theological arguments that he says can impede the church’s evangelizing mission.

“Our conversation allowed us to personally thank Pope Francis for providing leadership and a vision that has captivated our hearts and emboldened us as in our own mission and service to the church,” the LCWR said in a statement. “We were also deeply heartened by Pope Francis’ expression of appreciation for the witness given by Catholic sisters through our lives and ministry and will bring that message back to our members.”

Today, other than the Italian, Greek and Maltese coast guards, only three aircraft and six ships from European nations are patrolling the Mediterranean.

The EU has limited its response to providing opportunities for migrants who want to come legally, including better protection for refugees, special permits for certain kinds of migrants and steps to thwart smugglers.

EU interior ministers agreed last month that Frontex should be beefed up. Yet nobody came forward with a firm offer to contribute.

The discussions continue - but they are slow. After a report that the European Parliament says will be ready by Christmas, the policy discussions will certainly still be going this time next year.

“We managed politically and on the ground to almost eradicate piracy off the Somali coast,” said Roberta Metsola, an EU lawmaker from Malta. “Can we not see what resources we have ... get to the Mediterranean and use those resources to save lives?”

CARDIOLOGIST TRIED TO HAVE RIVAL DOCTOR KILLED In this April 15, 2015, photo provided by the Nassau County Police Department in Mineola, N.Y., Dr. Anthony J. Moschetto is shown. Authorities said that the Long Island heart doctor had another doctor’s office torched, then hired people who turned out to be undercover officers in a failed attempt to have him hurt or killed.

MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) -- A Long Island cardiologist had the office of another doctor torched, then hired someone who turned out to be an undercover police officer in a failed attempt to have the doctor hurt or killed, authorities said.

Dr. Anthony J. Moschetto allegedly used drugs, guns and blank prescriptions as currency while trying to have the other doctor harmed amid a professional dispute, investigators said Wednesday. Moschetto first allegedly hired two men to set fire to the man’s office; it happened beneath a sprinkler and damage was minimal, prosecutors said.

“He was willing to pay $5,000 to have him beaten and put in the hospital for a couple of months and pay $20,000 to have him killed,” Nassau County Assistant District Attorney Anne Donnelly said of Moschetto’s intentions. “He wanted to put him out of business so he could get his business.”

Acting District Attorney Madeline Singas said “luckily for this victim,” Moschetto was stopped.

Investigators who went to Moschetto’s home in Sands Point on Long Island’s Gold Coast - one of the nation’s wealthiest areas - found a weapons cache in a secret room that was accessed through a motorized bookshelf, they said. The weapons, which included dozens of knives, guns and a hand grenade, were displayed at a news conference Wednesday. Possible charges for the stash have not yet been announced.

The investigation into Moschetto started with the purchase of Oxycodone pills, heroin and two fully loaded assault weapons. Prosecutors said Moschetto had paid the undercover police officer $500 to perform a hit before getting arrested.

He was caught on undercover video discussing the alleged plot.

Moschetto pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and other charges at his arraignment Wednesday. He left court after posting a $2 million bond and declined to comment. He’s due back in court on April 17.

His attorney, Randy Zelin, said the alleged victim was Moschetto’s former partner. He was identified in court as Martin Handler. Two orders of protection were issued - one for Handler and one for his wife - that bar Moschetto from contacting them, a prosecutor said. Handler did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Outside the courthouse, Zelin said his client would be “defending himself vigorously.” He declined to specify the nature of the dispute, but said it stemmed from what he described as a “business divorce” between Moschetto and Handler.

In a final joint report, the congregation and the LCWR said the group’s new statutes show its focus on Christ and being faithful to church teaching. It said an advisory committee would be created to ensure manuscripts in LCWR publications are doctrinally sound.

It said speakers at LCWR events must use the “ecclesial language of faith” in their remarks and said there was a revised process for selecting award winners.

Two other defendants are charged in the case, accused of their involvement in the office fire, which occurred before the undercover investigation began.

They, along with Moschetto, had been arrested Tuesday.

“Alleluia!” tweeted Sister Mary Ann Hinsdale, a theologian at Boston College and member of the Servants of the Immaculate Heart

The Drug Enforcement Administration also was involved in the investigation, which began in December.

“Dr. Moschetto is a hidden monster living in the North Shore area who has no respect for law and life,” said Nassau County Police Department Acting Commissioner Thomas Krumpter. “He had enough weapons to provide a small army means to wreak harm.”

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The Weekly News Digest, April 20, thru April 27, 2015

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C L I N T O N C H A R I T Y T O A L L O W 6 C O U N T R I E S T O D O N AT E , N O T O T H E R S

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In spite of criticism over accepting money from foreign governments, the Clinton Foundation has decided to continue to look abroad for millions of dollars while limiting donor nations to a select group of six. The change in policy comes as former board member Hillary Rodham Clinton undertakes her presidential campaign.

transparency without harming fundraising for critical programs.

Potential problems may exist among some of the six governments that will be allowed to continue providing direct donations to the foundation. For examples, the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, which has already given the foundation between $250,000 and $500,000, has pushed for the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.

The foundation’s reliance on funding from several Mideast governments that suppress dissent and women’s rights - concerns that the State Department focused on during her stint as secretary of state - sparked criticism and gave the Republican Party a new offensive against the leading Democrat. Clinton resigned from the foundation’s board last week.

The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation’s board said Wednesday night that future donations will only be allowed from the governments of Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom - all nations that previously supported the charity’s health, poverty and climate change programs. Longtime U.S. allies, the six maintain relatively uncontroversial ties to the U.S. While direct contributions from other governments would be halted, those nations could continue participating in the Clinton Global Initiative, a subsidiary program that encourages donors to match contributions from others to tackle international problems without direct donations to the charity. However, the foundation will stop holding CGI meetings abroad - a final session is scheduled for Morocco in May - and most foreign governments will no longer be allowed to sponsor programs.

An Associated Press analysis of Clinton Foundation donations between 2001 and 2015 showed governments and agencies from 16 nations previously gave direct grants of between $55 million and $130 million. In addition to the six nations that will be allowed to continue donating, the others were Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Kuwait, Italy, Brunei, Taiwan and the Dominican Republic.

The foundation also will begin disclosing its donors every quarter instead of annually - an answer to long-standing criticism that the foundation’s once-a-year lists made it difficult to view shifts and trends in the charity’s funding. Former President Bill Clinton and other foundation officials have long defended the charity’s transparency, but the new move signaled sensitivity to those concerns, particularly as his wife begins her race for the White House.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign referred questions about the board’s action

The project is a domestic flashpoint in the climate change debate as well as a contentious issue regarding its impact on jobs and oil supplies. President Barack Obama has yet to decide whether to approve the pipeline, which would span several U.S. states, but he has already vetoed one bill aimed at swiftly approving the plan.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton meets with local residents at the Jones St. Java House in LeClaire, Iowa. The board of the Clinton Foundation says it will continue accepting donations from foreign governments but only six nations, a move aimed at insulating presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton from controversies over the charity’s reliance on millions of dollars from abroad.

to the foundation. Last month, while she was still a board member, Clinton defended the family charity to questions about its reliance on donations from foreign governments, saying the foundation had “hundreds of thousands of donors.”

Foundation spokesman Craig Minassian said that under the new disclosure policy, “the Clinton Foundation is reinforcing its commitment to accountability while protecting programs that are improving the lives of millions of people around the world.” But he also insisted that the old annual disclosure policy went “above and beyond what’s required by voluntarily disclosing our more than 300,000 donors on our website for anyone to see.”

Hillary Clinton had previously agreed with the Obama administration to limit new foreign donations to the foundation while she served as secretary of state, but at least six nations that previously contributed still donated to the charity during her four-year stint. In one case, the foundation failed to notify the State Department about a donation from the government of Algeria.

Clinton Foundation officials had hinted in recent weeks that the organization was considering new limits on foreign government donations after several media accounts this year raised questions about the foundation’s reliance on those practices. The foundation’s board began discussions over the past two days about altering some of the charity’s procedures in an effort that officials said was aimed at improving

THOUSANDS FLEE AS IS GROUP A D VA N C E S O N I R A Q ’ S R A M A D I U.S.-led coalition airstrikes targeted the IS group in Sjariyah, Albu-Ghanim and Soufiya, the three villages the extremists captured Wednesday, the officials added. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to talk to the media.

Anbar’s Deputy Gov. Faleh al-Issawi described the situation in Ramadi as “catastrophic” and urged the central government to send reinforcements.

“We urge the Baghdad government to supply us immediately with troops and weapons in order to help us prevent the city from falling into the hands of the IS group,” he told the Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Iraqi security forces and tribal fighters stand guard in central Ramadi, 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, April 16, 2015. Clashes between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants pressing their offensive for Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province, has forced more than 2,000 families to flee from their homes in the area, an Iraqi official said Thursday. The Sunni militants’ push on Ramadi, launched Wednesday when the Islamic State group captured three villages on the city’s eastern outskirts, has become the most significant threat so far to the provincial capital of Anbar.

BAGHDAD (AP) -- More than 2,000 families have fled from the Iraqi city of Ramadi, an official said Thursday, as the Islamic State group advanced on the provincial capital of the western Anbar province, clashing with Iraqi troops.

The extremist group, which has controlled the nearby city of Fallujah for more than a year, captured three villages on Ramadi’s eastern outskirts on Wednesday. The advance is widely seen as a counteroffensive after the IS group lost the city of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, earlier this month.

Hundreds of U.S. troops are training Iraqi forces at a military base west of Ramadi, but a U.S. military official said the fighting had no impact on the U.S. soldiers there, and that there were no plans to withdraw them.

Sattar Nowruz, from the Ministry of Migration and Displaced, said those fleeing Ramadi have settled in southern and western Baghdad suburbs.

Tents, food and other aid are being sent to them, he said. The ministry is also assessing the situation with the provincial government in order “to provide the displaced people, who are undergoing difficult conditions, with better services and help,” Nowruz said.

Sporadic clashes were still underway Thursday, according to security officials in Ramadi. Government forces control the city center, while the IS group has had a presence in the suburbs and outskirts for months. They described Ramadi as a ghost town, with empty streets and closed shops.

Al-Bayan, the Islamic State group’s English-language radio station, claimed the fighters were in complete control of at least six areas and most of a seventh to the east of Ramadi since Wednesday, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S. group that monitors militant websites.

American troops fought some of their bloodiest battles in Anbar during the eight-year U.S. intervention, when Fallujah and Ramadi were strongholds of al-Qaida in Iraq, a precursor to the IS group.

Fallujah was the first Iraqi city to fall to the IS group, in January 2014.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who was visiting Washington on Wednesday, made no mention of the events in Ramadi. Instead he spoke optimistically about recruiting Sunni tribal fighters to battle the extremists, saying about 5,000 such fighters in Anbar had signed up and received light weapons.

The IS-run Al-Bayan station also reported that an attempt by Iraqi troops to advance on the Beiji oil refinery in Salahuddin province, about 250 kilometers (115 miles) north of Baghdad, was pushed back and that fighters “positioned themselves in multiple parts of the refinery after taking control of most of it,” according to SITE. Iraqi officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the fighting around Beiji. On Monday, Oil Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi said that Iraqi forces, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, had repelled an IS attack on Beiji over the weekend.

Meanwhile, a senior U.S. military official told The Associated Press that there were no plans to evacuate U.S. troops from the Ain alAsad air base, about 110 kilometers (68 miles) west of Ramadi - and stressed that the current fighting around Ramadi had no impact on the base. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Since January, hundreds of U.S. forces have been training Iraqi troops at the base. An attack on the base by a suicide bomber in February was repelled.

Foundation officials said the charity is not involved in the Keystone XL issue and has a “strong program” aimed at curbing reducing carbon emissions.

COURT SKEPTICAL OF CHALLENGE TO O B A M A’ S C L I M AT E C H A N G E P L A N Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi, the main suspect of the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008, raises his fist after his court appearance in Islamabad, Pakistan. A Pakistani lawyer says authorities have released Lakhvi from prison near Islamabad on Friday, April 10, 2015.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two out of three judges on a federal appeals court panel are expressing doubts about a legal challenge to the Obama administration’s far-reaching plan to address climate change.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard arguments Thursday in two cases challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to cut heat-trapping pollution from the nation’s coal-fired power plants.

Judges Thomas Griffith and Brett Kavanaugh seemed to agree with lawyers defending the EPA that the lawsuits are premature because the agency has not yet made the rule final.

The lawsuits from a coalition of 15 states and a coal mining company are part of a growing political attack from opponents who say the rule will kill jobs, cripple demand for coal and drive up electricity prices.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

The cornerstone of President Barack Obama’s plan to address climate change is still months away from being finished, but it’s already facing a high-stakes legal challenge from critics who want to halt the process in its tracks.

A federal appeals court hears arguments Thursday in two cases challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s far-reaching proposal to cut Earth-warming pollution from the nation’s coal-fired power plants.

The lawsuits - one from a coalition of 15 states and another brought by Ohio-based Murray Energy Corp., the nation’s largest privately held coal mining company - are part of a growing political attack from opponents who say the move is illegal and will kill jobs, cripple demand for coal and drive up electricity prices.

At issue is whether the EPA has legal authority for its plan under the Clean Air Act. But the agency and environmental advocacy groups have urged the court to throw the cases out as premature, saying legal challenges must wait until the EPA issues a final rule until this summer.

Opponents concede it’s not typical for a court to provide relief before a rule is final, but argue that states and the coal industry already face the prospect of shutting down coal plants and spending other resources in anticipation of the rule.

All three judges on the panel hearing the case were appointed by Republican presidents.

The EPA rule proposed last year requires states to cut carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2030, giving customized targets to each state and leaving it up to them to draw up plans to meet the targets.

But a backlash has been building. Last month, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, sent a letter urging the governors of all 50 states to defy the EPA by refusing to submit the compliance plans.

West Virginia and other states argue that the plan is illegal because coalfired power plants already are regulated under a separate section of the Clean Air Act. They say the law prohibits “double regulation.”

The legal debate focuses on dueling provisions added by the House and Senate to the Clean Air Act in 1990. The EPA says it wins under the Senate language, but opponents argue the House version should prevail.

Dont Text and Drive

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The Weekly News Digest, April 20, thru April 27, 2015

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A P P L E D I G S I N O N G R E E N W I T H CHINA SOLAR, US FOREST PROJECTS

PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) -- In a quest to be more green, Apple says it is investing in Chinese solar power and preserving forests that make environmentally friendly paper.

how to do it,” said Jackson, who was U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator during President Barack Obama’s first term.

The initiatives come as the tech giant this year met a self-imposed goal of powering all its U.S. operations with renewable energy to reduce carbon emissions - initiatives that have won high marks from environmental groups.

Apple and other tech companies have drawn criticism in the past for use of toxics in manufacturing and data centers powered by electricity from coal. But Apple’s moves away from those practices in recent years have won accolades from groups like Greenpeace, which issued a statement praising the Chinese project Thursday.

On Thursday, Apple announced a new focus on using paper from trees harvested under environmentally sound conditions. It’s also promising to use more renewable power overseas, where Apple relies heavily on contract manufacturers - and where a top executive acknowledged the company can do more.

“It’s important to us to tackle climate change everywhere we are,” Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president for environmental initiatives, told The Associated Press. “When you talk about China, you’re talking about manufacturing partners. We’re looking to bring the same innovation there. This is the start.”

The new solar project in China has a capacity of 40 megawatts, which is smaller than some projects Apple has announced in the United States. By comparison, Apple is spending $850 million for rights to nearly half the output of a 280-megawatt solar facility planned for construction south of Apple’s Cupertino, California, headquarters. That project will produce enough energy to power all of Apple’s California offices, a computer center and 52 retail stores.

Still, the Chinese project will produce more than the amount of

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson speaks at the 2012 Tribal Nations Conference at the Interior Department in Washington. Apple is expanding its environmental efforts by investing in a new Chinese solar power project and preserving 36,000 acres of “sustainable” timberland in Maine and North Carolina. “It’s important to us to tackle climate change everywhere we are,”said Jackson, Apple’s vice president for environmental initiatives.

“When you talk about China, you’re talking about manufacturing partners. We’re looking to bring the same innovation there. This is the start.”

energy consumed by Apple’s 19 corporate offices and 21 retail stores in China and Hong Kong, Jackson said. She added that Apple uses renewable energy for 87 percent of the power at its facilities worldwide.

That figure, however, doesn’t include substantial power consumption by contract manufacturers. With the new project in China, Apple is looking to improve its own operations first.

“Before we go somewhere else and start asking and eventually requiring clean energy, you want to make sure you show folks

U S D A T O P R O P O S E S TA N D A R D S F O R ORGANIC SEAFOOD RAISED IN US government’s National Organic Standards Board over the last decade.

Some environmental groups criticize the recommendations for suggesting that at first a quarter of the fish feed could be from sustainably wild-caught - but not organic - fish. A fish can’t be organic, they argue, if it doesn’t eat 100 percent organic feed.

Wild fish would not be eligible for the organic label - that would be too difficult to monitor.

The environmental groups also are concerned that fish in ocean pens would be able to escape and contaminate their surroundings. They also worry about ocean contaminants.

EU certified organic farm-raised shrimp are for sale on at the Wegmans, Friday, April 10, 2015 in Fairfax, Va. Organic fish is certified in the EU and Canada because the US doesn’t have any standard.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- After more than a decade of delays, the government is moving toward allowing the sale of U.S.-raised organic fish and shellfish. But don’t expect it in the grocery store anytime soon.

The Agriculture Department says it will propose standards for the farmed organic fish this year. That means the seafood could be available in as few as two years - but only if USDA moves quickly to complete the rules and seafood companies decide to embrace them.

Organic seafood would be welcome news for the increasing number of organic shoppers - and for retailers that have profited from their higher prices. It could also help the U.S. farmed fish industry find a premium as it struggles to compete against cheaper imports.

Among the seafood that is commonly raised in the United States and would be covered: salmon, tilapia, catfish, shrimp and mollusks such as mussels, oysters and clams.

“What we’re saying is this isn’t organic,” says Lisa Bunin of the Center for Food Safety.

The recommendations suggest several safeguards: Oceanfarmed fish should be strains of local species, and no net pens could be placed on migratory routes. Producers would have to closely monitor water quality and the impact on the area ecosystem.

For producers, a main concern would be the availability of organic feed.

Breeding organic fish to feed the organic fish could be prohibitively expensive, and organic grains such as soybeans and canola that can make up fish feed also are also costly. Some fish feed includes poultry or other land animal byproducts, but that would likely be prohibited, as would most synthetic ingredients.

Neil Sims, a longtime fish farmer based in Hawaii, says that if the rules have such strict limitations on feed, it could be unworkable for many companies.

“You can’t magically wave a wand and expect an organic supply chain to appear,” he says.

The United States is “trying to play catch-up on organic aquaculture,” says Miles McEvoy, who heads up USDA’s organic program. The European Union and Canada, along with other countries, have been exporting their own organic products to the United States.

Even if some companies do take steps to grow organic fish, the process could potentially stretch beyond two years. The National Organic Standards Board, which advises USDA’s National Organic Program, is still reviewing some vaccines, vitamins and other substances considered essential to aquaculture.

Retailer Wegmans already is selling organic seafood imported from Norway and elsewhere. Organic shoppers “skew to higher income and education which makes them extremely desirable,” says Dave Wagner, the company’s vice president of seafood merchandising.

Linda ODierno of the National Aquaculture Association says that despite some of the challenges, the industry is hoping that organics could help consumers feel more confident in U.S. product that is often already more expensive than seafood produced cheaply abroad.

Other retailers, such as Whole Foods, say they will wait for the U.S. rules before they sell seafood labeled organic.

“It could be good for industry and good for consumers,” she said.

Jackson declined to say how much Apple is investing in the Chinese project, which is being built in partnership with U.S. energy company SunPower and four Chinese firms. Although China is known for heavy reliance on coal, its government has set aggressive goals for solar, wind and hydroelectric power.

Meanwhile, Apple pledged an unspecified amount of money for a Virginia-based nonprofit, the Conservation Fund, to purchase two large tracts of timberland on the East Coast. The Conservation Fund will resell the land - 36,000 acres of timberland in Maine and North Carolina - to commercial interests under legally binding terms that require future owners to preserve the forest and follow environmentally sound principles for cutting and replanting trees.

Larry Selzer, the group’s chief executive, said that will protect the forest while keeping it in the hands of private owners who pay taxes and create jobs. Selzer said he’ll use proceeds from reselling the land to buy and protect additional tracts.

Apple won’t necessarily buy paper made from trees on that land, but Jackson said the investment will increase the supply of sustainable wood fiber. She said the two tracts would produce about half the non-recycled wood fiber used in Apple’s product packaging last year.

That would put Apple halfway toward its goal of obtaining all its non-recycled paper products from sustainable timber. Apple wouldn’t say how much paper it uses, but it says two-thirds of its paper packaging comes from recycled material. In the last three months of 2014, Apple sold more than 100 million iPhones and other gadgets, most in cardboard boxes.

ANGRY KIN UNMOVED

BY S. KOREAN LEADER’S VOW TO SALVAGE FERRY SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- With public anger and grief raw one year after a ferry sinking killed 304 people, South Korea’s president promised on Thursday to raise the submerged vessel, even as relatives of the victims snubbed her appearance at a mourning ceremony.

Black-clad relatives and their supporters remembered the dead, most of whom were high school students, on the anniversary of the sinking of the Sewol in one of the country’s worst maritime disasters.

In the evening, tens of thousands of mourners including family members and students joined a rally in downtown Seoul, where relatives have protested for months. The group tried to march to a memorial hall but was blocked by large numbers of police, who used tear gas.

Earlier in the day, relatives blocked the prime minister from attending a mourning event. They canceled another ceremony because of what they called government indifference to their plight.

There’s frustration among South Koreans who see their government as having failed to make meaningful improvements to safety standards and hold high-level officials accountable for a disaster blamed in part on incompetence and corruption.

Hours before a trip abroad, President Park Geun-hye visited a small port near the site of the sinking to offer condolences to bereaved relatives. Most, however, refused to meet her to protest the government’s response.

Park gave a speech anyway, announcing plans to salvage the ferry - a demand of the relatives. She said only that the operation would happen “as soon as possible.”

Flags at public buildings were lowered to half-staff and a minute of silence was observed in Ansan, the city that lost nearly an entire class of students on a doomed field trip to a southern resort island. A private ceremony was planned at Danwon High School in the evening.

Relatives canceled a memorial service in Ansan that thousands were planning to attend. They expressed anger over Park not visiting the site and not giving a firm commitment for a deeper investigation into what they say is government responsibility for the sinking and botched rescue.

It’s still unclear if U.S. standards can be successful. Many in the farmed fish industry say they expect that the requirements for fish feed may be so strict as to be financially prohibitive.

The relatives also claimed that Park should have delivered a more detailed plan for salvaging the ship in her speech at the port, according to Pil Kyu Hwang, a lawyer representing the families.

“The challenge is, will consumers will be willing to pay for it?” says Sebastian Belle, head of the Maine Aquaculture Association, who has advised the USDA on the organic rules. “The markets will decide that.”

The estimated cost of raising the ferry is between $91 million and $137 million, and it could take as long as 1 1/2 years.

In turn, some consumer and environmental groups have said they are concerned the standards won’t be strict enough.

The discussions have been marked by tensions over what organic fish should eat and whether some of them can be raised in ocean cages called net pens. USDA’s McEvoy says the new rules will be based on a series of recommendations from the

Relatives in Ansan wept and touched pictures of their lost loved ones as they recalled helplessly watching on television as the ferry slowly sank into the sea.

POTECTING SPEICIES worldwildlife.org

Scores at the port near the sunken ship walked to a lighthouse where hundreds of yellow ribbons were tied to handrails in memory of the victims.

Earlier Thursday, lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a resolution urging the government to salvage the ferry.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Weekly News Digest, April 20, thru April 27, 2015

9

SECRECY SHROUDS DECADE-OLD O I L S P I L L I N G U L F O F M E X I C O From April 2008 through August 2014, the average sheen size reported to the Coast Guard was 2 square miles with an average volume of 11 gallons of oil, according to AP’s analysis. Since then, the daily average sheen size ballooned to 8 square miles with an average volume of 91 gallons.

OVER THE GULF OF MEXICO (AP) -- A blanket of fog lifts, exposing a band of rainbow sheen that stretches for miles off the coast of Louisiana. From the vantage point of an airplane, it’s easy to see gas bubbles in the slick that mark the spot where an oil platform toppled during a 2004 hurricane, triggering what might be the longest-running commercial oil spill ever to pollute the Gulf of Mexico.

When confronted by AP with evidence of the spike, the Coast Guard attributed it to an improved method for estimating the slicks from the air - with the clear implication that far more oil had been spilling for years than had been reported.

Yet more than a decade after crude started leaking at the site formerly operated by Taylor Energy Company, few people even know of its existence. The company has downplayed the leak’s extent and environmental impact, likening it to scores of minor spills and natural seeps the Gulf routinely absorbs.

An Associated Press investigation has revealed evidence that the spill is far worse than what Taylor - or the government - have publicly reported during their secretive, and costly, effort to halt the leak. Presented with AP’s findings, that the sheen recently averaged about 91 gallons of oil per day across eight square miles, the Coast Guard provided a new leak estimate that is about 20 times greater than one recently touted by the company.

Outside experts say the spill could be even worse - possibly one of the largest ever in the Gulf.

Taylor’s oil was befouling the Gulf for years in obscurity before BP’s massive spill in mile-deep water outraged the nation in 2010. Even industry experts haven’t heard of Taylor’s slow-motion spill, which has been leaking like a steady trickle from a faucet, compared to the fire hose that was BP’s gusher.

Taylor, a company renowned in Louisiana for the philanthropy of its deceased founder, has kept documents secret that would shed light on what it has done to stop the leak and eliminate the persistent sheen.

The Coast Guard said in 2008 the leak posed a “significant threat” to the environment, though there is no evidence oil from the site has reached shore. Ian MacDonald, a Florida State University biological oceanography professor and expert witness in a lawsuit against Taylor, said the sheen “presents a substantial threat to the environment” and is capable of harming birds, fish and other marine life.

Using satellite images and pollution reports, the watchdog group SkyTruth estimates between 300,000 and 1.4 million gallons of oil has spilled from the site since 2004, with an annual average daily leak rate between 37 and 900 gallons.

If SkyTruth’s high-end estimate of 1.4 million gallons is accurate, Taylor’s spill would be about 1 percent the size of BP’s, which a judge ruled amounted to 134 million gallons. That would still make the Taylor spill the 8th largest in the Gulf since 1970, according to a list compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

an oil sheen drifting from the site of the former Taylor Energy oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Louisiana. An Associated Press investigation has revealed evidence that the spill is far worse than what the Taylor Energy Company _ or the government _ has publicly reported. Presented with AP’s findings, the Coast Guard provided a new leak estimate that is about 20 times greater than one recently touted by the company.

Only the broad outlines of the company’s efforts are publicly known.

A contractor designed a device to capture and dispose of oil and gas flowing from the seabed where its wells are buried.

Another contractor drilled new wells to intercept and plug nine wells deemed capable of leaking oil.

A year ago, federal officials convened a workshop on the leak. Months later, the company presented regulators its proposal for a final resolution at the site. That plan remains confidential, but Taylor Energy President William Pecue has said experts and government officials agree that the “best course of action ... is to not take any affirmative action” due to the possible risks of additional drilling.

Taylor had to share confidential records with the Waterkeeper Alliance, a New York City-based environmental group that sued the company in 2012 over its secrecy. But the company has aggressively worked to keep them from the public, stamping thousands of pages of documents as confidential and heavily redacting its president’s deposition.

A report related to the March 2014 workshop is under seal, with the company arguing in a court filing that releasing it would undermine the government’s decision-making process. And a court order prohibits the Waterkeeper Alliance from disseminating any of the confidential records.

During his deposition for the lawsuit, Pecue said the company developed innovations of “huge value” to another company in a similar situation.

“The Taylor leak is just a great example of what I call a dirty little secret in plain sight,” said SkyTruth President John Amos.

“Much of what we spent was because there was no pre-existing way to address this type of event in the history of our industry,” he said.

Taylor has spent tens of millions of dollars to contain and stop its leak, but it says nothing can be done to completely halt the chronic slicks.

Long before Taylor’s leak, the industry learned of the risks of drilling in the Gulf’s mudslide-prone areas. In 1969, Hurricane Camille caused a mudslide that destroyed a platform and damaged another.

The New Orleans based company presented federal regulators last year with a proposed “final resolution” at the site, but the details remain under wraps. For years, the government has allowed the company to shield other spill-related information from public scrutiny - all in the name of protecting trade secrets.

Taylor’s platform had been installed in 1984 by Sohio Petroleum, which started drilling wells before the company was acquired by BP. Taylor purchased the platform from BP in 1994 and drilled additional wells.

Industry experts and environmental advocates are baffled by Taylor’s inability to stop the leak and its demands for confidentiality.

“It’s not normal to have a spill like this,” said Ken Arnold, an industry consultant and former engineering manager for Shell Oil Company.

“The whole thing surprises me. Normally, we fix things much more quickly than this.”

Five years ago, it took 87 days for BP to cap its blown-out Gulf well and halt the worst offshore oil spill in the nation’s history. The disaster, which killed 11 rig workers, exposed weaknesses in the industry’s safety culture and gaps in its spill response capabilities.

Taylor’s leak provided earlier evidence of how difficult it can be for the industry to prevent or stop a spill in an unforgiving environment. But the company has balked at sharing information that could help other offshore operators prepare for a similar incident, saying it’s a valuable asset.

Whether it can profit from any industry innovations is debatable. The company sold all its offshore leases and oil and gas interests in 2008, four years after founder Patrick Taylor died.

Down to just one full-time employee, Taylor Energy exists only to continue fighting a spill that has no end in sight.

--LEARNING CURVE Hurricane Ivan whipped into the Gulf of Mexico in 2004, churning up waves that triggered an underwater mudslide and toppled Taylor’s platform. The rig stood roughly 10 miles off Louisiana’s coast in approximately 475 feet of water, and buried its cluster of 28 wells under mounds of sediment. Taylor tried to remove the unstable sediment covering the damaged wells, but determined it was too dangerous for divers.

Without access to the buried wells, traditional “plug and abandon” efforts wouldn’t work.

In 2005, hurricanes Katrina and Rita disrupted the company’s response efforts for several months. In 2007, slick sightings became more frequent near the wreckage. In 2008, the Coast Guard, concerned about the environmental threat of the leak, ordered additional work, including daily monitoring flights over the site.

Just as BP had to improvise a method for capping its well in mile-deep water, Taylor says it formulated an “unprecedented plan” for containing the leak and sealing its buried wells.

Pecue, the company’s last remaining full-time employee, said Taylor didn’t do anything to assess the risk of mudslides at its platform besides verifying that the previous leaseholder’s permits and designs met regulatory requirements.

Soon after Taylor’s platform toppled, a company contractor hired Louisiana State University professor Harry Roberts to perform a geological analysis of the site. Roberts said it had appeared to have been “reasonably stable” before Ivan struck.

“But it turned out not to be,” he added. “It is a learning curve. Maybe this is a point on the learning curve that other companies can learn from.”

--SUDDEN SPIKE Even people whose job it is to know about such leaks didn’t know about this one. Plaquemines Parish coastal restoration director P.J. Hahn only found out about it in December 2012 when he spotted one of Taylor’s slicks during a flight to BP’s Deepwater Horizon site. Hahn was stunned when a Coast Guard official informed him oil had been leaking there for years.

“That’s right off of our coast. It’s really close,” said Hahn, who started in the job in 2007 and left the parish government last year. “I would have thought somebody would have shared it with us.”

From his home office in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, Sky Truth’s Amos was tracking BP’s oil with satellites when he too was shocked to discover Taylor’s slicks.

He began tracking the Taylor spill, eventually estimating its size at between 300,000 and 1.4 million gallons.

The government, based on company-generated pollution reports, has given much smaller leak estimates for Taylor, from an average of 22 gallons per day in 2008 down to an average of 12 gallons per day over roughly the next five years. In a recent court filing, Taylor said experts concluded in March 2014 that the sheens contained an average volume of less than 4 gallons per day.

But AP’s review of more than 2,300 pollution reports since 2008 found they didn’t match official accounts of a diminishing leak. In fact, the reports show a dramatic spike in sheen sizes and oil volumes since Sept. 1, 2014. That came just after federal regulators held a workshop to improve the accuracy of Taylor’s slick estimates and started sending government observers on the contractor’s daily flights over the site.

After initially providing AP with an outdated, lower estimate, the Coast Guard then disclosed a new estimate - that approximately 16,000 gallons of oil have been spotted in slicks over the past seven months.

That is roughly six times higher than its 2013 estimate, of about 4,500 gallons a year, and 20 times higher than the figure cited by Taylor in a Feb. 19 court filing.

The company hasn’t disclosed the much larger leak estimate in any publicly accessible court filings.

In many reports over the years, there are glaring inconsistencies between the estimated size of the sheen and the corresponding volume calculation. One example: The longest sheen reported was 1,170 square miles in October 2009, but the report estimated the slick contained only 1.58 gallons of oil. Even if this slick covered just 1 percent of the stated area, a simple calculation shows it would be stretched to seven billionths of an inch thick - far too thin for the eye to see. Hundreds of other reports are similarly questionable.

While Taylor insists it has acted “responsibly” throughout its spill response, the pattern of dubious pollution reports makes it difficult to assess the company’s reports of progress in controlling the leak.

The response to Taylor’s leak also reinforces how the government, lacking the industry’s expertise and resources, often must rely on companies and their contractors to assess and contain offshore spills. A presidential commission that investigated BP’s spill identified that as a weakness.

A Taylor spokesman declined to comment on AP’s findings, but the company’s lawyers have dismissed the Waterkeeper Alliance’s lawsuit as a “sham” that shouldn’t tarnish Patrick Taylor’s legacy. Taylor, who died less than two months after Hurricane Ivan, is renowned in Louisiana for championing a program that has provided free state-paid college tuition to thousands of students. His family foundation, led by his widow, still donates millions of dollars annually to charity.

The company says oil released from the site now comes from the sediment around the wells, not the wells themselves; the Coast Guard statement says the source of the slicks is unknown.

Taking into account the reported change in estimation methods, AP’s analysis doesn’t show any statistically valid drop in sheen sizes or oil amounts over time. Sky Truth’s Amos said the slick sizes should be steadily shrinking if the wells really are sealed and the recent sheens are residual oil oozing from the sediment.

“The persistent size of the oil slicks we’re seeing just don’t jibe with those low leak-rate estimates we’ve seen from those officials,” he said.

--A PERFECT LAB Amos isn’t the only skeptic. MacDonald, the Florida State University professor who is an expert witness for the Waterkeeper Alliance, leads a team of researchers tracking the sheen with satellite imagery, aerial photography and samples from the water.

MacDonald didn’t respond to an interview request. But in a court filing he said he suspects the company has used outdated mathematical formulas. His “conservative” estimate is that Taylor’s reports lowball the amount of oil leaking by, on average, “a factor of 100 or more.”

Gaps and complex variables in the data make it impossible to pinpoint how much oil has actually spilled. Doug Helton, operations coordinator for NOAA’s Emergency Response Division, said estimating the volume of slicks is hindered by the difficulty of determining the thickness of the oil.

“It’s hard to do that from satellites. It’s hard to do that from flying by in an aircraft,” Helton said.

Oil slicks from both natural and man-made sources are common in the Gulf of Mexico. Every year, millions of gallons of crude seep naturally from cracks in the seabed. Massive spills like BP’s are rare, but offshore accidents often pollute the Gulf with smaller quantities of oil.

The Interior Department also says small leaks have been detected from abandoned wells that may have been unsuccessfully sealed by the companies that drilled them. A 2010 AP investigation revealed federal regulators weren’t routinely inspecting more than 27,000 abandoned wells in the Gulf.

The persistent and predictable nature of the Taylor’s slicks has given MacDonald and fellow Florida State researcher Oscar Garcia-Pineda a perfect laboratory for their work.

“Since it’s there, I guess we have to take advantage of it,” said Garcia-Pineda, who is studying oil emulsions on satellite images.

Garcia-Pineda has visited the site several times since August 2011, by boat and plane. Fumes sickened him and another researcher during a boat trip to the site, even though they were wearing respirators.

Last month, Garcia-Pineda flew over the site to shoot photographs and video of the sheen shortly after a satellite captured images of the slick.

Pointing his camera out the passenger window of a four-seat Cessna, Garcia-Pineda marveled at the slick stretching for several miles.

“It’s just amazing how much oil is there,” he said.

10

The Weekly News Digest, April 20, thru April 27, 2015

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O B A M A S I G N S O V E R H A U L O F H O W M E D I C A R E PAY S D O C T O R S WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ending years of last-minute fixes, President Barack Obama on Thursday signed legislation permanently changing how Medicare pays doctors, a rare bipartisan achievement

by Democrats and Republicans.

Congressional leaders warned lawmakers to act quickly to prevent those cuts from taking effect. The Centers process about 4 million claims daily - enough to potentially trigger a flood of complaints from doctors and Medicare’s elderly beneficiaries that legislators wanted to avoid.

The bill overhauls a 1997 law that aimed to slow Medicare’s growth by limiting reimbursements to doctors. Instead, doctors threatened to leave the Medicare program, and that forced Congress repeatedly to block those reductions.

Obama signed the legislation Thursday in front of reporters and photographers, sitting alone and coatless in balmy spring weather on the patio of the White House Rose Garden. The Senate passed the bill two days ago; the House approved it in March.

Obama praised Republican House Speaker John Boehner and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi for negotiating the legislation.

He said the new law helps Medicare by giving assurance to doctors about their payments.

“It also improves it because it starts encouraging payments based on quality, not the number of tests that are provided or the number of procedures that are applied but whether or not people actually start feeling better,” Obama said. “It encourages us to continue to make the system better without denying service.”

The bill blocked a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments that was due to take effect this month. It also revamps how physicians will be paid in the future, by providing financial incentives for physicians to bill Medicare patients for their overall care, not individual office visits.

Noting the unusual bipartisan nature of the bill, Obama said, “I hope this becomes a habit.”

In Congress, Boehner praised Pelosi for “her indispensable leadership in helping tackle these challenging issues.”

In a written statement to health care providers, the agency said only “a small volume of claims” are being processed at the lower levels.

Those payments will later be reprocessed so providers receive their full fees, the agency said.

President Barack signs the bill H.R. 2 Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, Thursday, April 16, 2015, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington.

The president signed legislation permanently changing how Medicare pays doctors, a rare bipartisan achievement by Democrats and Republicans. The bill overhauls a 1997 law that aimed to slow Medicare’s growth by limiting reimbursements to doctors. Instead, doctors threatened to leave the Medicare program, and that forced Congress repeatedly to block those reductions.

Obama said he planned to hold a reception for lawmakers next week to salute them for their work. He said he wanted to sing the bill promptly to avoid reduced reimbursements to doctors.

As the measure neared passage, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said that without action, it would start making payments at the lower rates on Wednesday.

But the agency said Thursday it was already making most payments at the new full rates, even ahead of the president’s signature.

That’s a different scenario than federal officials and lawmakers described earlier this week, when Senate and House leaders were fending off 11th-hour objections and shepherding the legislation to final congressional approval.

Tehran and six world powers earlier this month.

The president said Iran should be rewarded for showing “a great degree of flexibility and a desire to reach compromise” in the talks. He added the S-300 is a defensive weapon that shouldn’t pose any threat to Israel, and may in fact serve as “a deterrent factor in connection with the situation in Yemen.”

Putin said that Russia would continue to cooperate with its international partners on negotiating a definitive nuclear deal with Iran. He argued that the international sanctions still in place don’t ban the delivery of the S-300, which Russia had halted voluntarily.

He argued that Russia remains open for overcoming the current tensions with the West, but warned Washington that it should stop treating Moscow as an inferior partner if it wants to normalize ties.

“The main condition is to have respect for Russia and its interests,” he said, adding that the United States “doesn’t need allies, they need vassals.”

MOSCOW (AP) -- President Vladimir Putin sternly urged the West to respect Russia’s interests in global affairs and defended his move to sanction the delivery of a long-range air defense missile system to Iran during a marathon TV call-in show with the nation Thursday.

Putin scathingly criticized Washington for refusing to see Moscow as an equal partner and warned that Russia-West ties, in shambles over the Ukrainian crisis, could only be normalized when the U.S. and its allies show readiness for compromise.

He also described the killing of top Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov as “tragic and shameful” and commended police for quickly tracking down the perpetrators, but said he wasn’t certain if Russian law-enforcement agencies would be able to track down those who organized it.

The president focused heavily on economic issues during the four-hour show, a slickly produced annual affair intended to burnish his image.

He received more than 3 million questions before and during the carefully orchestrated show, which involved live feeds from Russia’s regions as well as a studio audience.

People asking about global crises alternated with callers seeking support for industries and agriculture, subsidies for expensive medical treatment, and even advice on personal issues. One group of women asked how to present a dog to a friend with a reluctant husband, and Putin suggested that the friend pretend to drop the request to soften his heart.

On more weighty matters, the president pointed at the ruble’s recent recovery as a sign that the nation had successfully gone through the worst part of economic upheavals caused by a sharp plunge in global oil prices and Western sanctions against Russia over the Ukrainian crisis.

Putin, whose approval ratings top 80 percent despite the recession, said the country can overcome any challenges if it remains united.

“If we preserve a stable situation in domestic politics, preserve the current consolidation of society, we shouldn’t fear any threats,” he said.

Official estimates are that Russia’s economy will shrink by 3 to 5 percent this year in the sharpest decline since 2009, but Putin said the slump would likely be less significant.

Turning to foreign policy issues, Putin said his decision to lift a 2010 Russian ban on the delivery of the powerful S-300 air defense missile system to Iran followed a tentative deal on ending the Iranian nuclear standoff reached by

Russian President Vladimir Putin listens for a question during a nationally televised question-and-answer session in Moscow, Thursday, April 16, 2015. Speaking Thursday in a televised call-in show with the nation, Putin said the nation’s economic performance has remained strong, despite Western sanctions slapped on Russia over the Ukrainian crisis and a slump in global oil prices.

“It was achieved by working together to find common ground,” Boehner said Thursday at a ceremonial appearance with Pelosi, who’s more typically his legislative antagonist.

PUTIN DEFENDS IRAN MISSILE DECISION DURING CALL-IN SHOW

Russian President Vladimir Putin listens for a question during a nationally televised question-and-answer session in Moscow, Thursday, April 16, 2015. Speaking Thursday in a televised call-in show with the nation, Putin said the nation’s economic performance has remained strong, despite Western sanctions slapped on Russia over the Ukrainian crisis and a slump in global oil prices.

A N A LY Z I N G M E D I C A L D ATA , B R E A K I N G S M A R T P H O N E S

Asked to comment about Western leaders’ refusal to visit Moscow to attend a May 9 Victory Day parade marking the 70th anniversary of victory over the Nazis, Putin said many of them yielded to Washington’s pressure.

Putin said that despite the frictions with the West, “we don’t see anyone as enemy,” adding that “we don’t recommend anyone to see us as enemy.”

He said Russia expects France to return an advance payment if it fails to deliver a warship built for the Russian navy, but wouldn’t seek any fines. France has suspended the delivery of the Mistral warship amid Russia-West tensions over the Ukrainian crisis.

The Russian leader also criticized Ukraine, accusing it of violating its obligations under February’s peace deal by maintaining an economic blockade on rebellious eastern regions, refusing to deliver pensions and other social payments to people in the east, and shutting financial services to the region.

Putin argued that the Ukrainian leadership is effectively cutting off the eastern regions from the rest of the country. At the same time, the Russian president insisted that he remains committed to cooperating with the Ukrainian president to overcome the crisis, adding that the Minsk agreement signed in February provides the only way out of it.

He reaffirmed a strong denial of Ukrainian and Western claims that Russia has sent troops to back the rebels in eastern Ukraine.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Your smartphone could be a valuable tool for medical research - and for treating a variety of ailments.

IBM wants to use the power of its Watson computing system - which famously won TV’s “Jeopardy” a few years back - to analyze mountains of data collected from individuals who use health-related smartphone apps, fitness bands and other gadgets. A new IBM business will provide Internet computing services for health-care companies and researchers to collect and analyze that data, along with information from patient treatment records and research trials.

By combining all that data, and then searching for trends and patterns, IBM believes researchers could gain new insights into treatment and prevention.

The company promises the information will be “anonymized” to protect individuals’ privacy and used only with their consent.

IBM is also working with other companies to use Watson’s analytical prowess in new health services. Johnson & Johnson is developing “intelligent coaching” apps for patients recovering from surgery. Medtronic is creating programs to help diabetics monitor glucose and adjust their insulin treatment. Apple will let researchers use IBM’s platform to analyze data from health apps on iPhones.

Apple already has software tools called HealthKit to help individuals track fitness and health data on their iPhones. This week, Apple launched ResearchKit for scientists to create more specialized apps for medical studies. ResearchKit had been limited to five pilot groups until now. Some of those apps gather data from iPhone sensors like the microphone, which can measure voice tremors caused by Parkinson’s Disease, and the accelerometer, which can measure changes in a walker’s gait. Apple says 60,000 iPhone owners have already downloaded those apps and enrolled in medical studies.

Apple also announced that its annual developers conference will be held June 8 to 12 in San Francisco. That’s when Apple typically previews the next versions of its Mac and iOS mobile systems.

BREAKING PHONES ... ON PURPOSE Samsung’s new Galaxy S6 phones proved durable in the face of drops and other pressures, according to SquareTrade, a provider of extended-protection plans for gadgets.

In SquareTrade’s tests, which use robots to throw and drop various phones to ensure consistency, the S6 phones had great water resistance, even though they don’t officially have those capabilities as last year’s Galaxy S5 did. But the S6 phones lost points for having slippery glass backs. They slid farther than last year’s plastic Galaxy S5 and the metal-back iPhone 6 when pushed, making them more prone to falling off the edge of a table.

A premium version of the S6, known as Edge, also lost points for bending under pressure, though the regular S6 did well, withstanding 110 pounds of pressure.

Samsung says any phone will break if you try hard enough, but its phones “are capable of taking some hits.” The company says the metal frame, for instance, is designed to absorb much of the impact from any drops to protect the glass.

Samsung posted video showing phones still working after drops. As for bending, Samsung says SquareTrade’s tests apply more pressure than would be typical in a person’s back pocket.

BATTLING INTERNET RULES

“There are no Russian troops in Ukraine,” he said.

AT&T Inc. and four industry groups representing telecommunications, wireless and cable companies have filed lawsuits to overturn the Federal Communications Commission’s new Internet traffic rules.

When a jittery resident of areas in southwestern Russia near the border with Ukraine asked him if they should fear a war, Putin answered with a categorical `no.’ “You live in calm,” he said.

The FCC’s rules are meant to uphold the principle of net neutrality - that Internet content should be treated equally and load at the same speed.

Asked about the killing of Nemtsov, who was shot dead just outside the Kremlin on Feb. 27, Putin praised Russian law-enforcement agencies for nabbing the suspected perpetrators within days, but said he doesn’t know if it will be possible to track down the mastermind.

The five suspects, all Chechens, have remained in custody. Observers say their arrest has highlighted tensions between Russian law-enforcement agencies and Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed strongman, Ramzan Kadyrov. The investigators have been unable to reach a senior officer in Kadyrov’s security forces suspected of involvement in the

Many Internet providers say they don’t want to block or slow content, but they don’t want the stricter regulation that comes with the new rules. The FCC enacted them by placing Internet access in the same regulatory bucket as the telephone. Labeling Internet access as a telecommunications service, rather than an information service as it was before, subjects it to broader oversight by the FCC. With the rules, the agency will be able to hear and investigate complaints of unfair practices by Internet service providers from consumers and Web companies such as Netflix.

Federal courts had struck down the FCC’s previous attempt at net neutrality rules, which kept Internet access regulated as an information service. The judges said then that the FCC had effectively treated Internet service providers as common carriers like utilities or phone service even though they were exempt from such treatment as an information service.

The lawsuits had been widely expected. Filing lawsuits this week are AT&T, CTIA, a wireless trade group; the cable trade groups National Cable & Telecommunications Association and American Cable Association; and the United States Telecom Association

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The Weekly News Digest, April 20, thru April 27, 2015

11

S A U D I - I R A N R I VA L R Y O V E R Y E M E N D E E P E N S M I D E A S T S E C TA R I A N I S M

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- Saudi Arabia’s government insists it is not at war with Iran despite its three-week air campaign against Tehran-backed rebels in Yemen, but the kingdom’s powerful clerics, and its regional rival’s theocratic government, are increasingly presenting the conflict as part of a region-wide battle for the soul of Islam.

Since 1979, Iran has also presented itself as a defender of Islam, not the conservative Saudi version which underpins the monarchy, but a revolutionary interpretation of the faith opposed to Western colonialism, Israel and monarchical rule.

The toxic rivalry between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran is playing out on the battlefields of Yemen and Syria, and in the dysfunctional politics of Iraq and Lebanon, with each side resorting to sectarian rhetoric. Iran and its allies refer to all of their opponents as terrorists and extremists, while Saudi Arabian clerics speak of a regional Persian menace.

President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, has said the Saudis are colluding with the U.S. to dominate the region. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the Saudi-led airstrikes “genocide” and compared them to Israel’s strikes on Gaza during last summer’s war with the Palestinian Hamas militant group.

The rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran does not date back to Islam’s 7th century schism, but to the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, which toppled a U.S.-backed and Saudi-allied monarchy and recast alliances across the region. The standoff worsened after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which toppled a Sunni-led dictatorship that had long been seen as a bulwark against Iran’s efforts to export its revolution.

The Saudi-Iranian struggle is playing out across the region. Lebanon has been without a president for nearly a year, as the Iranian-allied Hezbollah and the Saudi-backed Sunni bloc repeatedly fail to reach a compromise.

But even if today’s power struggle has more to do with politics than religion, the unleashing of increasingly sectarian rhetoric on both sides has empowered extremists and made the region’s multiplying conflicts even more intractable.

Sheikh Mohammed al-Arefe, a Saudi cleric with 12 million Twitter followers and rock star status among ultra-conservative Sunnis, says the Saudi-led coalition launching airstrikes in Yemen is at war with the enemies of Islam. In a sermon viewed nearly 94,000 times on YouTube, he refers to them as “Safawis,” a reference to a 16th century Persian dynasty that oversaw the expansion of Shiite Islam.

“It is they, who until today, bow in prayer to shrines,” al-Arefe says, referring to the Shiite practice of praying at the tombs of religious figures.

Saudi clerics who follow the country’s strict Wahhabi doctrine view such rituals as akin to polytheism and advocate the destruction of shrines.

The Saudi government says its coalition of 10 Arab countries is bombing the Houthi rebels in Yemen to restore the country’s internationally recognized president, who was forced to seek refuge in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis and the U.S. accuse Iran of arming the Houthis, but Tehran says it only provides aid and political support.

The Houthis are Zaydis, a Shiite offshoot considered close to Sunni Islam, and Yemen’s conflict has less to do with sectarianism than with northsouth tensions, political corruption and a flawed post-Arab Spring political transition.

Hard-line Saudi clerics like al-Arefe say their problem is not with Zaydis, who make up about 30 percent of Yemen’s population, but with the Houthis, who have been “corrupted” by the ideology of “Safawis,” a clear reference to Iran.

“Who are the ones killing us in Iraq today, except them? Who are the ones

smoke billows from a Saudi-led airstrike in Sanaa, Yemen. Saudi Arabia’s government insists it is not at war with Iran despite its three-week air campaign against Tehran-backed rebels in Yemen, but the kingdom’s powerful clerics, and its regional rival’s theocratic government, are increasingly presenting the conflict as part of a region-wide battle for the soul of Islam.

killing us in the Levant today, except them?” al-Arefe said in the same sermon. In Syria, Saudi Arabia is a leading backer of the mainly Sunni rebels, while Iran is a key ally of President Bashar Assad, who hails from the Alawite community, another Shiite offshoot.

In Iraq, Saudi Arabia has had troubled relations with the Shiite-led government that emerged after the U.S.-led invasion, and which enjoys close relations with Iran. Those tensions burst into the open on Wednesday, when Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi defended his country’s ties to Iran and said he saw “no logic” in the Saudi operation in Yemen.

Asked about efforts to attain a cease-fire in Yemen, al-Abadi said his understanding from the White House is that “the Saudis are not helpful in this. They don’t want a cease-fire now.”

Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, fired back, saying the Iraqi prime minister is entitled to his opinion about Saudi involvement in Yemen but would be better off focusing on Iraq’s domestic problems, in particular its need for reconciliation with Sunnis and Kurds.

Fredric Wehrey, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says the war on the Houthis has allowed the kingdom to position itself once again as the defender of Islam, particularly after some conservatives were critical of its involvement in U.S.-led airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

“It did stir a lot of ambivalence and even outright criticism from people who say, `Well you know, ISIS is bad but at least ISIS is standing up to the Shiites and the Iranian menace,’” Wehrey said.

“Now this war on the Houthis is a godsend to them because they are able to stir up this new Saudi nationalism, this pan-Sunni fervor, and it’s to show they are defending the Sunnis... for domestic benefit.”

U N R E S T A M I D P L E A S T O E N D AT TA C K S O N I M M I G R A N T S I N S . A F R I C A Lungelo Dlamini.

Some foreigners from other African nations have armed themselves with machetes and knives.

The second spate of attacks this year in South Africa began after the Zulu monarch, King Goodwill Zwelithini, said that immigrants should “take their bags and go.” Zulus comprise one of South Africa’s largest ethnic groups.

“We must deal with our own lice,” he said in a speech that was recorded and sent to local broadcaster eNCA. He also complained about foreign-owned shops.

An armed police officer approaching a hostel in Astonville near Johannesburg, Thursday, April 16, 2015, during an anti-immigrant protest. South African President Jacob Zuma on Thursday urged South Africans to stop attacking immigrants from the rest of Africa and South Asia, after days of violence have left at least five people dead, escalating fears of violence and sending foreigners to seek refuge in various camps and police stations.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) -- President Jacob Zuma on Thursday urged South Africans to stop attacking immigrants from Africa and South Asia, but hundreds threatened peace marchers in a city where days of violence have killed at least five people.

In the days before the peace march in Durban, more than 2,000 foreigners fled to camps erected on sports fields around the city, afraid to return home, according to Gift of the Givers, an aid organization.

Zuma, in a speech to parliament that was broadcast live on TV, called the attacks “shocking and unacceptable,” adding that “no amount of frustration and anger can ever justify the attacks on foreign nationals.”

With unemployment and poverty levels high in South Africa, the immigrants are accused of taking jobs that should go to South Africans.

In the city of Durban along the Indian Ocean, one of Zuma’s wives, Thobeka Madiba-Zuma encouraged thousands who had participated in a peace march. A short distance away, hundreds of locals gathered, jeering and insulting the participants, local broadcasters reported.

The U.S. ambassador to South Africa, who was born in the then Zaire to Haitian parents, spoke in defense of the immigrants.

“As an immigrant to my own country, my heart goes out to those who have been attacked for being different,” said Patrick H. Gaspard in a statement emailed by the U.S. Embassy.

The fear felt by many was palpable as dozens of foreigners sought refuge at a police station outside of Johannesburg and stayed there overnight, according to a police spokesman, Col.

South Africa’s Human Rights Commission said it has received two complaints of hate speech levelled against the king. Commission spokesman Isaac Mangena said it has received several other complaints of xenophobia not directly related to the king’s comments.

Kuwait’s parliament voted overwhelmingly to join the airstrikes in Yemen, while nine lawmakers -- all Shiite -- voted against, saying the intervention violated the constitution’s requirement that the country only engage in defensive wars.

Kuwaiti lawmaker Faisal al-Duwaisan, who voted for military action, said in remarks carried in local papers that “the war is not against Kuwait’s Shiites,” but that the government should “protect national unity from the treason of Shiites and their insult.”

In Bahrain, where Saudi Arabia sent troops to help the Sunni monarchy quell a 2011 uprising by the tiny island’s Shiite majority, at least three people have been arrested for criticizing the Yemen airstrikes.

Among those detained is prominent activist Nabeel Rajab, who wrote on Twitter that war only leads to more bloodshed and hatred, and who shared photos of a burnt corpse and a child buried under rubble. He’s being investigated for illegally disseminating footage and information related to Bahrain’s participation in the airstrikes.

Immediately after the first airstrikes were launched in the early hours of Mar. 26, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious authority sanctioned the military operation as a war to defend religion. The Council of Senior Religious Scholars issued a fatwa, or edict, declaring that any soldier killed in the fighting is a “martyr.”

“One of the greatest ways to draw closer to God almighty is to defend the sanctity of religion and Muslims,” the council’s fatwa said.

Saudi Sheikh Naser al-Omar went one step further, telling his 1.65 million Twitter followers that “it is the responsibility of every Muslim to take part in the Islamic world’s battle to defeat the Safawis and their sins, and to prevent their corruption on earth.”

In a video posted on his Twitter account Tuesday, he tells dozens of Saudi men seated in a mosque that their “brothers” in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan are fighting a jihad, or holy war, against the “Safawis.”

“No one can logically imagine that in this battle with the enemies of God, one can’t find a place or role to play,” he said. “You may not have the ability in direct killing, but... you can help with financial support or with words online.”

repatriate citizens affected by the attacks. Zimbabwean musicians have also called for a boycott of South African artists.

“Xenophobia today can easily mutate into genocide tomorrow.

Stop It,” tweeted Zimbabwe Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, adding that the Zulu king should “extinguish what he ignited.”

In Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, some locals believed that Somalis would have been safer in their troubled native country, rather than South Africa.

“This must become a lesson for them to return home,” said Khadra Hussein, a Mogadishu resident. “Otherwise, they will be eliminated one by one.”

South Africa is a major destination for asylum seekers and refugees, and the country currently houses more than 300,000 asylum seekers, according to projections by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said UNHCR spokeswoman Tina Ghelli.

Minister of International Relations Maite Nkoana-Mashabane will on Friday meet with diplomats from several African countries to discuss the government’s efforts to protect immigrants, her office said in a statement.

The governments of Malawi and Zimbabwe have begun efforts to

h t t p : / / w w w . l i p t o n t o y o t a . c o m /

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The Weekly News Digest, April 20, thru April 27, 2015

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NEW YORK (AP) -- No doubt you’ve run across your share of PDF documents in your work and personal life. Adobe’s Portable Document Format has become a common way to publish newsletters, instruction manuals and even tax forms. Creating your own PDF document is easy, with features built into major Web browsers and Apple’s Mac system, or available through an array of free Windows apps.

type their names in a signature-like font (It’s not your actual signature, but Adobe says it’s legally binding). Tools help you track who’s already signed which documents. This also leaves a legal audit trail.

A D O B E P D F T O O L I S G R E A T , BUT CASUAL USERS WON’T NEED Speaking of tracking, another feature keeps track of who’s read or downloaded your document. Your recipients can no longer pretend they didn’t get it. Recipients can’t decline the tracking, which feels creepy, though they are notified if you opt for detailed tracking.

So why pay $156 or a more a year for Adobe’s Acrobat DC service?

You get those free capabilities in one place, plus features for filling out forms, appending digital signatures and making changes on the go.

--PRICING

--THE BASICS Many people already use Adobe’s free Acrobat Reader for reading documents. But to create documents, you need to pay for Acrobat, or use a free PDF creator from an outside party. Not all PDF creators are the same, though. Some convert text to graphics, for instance, so you’re unable to search documents later. And editing capabilities tend to be limited and cumbersome.

I create a lot of PDF files instead of printing out records. Free tools are typically adequate for that, but Acrobat is much easier for rotating and reordering pages and combining multiple PDF documents into a single file. Acrobat also makes it easy to edit text and convert documents back to their original form, whether that’s in Word or a Web page.

Adobe Systems Inc. also makes an iPad version, though with fewer features. Versions for iPhones, Android and Windows Phone devices have even less. Files you create and edit will sync through Adobe’s Document Cloud storage service. All this comes with Acrobat DC.

This undated photo provided by Adobe shows a signature on the Fill and Sign app. Many people already use Adobe’s free Acrobat Reader for reading documents. But to create documents, you need to pay for Acrobat, or use a free PDF creator from an outside party

software. You can do more than standard cropping. Let’s say you snapped the form on your lap, so the page is curved rather than flat.

On the app, you mark where the corners are, and the document magically stretches out so that it looks flat, as though scanned in. Then, you can type text, check boxes and even add your signature.

This can be useful for all the forms I hate filling out and mailing. And for forms that come in electronically, I can skip the printer.

But going paperless isn’t easy. I’m months late in mailing a housing form because I couldn’t find a stamp. Fill & Sign would be great, but there’s no place I could email that form to, nor would a parent necessarily know where to email a permission slip that’s designed to be handed in.

---

Plus, you can get this app for free. All the subscription does is integrate the feature with others in the package.

FORMS AND MORE

---

My favorite tool is the Fill & Sign app for iPads and Android tablets.

Take any form, such as a school permission slip for your kid. You simply snap the form with your tablet’s camera and enhance the image using technology Adobe borrowed from its Photoshop editing

SIGNS AND TRACKS For small business owners and others who deal with contracts, Adobe offers tools for sending out forms for signing - even to those who don’t have Acrobat. Signers can draw signatures with their mouse or

T H O S E P U P P Y E Y E S C A N H E L P A D O G B O N D W I T H O W N E R the study authors, Takefumi Kikusui of Azabu University near Tokyo, said in an email.

No such result appeared when researchers tried the experiment with wolves. The animals were paired with people who had raised them, although not as pets. The difference suggests dogs started gazing at owners as a social strategy when they became domesticated, rather than inheriting it from their wolf ancestors, researchers said.

Another experiment with dogs found they looked at their owners longer if they were given doses of oxytocin, and that the hormone’s levels then went up in their owners. But these results appeared only in female dogs; the reason isn’t clear.

a Welsh corgi competes in the ring with its owner on the second day of Crufts dog show at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, England. In a study released on Thursday, April 16, 2015, scientists found that just by gazing at their owners, dogs can trigger a response in their masters’ brains that helps them bond. And owners can do a similar trick in return. This two-way street may have begun during dog domestication because it helped the two species connect, the Japanese researchers suggest.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Oh, those puppy eyes.

Just by gazing at their owners, dogs can trigger a response in their masters’ brains that helps them bond, a study says.

And owners can do a similar trick in return, researchers found.

This two-way street evidently began when dogs were domesticated long ago, because it helped the two species connect, the Japanese researchers say.

As canine psychology experts Evan MacLean and Brian Hare of Duke University wrote in a commentary on the work, “When your dog is staring at you, she may not just be after your sandwich.”

The new work is the first to present a biological mechanism for bonding across species, said researcher Larry Young of Emory University.

An oxytocin researcher not connected to the study said previous work had provided bits of evidence that the hormone plays a role in bonding between species, but that the new work is more comprehensive.

“It makes very good sense,” said C. Sue Carter, who directs the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University.

But Clive Wynne of Arizona State University, a psychologist who studies interaction between dogs and people, said he thinks the link to domestication is “barking up the wrong tree.” The study doesn’t provide convincing evidence for that, he said.

Emory’s Young, who studies bonding behavior, said the relationship between people and dogs is special. Human love can lose its initial exhilaration over time, he said, but he hasn’t seen that with the dogs he has owned for 10 years.

“When I come home from work every day, they are just as excited to see me now as they were when I got them,” Young said.

D o n t Te x t a n d D r i v e

Neither he nor the Duke scientists were involved in the study, which is reported in a paper from Japan released Thursday by the journal Science.

The brain response is an increase in levels of a hormone called oxytocin (ahk-see-TOH’-sin). Studies in people and animals indicate this substance promotes social bonding, such as between parent and infant or between two lovers.

One experiment in the new research involved 30 owners and their dogs. Oxytocin levels in the urine of both species were sampled before and after the owners and their dogs spent a half-hour together.

Analysis showed that owners whose dogs looked at them longer in the first five minutes had bigger boosts in oxytocin levels. Similarly, dogs that gazed longer got a hormone boost, too. That’s evidently in response to being touched by their owners during the session, one of

Improves the health and lives of people affected by poverty, disaster, and civil unrest.

www.directrelief.org

The standard subscription starts at $13 a month, with a one-year commitment. A Pro subscription, at $15 a month, gives you additional features, including the ability to compare two versions of a document.

If you just want it for a month, though, the subscriptions cost $23 and $25, respectively. You can also buy the Mac or Windows version the traditional way, for a one-time fee that starts at $299 ($139 for upgrades), but you don’t get all of the mobile, storage or tracking features. With the subscription, you can sign in on two PCs at a time, with no limits yet on mobile.

Acrobat DC does a lot, but the price tag will limit its appeal to small businesses and households with lots of forms to fill and sign.

CANINE FLU OUTBREAK SICKENS HUNDREDS OF DOGS IN MIDWEST In this Tuesday, April 14, 2015, photo, manager Chris Swisse interacts with dogs at the First Class Pet Lodge in Wausau, Wis. A canine flu outbreak has sickened many dogs in the Midwest, and veterinarians are cautioning pet owners to keep their dogs from going nose-to-nose with other four-legged friends.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A canine flu outbreak has sickened many dogs in the Midwest, and veterinarians are cautioning pet owners to keep their dogs from going nose-to-nose with other four-legged friends.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Veterinary Medicine says the virus has sickened at least 1,000 dogs in Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana. Recent tests from the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory have identified the strain as H3N2. Clinical assistant professor Keith Poulsen says it’s not yet known how effective current vaccines are against this strain, which is believed to have come from Asia.

He said an older strain, H3N8, has also been detected in the region.

Both viruses can cause persistent cough, runny nose and fever in dogs.

Experts say a small percentage will develop more severe symptoms. The H3N2 infection has been associated with some deaths.

Poulsen said pet owners with sick dogs should call a veterinarian to schedule a test outside the veterinary clinic and should not bring dogs into areas where they could interact with other dogs.

“It’s really no different if you’re talking about dogs or toddlers, if you think they’re sick, don’t bring them to day care,” Poulsen said.

Veterinarians say neither canine strain is related to bird flu or is contagious to humans, but the H3N2 strain could sicken cats.

Renee Brantner Shanesy, who owns the Ruffin’ It Resort in Madison, said the kennel required immunizations against H3N8 for all dogs boarded there late last week. Shanesy said she’s now recommending, not requiring, the vaccination after veterinarians said it won’t protect against H3N2.

“The philosophy we’re taking is, just like the human flu, everyone has to take the precaution for himself,” she said.

Shanesy said she hasn’t seen panic among dog owners, but the kennel is increasing its sanitizing practices. She said she had her two dogs vaccinated and she has cut out trips to the dog park to reduce the risk of exposure.

“Like any other pet owner right now, I’m not 100 percent comfortable,” Shanesy said. “Anything I can do to give them a better chance of immunity, I’m in.”

Sarah Duchemin, who works at The Dog Den in Madison, said the kennel has been monitoring its dogs for symptoms, and that if a dog shows up with a runny nose or is sneezing, the animal would be isolated and sent home. She said the kennel hasn’t had a dog show any flu symptoms yet, but it cleans its floors and cages every day to prevent the spread of disease.

Luanne Moede, owner of the First Class Pet Lodge in Wausau, told the Wausau Daily Herald that clients are being asked if dogs have traveled out of state. Moede also said she’s informing pet owners about the disease.

In Illinois, vets say the cases are slowing but are still coming in. Chicago resident Jennifer Roche’s mixed-breed dog, Roxy-Rocket, is recovering after coming down with canine flu while boarded at Tucker Pup’s Dog Activity Center last week while the family was away during spring break.

Roche knew she was taking a risk by boarding the family pet during the outbreak, but she feels the facility handled it well when the dog began to cough.

“They got her to the vet right away and she was on antibiotics right away,” Roche said. “It feels a lot like when my kids get the flu. ... I’m going to be watching her very closely when the antibiotics run out.”