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D I S H ’ S I N T E R N E T T V, SLING, GETS HBO SERVICE FOR $15 A MONTH NEW YORK (AP) -- HBO lovers have one more way to watch “Game of Thrones.” If you subscribe to Dish’s $20-a-month Internet TV service, Sling TV, you can order HBO for an extra $15 each month. That’s the same price as the new HBO Now Internet service. For the moment, you can order HBO Now on Apple devices and through New York-area cable company Cablevision. The number of people who pay cable companies, satellite TV companies and telecommunications companies for TV access - the traditional payTV system - has been slowly dropping as online video alternatives such as Netflix become more popular. Dish, for example, lost 79,000 satellite TV subscribers last year, ending with nearly 14 million. Sling TV is Dish Network Corp.’s attempt to attract the estimated 10 million households who pay only for Internet and not for cable. It was released in February. Other companies also want to reach that demographic. Sony has an Internet TV service that comes through the PlayStation console, which launched in March, and Apple is reportedly working on one as well. Dish and Time Warner Inc. said Tuesday that the HBO service over Sling TV will include the live HBO channel as well as on-demand TV shows and movies. Dish says the same library of shows, movies, and comedy and music
U S C A R B U Y E R S TA P THE BRAKES IN MARCH, FOLLOWING TORRID RUN
In this Monday, March 23, 2015 photo, Chevrolet vehicles are on display at a dealership in Gibsonia, Pa. Automakers release vehicle sales for March on Wednesday, April 1, 2015.
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AL-SHABAB MILITANTS KILL 147 AT U N I V E R S I T Y I N K E N YA
GARISSA, Kenya (AP) -- AlShabab gunmen rampaged through a university in northeastern Kenya at dawn Thursday, killing 147 people in the group’s deadliest attack in the East African country. Four militants were slain by security forces to end the siege just after dusk.
He heard the attackers arrive at his dormitory, open the doors and ask if the people who had hidden inside were Muslims or Christians.
The masked attackers armed with AK-47s singled out non-Muslim students at Garissa University College and then gunned them down without mercy, survivors said. Others ran for their lives with bullets whistling through the air.
The gunmen then started shooting rapidly, as if exchanging fire, Wetangula said.
The men took dozens of hostages in a dormitory for several hours as they battled troops and police before the operation was ended after about 13 hours, witnesses said.
“If you were a Christian, you were shot on the spot,” he said. “With each blast of the gun, I thought I was going to die.”
A Kenya Defence Forces soldier secures the area around the Garissa University college, in Garissa, Kenya, Thursday, April 2, 2015. Al-Shabab gunmen attacked Garissa University College in northeast Kenya early Thursday, targeting Christians and killing over 100 people and wounding others, according to Kenya’s national disaster operations center and the interior minister.
Al-Shabab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage said fighters from the Somalia-based extremist group were responsible for the bloodshed. The al-Qaida-linked group has been blamed for a series of attacks in Kenya, including the siege at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi in 2013 that killed 67 people, as well as other violence in the north. Most of the 147 dead were students, but the two security guards, one policeman and one soldier also were killed in the attack, said Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery. At least 79 people were wounded at the school 145 kilometers (90 miles) from the Somali border, Nkaissery said. A dusk-to-dawn curfew was ordered in Garissa and three nearby counties. One suspected extremist was arrested as he tried to flee, Nkaissery told a news conference in Nairobi. Police identified a possible mastermind of the attack as Mohammed Mohamud, who is alleged to lead al-Shabab’s cross-border raids into Kenya, and they posted a $220,000 bounty for him. Also known by the names Dulyadin and Gamadhere, he was a teacher at an Islamic religious school, or madrassa, and claimed responsibility for a bus attack in Makka, Kenya, in November that killed 28 people.
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The shooting kept some students indoors but scores of others fled through barbed-wire fencing around the campus, with the gunmen firing at them, he said. “I am just now recovering from the pain as I injured myself while trying to escape, Alanga said. I was running barefoot,” Alanga said. As terrified students streamed out of buildings, arriving police officers took cover. Kenya’s National Police Service said a “fierce shootout” ensued as police guarded the dorms. Three of the dorms were evacuated, with the gunmen holed up in a fourth, the National Disaster Operations Center said, and Kenya Defense Forces surrounded the campus. “I am saddened to inform the nation that early today, terrorists attacked Garissa University College, killed and wounded several people, and have taken others hostage,” President Uhuru Kenyatta said in a speech to the nation while the siege was still going on.
“Most of the people still inside there are girls,” Bwana said, referring to the dorm where gunmen are believed to be holding an unknown number of captives.
“All I could hear were footsteps and gunshots. Nobody was screaming because they thought this would lead the gunmen to know where they are,” he said.
Wetangula, who was rescued by troops, said one soldier instructed a group of students to run and to dive for cover at their command as they ran to safety.
He added: “The gunmen were saying, `Sisi ni al-Shabab,’” - Swahili for “We are al-Shabab.”
“We started running and bullets were whizzing past our heads, and the soldiers told us to dive,” Wetangula said. The soldier told students later that al-Shabab
H O T C A R S AT T H E N E W Y O R K I N T E R N AT I O N A L A U TO S H O W CADILLAC CT6: GM’s latest entry in the big rear-drive luxury sedan category competes with the BMW 7-Series and the Mercedes S-Class. Caddy’s previous full-size model, the DTS, embodied old Detroit luxury - a spongy boat built for straight-line freeway driving. The CT6 has an aluminum-intensive body with 11 different materials for strength, performance and efficiency. GM says the car is lighter than the smaller BMW 5-Series. Consumers can choose from a new 3-Liter twin-turbo V6 with 400 horsepower, plus two less-powerful engines from the previous generation. Night vision that helps identify people and large animals with heat signatures on a dashboard display. Pricing and gas mileage weren’t announced.
But those gains were nearly offset by lower sales at other major automakers. General Motors’ sales fell 2 percent and Ford and Nissan both saw 3 percent declines. Honda’s sales were down 5 percent. Volkswagen’s sales plummeted 18 percent.
Alec Gutierrez, a senior market analyst for Kelley Blue Book, said he expects sales to increase by around 2.5 percent this year, or 400,000 cars and trucks. Gutierrez says March is usually one of the strongest months of the year, as buyers spend tax returns and Japanese automakers offer good deals so they can close out their fiscal years on a high note. Low interest rates and low gas prices are also enticing factors. But sales were still flat for the month. “This really shows we’re at a point where sales are going to grow at a much slower pace,” he said.
At least five heavily armed, masked gunmen opened fire outside his dormitory, turning intense almost immediately and setting off panic, he told the AP by telephone.
When he heard the gunshots, he locked himself and three roommates in their room, said Wetangula, who is vice chairman of the university’s student union.
Some automakers reported larger gains. Hyundai’s U.S. sales jumped 12 percent over last March after a big boost in incentives. Subaru’s sales were up 10 percent. Toyota’s sales were up 5 percent, and FCA - the parent of Chrysler and Fiat - said its sales rose 2 percent.
Still, March gave the industry a taste of what’s to come as U.S. new-car sales reach a natural peak. Sales have been increasing by around 1 million vehicles each year since 2009, when sales fell to 10.4 million vehicles in the depths of the recession. But as sales approach the historic peak of 17 million, the pace is expected to slow. U.S. consumers bought 16.5 million new vehicles last year.
The attack began about 5:30 a.m., as morning prayers were underway at the university mosque, where worshippers were not attacked, said Augustine Alanga, a 21-year-old student.
Michael Bwana, a 20-year-old student, said he and other survivors tried to call their friends trapped in a dormitory, but their phones were switched off - either by their owners to keep them from ringing or by the gunmen who have seized them.
March sales were up less than 1 percent compared with the same month a year ago. U.S. consumers bought 1.5 million new cars and trucks in March, according to Autodata Corp.
There were several contributing factors. Last March saw a surge in sales after an unusually cold February; by contrast, this March still had lingering snow in much of the country. This March also had one less weekend than last March.
“The next thing, we saw people in military uniform through the window of the back of our rooms who identified themselves as the Kenyan military,” he said. The soldiers took him and around 20 others to safety.
One of the survivors of Thursday’s attack, Collins Wetangula, told The Associated Press he was preparing to take a shower when he heard gunshots coming from Tana dorm, which hosts both men and women, 150 meters (yards) away. The campus has six dorms and at least 887 students, he said.
DETROIT (AP) -- U.S. car buyers tapped the brakes in March, a sign of a long-expected slowdown in the blistering pace of sales.
For the most part, March didn’t see the kind of big increases the industry has gotten used to. U.S. auto sales were up 14 percent in January, for example, and 5 percent in February.
April 6 thru April 13, 2015
The McLaren 570S Sport Series, the company’s first sports market car derived from racing technology, is unveiled at the New York International Auto Show, Wednesday, April 1, 2015.
NEW YORK (AP) -- The New York International Auto Show opens this week with a mix of mainstream sedans and glitzier models from automakers across the globe. There a handful of new midsize cars and compact cars, including the Malibu from Chevrolet, the Optima from Kia, Scion’s first-ever sedan and a sporty new concept Civic from Honda that may be the highlight of the show for everyday car buyers. Lovers of luxury and performance won’t be disappointed. Among the introductions are an updated Lexus RX SUV, a big Cadillac, the return of the Lincoln Continental, and the 570S, a high-performance sports car from Formula One racing company McLaren priced under $200,000. Media days are on Wednesday and Thursday. The public starts Friday and runs through April 12. Here are highlights of some of the models: BIG CARS:
LINCOLN CONTINENTAL: The return of the Continental name after a 13year hiatus signals Lincoln’s renewed confidence in the U.S. and a fondness in China for big cars with well-known names. The concept car being shown in New York is painted a deep Prussian blue, an homage to Continentals of the 1950s and 1960s. But there are few other references to its history. Lincoln’s split-wing grille, a feature that dates to the 1940s, has been replaced by a tight, rectangular mesh grille. The sides are smooth; even the door handles are hidden within a narrow strip of chrome at the beltline. COMPACT/MIDSIZE HONDA CIVIC: For the first time, Honda let its U.S. design team take the lead on the popular compact Civic, and the result is a new low-riding coupe that should appeal to buyers both in the U.S. and elsewhere. The top-to-bottom redesign includes dramatic creases, a short hood and LED tail and headlights. The sedan version will be in showrooms this fall, with a coupe, hatchback and a high-performance R-Type coming later. Honda last rolled out an all-new Civic in 2011, and it was widely panned for its bland styling, cabin noise and pedestrian handling. It was quickly updated in 2012. SCION iM, iA: Toyota is looking to a new sporty hatchback and a low-cost sedan to revive flagging sales of its youth-oriented Scion brand. The brand was started in 2003 to lure people 18 to 34 to the aging Toyota family. The hatchback iM, priced under $20,000, is aimed at those who want a sporty car that can haul things. The iA sedan, to cost around $16,000, looks more like a coupe but has enough room to tote people. The sedan can get up to 42 miles
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The Weekly News Digest, April 6, thruApril 13, 2015
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US OFFER FOR CLIMATE TREATY: UP TO 28 PERCENT EMISSIONS CUT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a highly anticipated announcement, the United States will offer a roughly 28 percent emissions cut as its contribution to a major global climate treaty nearing the final stages of negotiation, according to people briefed on the White House’s plans.
The U.S. plans to announce its commitment Tuesday, the informal deadline for nations to submit their contributions to the United Nations. Although the goal of 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025 isn’t new - President Barack Obama first unveiled it last year during a trip to Beijing - the U.S. proposal has drawn intense interest from the vast majority of countries that have yet to announce how deeply they’ll pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions as part of the treaty.
Obama has described his strategy as “leading by example” and has sought to use the steps he’s already taken to cut emissions to ramp up pressure on other countries to do the same.
President Barack Obama, flanked by senior adviser Brian Deese, left, and Christina Goldfuss, managing director of the Council on Environmental Quality, speaks at Energy Department in Washington. In a highly anticipated announcement, the United States will pledge to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by up to 28 percent as its contribution to a major global climate treaty nearing the final stages of negotiation, according to people briefed on the White House’s plans.
Obama’s pledge constitutes the opening offer by the U.S. as world leaders strive to reach a climate deal powerful and ambitious enough to prevent the worst effects of climate change. In the works for years, the treaty is set to be finalized in Paris in December. If it’s successful, it will mark the first time all nations - not just wealthier ones like the U.S. - will have agreed to do something about climate change. As part of its proposal, known to climate negotiators as an Intended Nationally Determined Contribution, the U.S. will also assert that its contribution is both ambitious and fair, said the individuals briefed on the U.S. proposal, who requested anonymity because the proposal hasn’t been announced. What metrics the U.S. will use to back up that claim is not yet clear. The European Union, one of the first parties to submit its contribution, pointed to per capita reductions in emissions to show how it is cutting its carbon footprint. But emissions per capita are far higher in the U.S., making it an inconvenient measure for the U.S. to use to show progress. Instead, the U.S. is expected to focus on the fact that the Obama administration has ramped up the rate of emissions reductions nearly twofold. Early in his presidency, Obama committed to cut U.S. emissions 17 percent by 2020; his subsequent goal for 2025 pushes it to 28 percent. The White House declined to comment. The U.S. and other developed countries have been aggressively pressing developing nations to step up on climate change - especially those like China and India that are heavily reliant on dirtier sources of energy.
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GM - like other automakers - saw big declines in car sales as consumers flocked to SUVs and trucks. Sales of the compact Sonic dropped 51 percent for the month, and Cadillac ATS sales dropped 31 percent. But Chevrolet Silverado pickup sales were up 7 percent. GM sold 249,875 cars and trucks last month.
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Ford’s F-Series pickup truck sales were down 5 percent as the company continues to change over to its new aluminum-bodied F-150. Ford has said it won’t have normal truck inventory levels on dealers’ lots until this summer. But the company also saw big declines for some of its other top sellers, including the Escape SUV, which was down 8 percent, and the Fusion sedan, which saw a 12 percent sales decline. Ford sold 235,929 cars and trucks last month. Toyota said its car sales were flat but its truck and SUV sales jumped 12 percent. RAV4 small SUV sales were up 28 percent. Lexus SUV sales were also strong thanks to the new NX small SUV. Toyota sold 225,959 vehicles in March. Honda’s car sales also fell and its SUV sales were flat. The CR-V, a perennial best seller in the small SUV market, saw sales drop 4 percent. Honda sold 126,293 vehicles in March. FCA sold 197,261 vehicles for its best March since 2007. Jeep sales jumped 23 percent thanks to brisk sales of the Cherokee, Grand Cherokee and Patriot SUVs. Chrysler brand sales were also up as sales of its 200 sedan more than doubled. But sales of the Ram pickup fell 2 percent.
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Nissan’s truck and SUV sales were up 15 percent thanks to strong sales of its new Rogue crossover. But that wasn’t enough to offset a 13 percent decline in car sales. Nissan sold 145,085 vehicles last month. Hyundai spent an estimated 25 percent more on incentives compared with last March, according to the car buying site TrueCar.com. That likely boosted sales. Hyundai’s sales were up 12 percent to 75,019 for its best U.S. sales month ever. Sales of the newly redesigned Genesis sedan more than doubled. Subaru also saw big gains, but with a more modest incentive increase of 6.5 percent. Subaru is benefiting from recently redesigned vehicles, including the Legacy sedan, which saw sales nearly double over last March. Subaru sales were up 10 percent to 49,111. Volkswagen struggled in March. Sales of its new Golf more than doubled, but the rest of its lineup saw sales declines. Volkswagen’s sold 30,025 cars and SUVs last month.
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But poorer countries have traditionally balked, arguing their more modest means make reductions more of an imposition and pointing out that historically, they’re responsible for just a small fraction of the heat-trapping gases that industrialized countries have been pumping into the atmosphere for decades. So when Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping both committed to curbing emissions in a joint announcement in November, environmentalists hailed it as a sign that reluctant nations like China were finally getting on board.
“People know that domestically, we’re moving forward,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said Monday at a luncheon hosted by Politico. She pointed to the U.S.-China pact as Exhibit A. “If the two biggest polluters and the two biggest greenhouse gas polluters can get together, and two biggest economies, then we’re going to be OK moving into Paris, and we should have momentum behind our backs.” Although all nations were asked to submit their climate targets by the end-of-March target date, only a handful of countries are expected to meet it. In addition to the U.S., the EU and Switzerland, Mexico unveiled a pledge last week to cut greenhouse gases and short-lived climate pollutants 25 percent by 2030, drawing praise from the White House and from environmental advocates. How will the U.S. meet its goal? The Obama administration has avoided putting hard numbers on the size of emissions reductions it expects from specific steps the U.S. is taking. In its submission, the EU listed specific economic sectors - such as transportation, energy and manufacturing where it expects major reductions, and named the specific greenhouse gases it plans to cut. In contrast, the U.S. is expected to point broadly to the steps it is taking under the climate action plan Obama announced in 2013, such as new rules requiring sweeping cuts from new and existing power plants, stricter emissions limits for cars and trucks, and initiatives targeting specific greenhouse gases like methane and hydrofluorocarbons. Many of those steps ordered by Obama face major legal challenges and intense political opposition, raising the risk that they could be undermined or even discarded once Obama leaves office in 2017. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the U.S. couldn’t meet Obama’s target even if his domestic climate plan were fully implemented. “Considering that two-thirds of the U.S. federal government hasn’t even signed off on the Clean Power Plan and 13 states have already pledged to fight it, our international partners should proceed with caution before entering into a binding, unattainable deal,” McConnell said.
MILITANTS KILL 147 continued from page 1
snipers were perched on a three-story dormitory called the Elgon, he said. Some of the more seriously wounded were flown to Nairobi for treatment, authorities said. Kenyatta has been under pressure to deal with insecurity caused by a string of attacks by al-Shabab. In his speech to the country, he said he had directed the police chief to fast-track the training of 10,000 police recruits because Kenya has “suffered unnecessarily due to shortage of security personnel.” Kenya’s northern and eastern regions near the Somali border have seen many attacks blamed on al-Shabab. The group has vowed to retaliate against Kenya for dispatching troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight the militants following cross-border attacks. Last month, al-Shabab claimed responsibility for attacks in Mandera county on the Somali border in which 12 people died. Four of them died in an attack on the convoy of the county’s governor. Police said 312 people have been killed in al-Shabab attacks in Kenya from 2012 to 2014. Last week, al-Shabab claimed responsibility for a siege at a Mogadishu hotel that left 24 people dead, including six attackers.
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practices and policies. But the lawmaker has said he did nothing wrong and that the interactions he had with the doctor are reflections of a friendship of two decades. “We celebrated holidays together,” he once told reporters. “We have been there for family weddings and sad times like funerals and have given each other birthday, holiday and wedding presents, just as friends do.”
A federal grand jury indictment accuses the New Jersey Democrat of using the power of his Senate seat to benefit Dr. Salomon Melgen, a wealthy Florida eye doctor who prosecutors say provided the senator with luxury vacations, airline travel, golf trips and tens of thousands of dollars in contributions to a legal defense fund.
Melgen came under renewed scrutiny when government data last year showed he had received more in Medicare reimbursements in 2012 than any other doctor in the country.
The indictment from a federal grand jury in Newark charged the senator with 14 counts, including bribery, conspiracy and false statements, over his ties to Melgen. Melgen also was charged in the case.
Menendez, who has repeatedly asserted his innocence, was expected to make a statement later Wednesday in New Jersey. Melgen’s attorney did not immediately return a call seeking comment Wednesday. The indictment could lead to a drawn-out legal fight between Menendez and a team of Justice Department corruption prosecutors who have spent the last two years investigating his ties to Melgen. The dispute will require prosecutors to establish that a close and longtime friendship between the men was used for illicit purposes and is likely to present questions about whether Menendez is shielded by the Constitution from prosecution over the legislative acts he performed. The indictment from a grand jury in his home state was the latest development in a federal investigation that came into public view when
Workers from Myanmar load fish onto a Thai-flagged cargo ship in Benjina, Indonesia. An intricate web of connections separates the fish we eat from the men who catch it, and obscures a brutal truth: Your seafood may come from slaves.
Menendez is also the second New Jersey senator to be indicted. Harrison Williams Jr., a Democrat, was indicted in 1980 on corruption charges and convicted of bribery and other counts the following year. Williams resigned before the Senate could vote on whether to expel him.
Among the allegations is that Melgen provided Menendez with free trips to the Dominican Republican aboard his luxury jet and that the senator, between 2007 and 2012, never disclosed the gifts he received from the doctor.
Menendez, 61, joined the Senate in 2006 after serving more than a decade in the House of Representatives. A lawyer and former mayor of Union City, New Jersey, Menendez also served in the New Jersey General Assembly and state Senate.
In exchange for those and other gifts, prosecutors say, Menendez tried to influence immigration proceedings of Melgen’s foreign girlfriends, sought to protect a lucrative contract Melgen held to provide cargo screening services to the Dominican Republic and intervened in a Medicare billing dispute on the doctor’s behalf worth millions of dollars.
MCDONALD’S: WORKERS TO G E T PAY H I K E S AT COMPANY-OWNED STORES
Menendez has acknowledged taking actions that could benefit Melgen, among them contacting U.S. health agencies to ask about billing
meet those goals. But Iran has pushed back, demanding a general statement with few specifics. That is politically unpalatable for the Obama administration, which must convince a hostile Congress that it has made progress in the talks so lawmakers do not enact new sanctions that could destroy the negotiations. By blowing through self-imposed deadlines, Obama risks further antagonizing lawmakers in both parties who are poised to take their own action to upend a deal if they determine the president has been too conciliatory. The initial response to the extensions from Republicans suggested they had already come to that conclusion.
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) -- With even a vague outline of an Iran nuclear deal eluding their grasp, negotiators headed for double overtime Wednesday night in a marathon attempt to find common ground for a more important task - forging a final deal by the end of June.
Iran and six world powers had cited progress in abandoning their March 31 deadline for the basic understanding that would prepare the ground for a new phase of negotiations on a substantive deal. But as differences persisted into late Wednesday, the State Department announced that Secretary of State John Kerry was postponing his departure and would remain until at least Thursday morning. The talks - the latest in more than a decade of diplomatic efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear prowess - will hit the weeklong mark on Thursday, with diplomats from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany scrambling to reach a framework accord with Iran. “We continue to make progress but have not reached a political understanding,” spokeswoman Marie Harf said in announcing Kerry’s decision. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said negotiators were still facing a “tough struggle.” A French diplomat said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was heading for Lausanne less than a day after he departed. Asked why, the diplomat referred a reporter to the minister’s comments earlier in the day when he said he would come back if there were chances for a deal. At the same time, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif accused his country’s negotiating partners, particularly the U.S., of having “defective” political will in the talks. “I’ve always said that an agreement and pressure do not go together, they are mutually exclusive,” he told reporters. “So our friends need to decide whether they want to be with Iran based on respect or whether they want to continue based on pressure.” The negotiators’ intention is to produce a joint statement outlining general political commitments to resolve concerns about the Iranians’ nuclear program in exchange for relief of economic sanctions against Iran. In addition, they are trying to fashion other documents that would lay out in more detail the steps they must take by June 30 to
According to the Senate Historical Office, Menendez is the 12th senator to be indicted and the first since the late Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, was indicted in 2008 on charges of not reporting hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of home renovations. Stevens was convicted but the charges were later dismissed.
federal authorities raided Melgen’s medical offices in 2013. It depicts a relationship in which gifts such as round-trip flights to the Dominican Republican were quietly traded for favors such as political intervention in medical billing and contractual disputes.
DOUBLE OVERTIME: FALTERING IRAN NUCLEAR TALKS EXTENDED AGAIN
US Secretary of State John Kerry looks at the view of Lake Geneva from his hotel room as the Iran nuclear talks continue in Lausanne, Switzerland, Wednesday, April 1, 2015. Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program resumed Wednesday but were almost immediately beset by competing claims, just hours after diplomats abandoned a March 31 deadline to reach the outline of a deal and agreeing to press on.
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Bob Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants who rose to become one of the highest-ranking Hispanic members of Congress, was charged Wednesday with accepting nearly $1 million worth of gifts and campaign contributions from a longtime friend in exchange for a stream of political favors on the donor’s behalf.
The criminal charges cloud the political future of the top Democrat and former chairman - of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who has played a leading role on Capitol Hill on matters involving Iran’s nuclear program and U.S. efforts to improve ties with Cuba. A person familiar with Menendez’s situation, who was not authorized to discuss the senator’s plans publicly, said Menendez would voluntarily and temporarily step aside from his role as top Democrat on the committee.
The Weekly News Digest, April 6, thruApril 13, 2015
“It is clear, the negotiations are not going well,” said Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham in a statement. “At every step, the Iranians appear intent on retaining the capacity to achieve a nuclear weapon. Iran’s Zarif insisted the result of this round of talks “will not be more than a statement.” But a senior Western official said Iran’s negotiating partners would not accept a document that contained no details. The official was not authorized to speak to the negotiations by name and spoke on condition of anonymity. Deputy Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi named differences on sanctions relief as one dispute - but also suggested some softening of Tehran’s long-term insistence that all sanctions be lifted immediately once a final deal takes effect. He told Iranian TV that economic, financial, oil and bank sanctions imposed by the U.S., the European Union and others should be done away with as “the first step of the deal.” Alluding to separate U.N. sanctions, he said a separate “framework” was needed for them. Araghchi has spoken of such an arrangement before. But both Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani have since demanded full and total sanctions lifting, and the floating of the approach now suggested an Iranian shift. Araghchi also rejected U.S. demands of strict controls on Iran’s uranium enrichment-related research and development, saying such activities “should continue.” The U.S. and its negotiating partners want to crimp Iranian efforts to improve the performance of centrifuges that enrich uranium because advancing the technology could let Iran produce material that could be used to arm a nuclear weapon much more quickly than at present. The additional documents the U.S. wants would allow the sides to make the case that the next round of talks will not simply be a continuation of negotiations that have already been twice extended since an interim agreement between Iran, the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany was concluded in 2013. President Barack Obama and other leaders, including Iran’s, have said they are not interested in a third extension. Meanwhile, the White House says new sanctions could not only scuttle further diplomatic efforts to contain Iran’s nuclear work but possibly lead Israel to act on threats to use military force to accomplish that goal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has campaigned tirelessly for months against the emerging agreement, said it would “ensure a bad deal that would endanger Israel, the Middle East and the peace of the world.”
NEW YORK (AP) -- McDonald’s says it’s raising pay for workers at company-owned U.S. restaurants, making it the latest employer to sweeten worker incentives in an improving economy. The fast-food chain owns about 10 percent of its more than 14,300 U.S. restaurants, representing about 90,000 workers. The rest are run by franchisees and McDonald’s said they “make their own decisions on pay and benefits.” The announcement comes as several major companies including WalMart Stores Inc. have announced wage hikes as the economy has picked up and made it more difficult to find reliable workers. Over the past 12 months, the unemployment rate has dropped to 5.5 percent from 6.7 percent. “It’s a very competitive environment and a significant rationale for this plan is that we want to be the most competitive and attractive employer,” said McDonald’s USA President Mike Andres in a phone interview. He added that people also have “new expectations” around jobs and that many franchisees have already been providing higher pay to attract and retain workers. The change also comes as McDonald’s has been dealing with negative publicity from ongoing demonstrations demanding pay of $15 an hour and a union. In addition to protests since late 2012, worker groups have been pressuring the company with lawsuits and cases filed with the National Labor Relations Board and U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration over issues including the alleged denial of breaks and overtime pay, burns from popping grease and a lack of protective gear. Andres said few McDonald’s workers were taking part in the protests, and that they aren’t hurting the company’s image. “They’re not taking a toll,” he said. Last month, McDonald’s Chief Administrative Officer Pete Bensen hinted such an announcement could be in the works. Bensen said at the time that a big part of the turnaround effort in the U.S. would be what the company is doing “around the employment image and our employee-employer relationship.” Beginning on July 1, McDonald’s says starting wages will be a dollar more than the local minimum wage where company-owned restaurants are located. Wages will be adjusted accordingly based on tenure and performance, it said. By the end of 2016, it said the average hourly wage for McDonald’s workers at those stores will be more than $10 an hour, up from $9 an hour. In addition to wage increases, McDonald’s says workers at company-owned stores will get paid time off. Employees who have worked for the company for at least a year and work an average of 20 hours a week will be eligible to accrue about 20 hours of paid time off a year. Workers who don’t take the time off will be paid for the value of that time, McDonald’s said. Kwanza Brooks, a McDonald’s worker in North Carolina, called the move “too little to make a real difference.” “Raising wages only a little for only a small fraction isn’t change. It’s a pure stunt,” she said in a conference call set up by labor organizers. McDonald’s U.S. business has been struggling, with sales and customers counts at established locations falling two years in a row. In January, the company named Steve Easterbrook, its chief brand officer, as its new CEO. That change took effect last month. “We know that a motivated workforce leads to better customer service so we believe this initial step not only benefits our employees, it will improve the McDonald’s restaurant experience,” Easterbrook said in a statement Wednesday. McDonald’s also said it is expanding benefits to help workers at company- and franchise-owned restaurants complete high school and college. It did not immediately provide details on that program.
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The Weekly News Digest, April 6, thruApril 13, 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 S t u a r t w o m a n s t i l l i n c r i t i c a l condition after multi-car crash on I-95 Palm Beach Post A 26-year-old Stuart woman remained in critical condition Thursday after she was injured in a multi-car crash that shut down a stretch of Interstate 95 in the Jupiter-Hobe Sound area for more than four hours Wednesday night, the Florida Highway Patro[...]
R o a d r a n g e r t r u c k s h i e l d s w o m a n ’s v e h i c l e i n I - 9 5 s h o u l d e r c r a s h 95 JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A road ranger’s truck may have very well saved a woman’s life. The ranger had stopped to help her when she had car trouble on Interstate 95, but then someone slammed into the truck, narrowly missing the ranger and the woman.[...]
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d r i v e r h i t s S o u t h i d a R o a d R a n g e r
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MIAMI (AP) - The Florida Highway Patrol says a Road Ranger is recovering after he was hit by a drunk driver on Interstate 95. The crash happened Sunday in the northbound lanes of I-95 in Miami.
F H P e x p e c t e d t o r e l e a s e m o r e i n f o a b o u t 6 - v e h i c l e I - 9 5 c r a s h Florida Highway Patrol is expected to release more information Thursday about an Interstate 95 crash that sent three people to the hospital and shut down northbound lanes for four and a half hours Wednesday.[...]
C r a s h w i t h i n j u r i e s s h u t s d o w n I - 9 5 n o r t h b o u n d l a n e s , t r o o p e r s s a y Injuries were reported in a crash that shut down the northbound lanes of Interstate 95 at Broward Boulevard, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. Troopers said the crash happened just before 11 p.m. Friday in Broward County. Check: Latest traffic[...]
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________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Weekly News Digest, April 6, thruApril 13, 2015
5
L I V E I N A P O R S C H E ? D E S I G N E R L A B E L S D R AW M I A M I H O M E B U Y E R S SUNNY ISLES BEACH, Florida (AP) -- The wow factor for Miami’s skyscraper condos no longer comes from a dazzling Atlantic Ocean view.
The developers enjoy a growing pool of wealth to target. Roughly 173,000 individuals worldwide are worth more than $30 million, a population that rose 3 percent last year, according to a report by Knight-Frank. Their numbers are forecast to swell an additional 34 percent over the next decade, meaning that more foreign buyers will be looking for homes in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and elsewhere.
It takes something more audacious to sell beachfront property these days to the global ultra-wealthy who arrive in Miami with millions to spend on second or third homes. It takes words invested with meaning in the language of the international jet set:
In setting up the Porsche Design Tower, Dezer identified and sent packages to 1,500 individuals with an affinity for the German automaker. The outreach produced 62 sales.
Porsche. Giorgio Armani. Fendi. With a slew of residential and hotel developments, Miami is embracing the notion that homes, like cars, handbags and jewelry, should carry luxe designer labels. The trend has spread from Europe, Asia and the Middle East, where developers discovered a few years ago that luxury-branded hotels and homes could command huge premiums that the moneyed set would happily pay. Having transformed New York and London, the wealthy are increasingly pursuing new havens. Miami is luring Argentinians, Brazilians, Chinese, Russians and French, some of whom seek refuge from political instability and higher taxes at home. The purchases go beyond the appeal of haute logos: Owning an asset priced in dollars can protect fortunes from the shrunken values of euros, pesos and rubles. The pull is so powerful that developer Gil Dezer’s Porsche Design Tower is mostly sold-out, even though construction won’t wrap until early 2016, meaning that most buyers committed millions based on blueprints.
More than 90 percent of the 132 condo units have been sold. Prices started at $4 million, with penthouses listed for above $30 million. The buyers are committing millions to a designer condo based on blueprints, models and animated videos. They agree to pay 50 percent of the purchase price in installments during construction - essentially financing the development on more generous terms than some banks would. This March 2, 2015 photo shows the view looking south from the under-construction Porsche Design Tower in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla. With a slew of residential and hotel developments, Miami is embracing the notion that homes, like cars, handbags and jewelry, should carry luxe designer labels.
Demand from European and South American buyers caused prices for the top 5 percent of homes around Miami Beach to surge 66 percent in the past year to $6.3 million, according to Redfin. That compares with a 5 percent increase in luxury prices nationwide. Miami Beach’s gains dwarfed the price increases of top-tier homes in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington D.C.
Shaped like a piston driven into sand, the concrete-and-glass Porsche Design Tower will contain three car elevators. Each can whisk a convertible up 60 stories and then slide it into the owner’s personal steel-reinforced garage. (The owner can stay in the driver’s seat.) Inside the apartments, curved windows capture a vista of waves billowing from a midnight blue into a pale green along the shore.
Global buyers are largely paying with cash. Some may be shifting their holdings from U.S. bank accounts after the IRS sought to reduce tax avoidance in 2012 by requiring banks to report interest earned on accounts held by foreigners. Those accounts are estimated to hold up to $400 billion, according to court filings.
For the designers and builders, the partnership offers dual rewards: The brands gain a revenue stream and enhance their caché. The developers and owners benefit from the allure of a treasured name and logo.
Two-thirds of sales in the Miami area were all-cash, compared with 48 percent in other U.S. markets with high proportions of international buyers, Redfin found. Nationwide, by contrast, all-cash sales accounted for only about a quarter of purchases in February, according to the National Association of Realtors.
“What we’re selling is luxury,” Dezer said. “The buyers already know the brand. They like the style, they like the look and that’s why they feel more comfortable buying it.” Dezer is also taking reservations for condos at the Armani Casa. The Chateau Group is building the Fendi Chateau (named for the Italian fashion house) steps from the Chanel, Gucci and Tiffany boutiques. Nearby is the Faena District, a condo, hotel and cultural center backed by Argentinian hotelier and fashion designer Alan Faena. Their emergence has spawned thousands of skilled construction jobs. Yet it’s also produced an epic surge in home prices. And it’s walled off Miami’s coastline behind a phalanx of skyscrapers that has isolated low- and middle-income residents. Many have had to buy farther and farther inland, said Aaron Drucker, a managing agent for Redfin, the real estate brokerage. “Locals are not really part of the party,” Drucker said. “It’s a little bittersweet for folks who aren’t going to be able to enjoy the beauty of Miami.”
HOT CARS continued from page 1
per gallon on the highway, while the sportier hatchback gets up to 37 mpg. Both cars hit showrooms in September. CHEVROLET MALIBU: If the sculpted new Malibu with a wide stance lives up to its looks, it could be another formidable entry in the midsize segment, the most competitive part of the U.S. auto market. A longer wheelbase creates more room inside the redesigned model, including 1.3 inches of additional rear-seat legroom, a big improvement. GM engineers say new midsize car underpinnings will enable the Malibu to handle better than the more expensive Buick Regal, which recently bested the BMW 3 Series to win top sports sedan honors from Consumer Reports. KIA OPTIMA: Kia is being cautious with the 2016 Optima midsize sedan, not wanting to mess with the car’s success. The new Optima is longer and wider, giving it more interior space and more cargo room in the trunk. It’s also stiffer, for better ride and handling. The big changes are on the dashboard. AndroidTM Auto and Apple CarPlay allow drivers to access core functions from their phones on the car’s display screens. There is a new 1.6-liter four-cylinder turbocharged engine with 178 horsepower, and Kia’s first-ever seven-speed transmission. The car goes on sale at the end of this year. The current Optima starts at $21,690. LUXURY/PERFORMANCE LEXUS RX: Toyota’s luxury brand revamps the top-selling luxury SUV in the U.S. for 2016. The RX gets a new aerodynamic look, an updated engine and a more spacious and luxurious interior. The sleeker outside makes the SUV quieter and more sure-footed at highway speeds, according to Lexus. The company says it upgraded the 3.5-Liter V6, pushing horsepower from 270 to 300. A new eight-speed automatic transmission boosts gas mileage. Lexus sold more than 107,000 RXs last year, up 3.4 percent from a year ago. The new RX goes on sale late this year. Pricing and fuel economy were not announced, but the RX 350 now starts around $41,000. JAGUAR XF: The sexy Jaguar XF sedan gets a makeover to look more like a coupe. Additional aluminum lightens the car by up to 265 pounds. The second generation of the car also gets a new supercharged V6 engine with 340 horsepower and 380 horsepower ratings. An updated suspension is designed to give the XF a more comfy ride, yet better handling than the current model. With an eight-speed automatic transmission, it can go from 0-60 mph in 5.1 seconds. Top speed is electronically limited to 155 mph. The current model starts around $50,000. The XF goes on sale in the winter of 2015. PORSCHE BOXSTER SPYDER: With the roar of 3.8-Liter, 375 horsepower flat six engine, Porsche introduced an open-top version of its latest Boxster model. Porsche says the Spyder is the fastest and most powerful Boxster ever. The car, with wide use of aluminum to make it lighter, can go from zero-to-60 in 3.8 seconds. Top speed for the two-seat Spyder is 180 miles per hour. The Boxster Spyder starts at $82,100. Orders are being taken now in the U.S. Expect delivery in four to five months. MCLAREN 570S: British supercar maker McLaren Automotive, best known for Formula One race cars, believes its ready to tackle the U.S. market with a decked-out luxury sports cars priced under $200,000. The 570S, a car that McLaren says will merge racing technology with day-to-day driving at a price around $190,000, goes on sale in November. The mid-engine, rear-drive 570S has a carbon fiber chassis and a 562 horsepower, 3.8-Liter turbocharged V8. It can go from zero to 62 mph in 3.2 seconds and has a top speed of 204 mph. Just what you need for the daily commute.
A result is that the demand for branded condos is far outpacing the fundamentals of a Miami-area economy that’s still recovering from the housing bust. Over the past year, average hourly wages in metro Miami have risen just 1.3 percent to $22.74 an hour, according to the Labor Department, below national averages. “The typical metrics used to measure real estate markets - such as local job growth - don’t apply here,” said Neisen Kasdin, a former Miami Beach mayor and lawyer who represents developers of the Faena District. “I’ve never seen this congregation of wealth before.” Branded homes are helping attract some buyers who weren’t familiar with Miami’s luxury housing, said Liam Bailey, global head of research at the London-based real estate consultancy Knight Frank. “There is a marketing benefit of having a brand that is recognized outside the market,” Bailey said. “There is an element of trust.”
Just the idea of the car elevator was enough to persuade Juan Pablo Verdiquio to buy at the Porsche Design Tower. “I took a leap of faith,” said Verdiquio, who had moved to Miami from Argentina a few years earlier and launched a construction business. In the end, he decided the condo he had bought for vacations was lacking as a year-round family home. For Verdiquio, who drives a Porsche 911 4S, the tower seemed a perfect fit. So he bought an apartment. But then Dezer also showed him the blueprints for the Armani building, whose architect, Argentine Cesar Pelli, known for designing the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, Verdiquio admired. The prices, starting at $1.5 million, were less extravagant. So Verdiquio bought a unit there, too. He expects the designer labels to carry weight from Shanghai to Sao Paulo, giving his apartments more value than one with an ordinary name chosen by a developer. “I think it’s going to be a huge landmark for Miami and, I think, worldwide,” Verdiquio said. Yet Dezer also pitches Miami as a bargain compared with other global cities. The average Miami Beach condo sells for roughly $760 a square foot, according to the brokerage Christie’s International. That makes it cheaper than a comparable pad in Monaco, New York City, London, Moscow, Paris and Beijing. With only so much oceanfront, the condos should become a scarce resource that appreciates over time, Dezer said. This makes these buildings a store of value, though association fees and taxes can cost $300,000 a year, according to estimates by the real estate lawyer Kasdin. In some cases, the condo has even insulated buyers from the devaluation of foreign currencies against the dollar. A Russian who bought a $1 million home in Miami last year would have spent the equivalent of 34 million rubles. Because the ruble has plunged since then, that home is worth roughly 60 million rubles. A similar trend has played out for the euro, the Brazilian real and the Colombian peso.
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The Weekly News Digest, April 6, thruApril 13, 2015
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IRAQ HAILS VICTORY OVER ISLAMIC S TAT E E X T R E M I S T S I N T I K R I T homes,” al-Ghabban said. He said the government will help displaced residents return and that a civil defense unit will be combing the city for roadside bombs and car bombs.
TIKRIT, Iraq (AP) -- The government declared victory in Tikrit on Wednesday over extremists of the Islamic State group, and it warned the militants holding other Iraqi provinces that they would be the next to fall.
“Daesh is completely defeated,” he added, using an Arabic name for the group.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi walked triumphantly along a street in Tikrit, carrying an Iraqi flag and surrounded by jubilant forces.
A satellite image of Tikrit, released in February by the U.N., showed at least 536 buildings in the city have been affected by the fighting. Of those, at least 137 were destroyed and 241 were severely damaged. The current offensive also exacerbated previous damage, particularly in the south where clashes have been the most intense.
Across the border in Syria, however, Islamic State fighters made their deepest foray yet into the capital of Damascus by infiltrating a Palestinian refugee camp, according to opposition activists and Palestinian officials. Iraq’s victory over the extremists in Tikrit was seen as a key step toward eventually driving the militants out of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city and the capital of Nineveh province. Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi announced the victory, saying security forces have “accomplished their mission” in the monthlong offensive to rid Saddam Hussein’s hometown and the broader Salahuddin province of the militant group. “We have the pleasure, with all our pride, to announce the good news of a magnificent victory,” Obeidi said in a video statement, and he named the other Iraqi provinces still being held by the IS militants. “Here we come to you, Anbar! Here we come to you, Nineveh, and we say it with full resolution, confidence, and persistence,” he said. Al-Abadi said that military engineering units still need more time to clear Tikrit of booby traps and looked to the next steps for the city and province. “God willing, there will be a fund to rebuild areas destroyed by Daesh and the war. Tikrit and Salahuddin areas will be covered by this fund,” al-Abadi said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. The extremists seized Tikrit last summer during its advance out of Syria and across northern and western Iraq. Iraqi forces, including soldiers, police officers, Shiite militias and Sunni tribes, launched a large-scale operation to recapture Tikrit on March 2. Last week, the U.S. launched airstrikes on the embattled city at the request of the Iraqi government. Recapturing Tikrit is seen as the biggest win so far for Baghdad’s Shiite-led government. The city is about 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad on the road connecting the capital to Mosul. Retaking it
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi tours the city of Tikrit after it was retaken by the security forces in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, April 1, 2015. Iraq declared a “magnificent victory” over the Islamic State group in Tikrit, a key step in driving the militants out of their biggest strongholds.
will help Iraqi forces have a major supply link for any future operation against Mosul. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the victory was compelling evidence that the U.S. strategy against IS was working. He said the Tikrit operation had been stalled for weeks but that coalition airstrikes and advancing local forces apparently caused IS fighters to withdraw. “What is clear is that over the last five days, this strategy of backing up Iraqi security forces that are multisectarian in nature with coalition airstrikes is a pretty powerful combination,” Earnest said. Earlier Wednesday, Iraqi security forces fired on snipers and searched homes for remaining militants. Soldiers fanned out from the charred, skeletal remains of the Salahuddin provincial government complex, captured Tuesday. Militant mortar fire, which had been intense in previous days, fell silent Wednesday, with commanders saying only a few militant snipers remained in the city. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations. The objective, said Interior Minister Mohammed Salem al-Ghabban, is now to restore normalcy as quickly as possible. “After clearing the area from roadside bombs and car bombs, we will reopen police stations to restore normalcy in the city, and we will form committees to supervise the return of people displaced from their
I N M AT E O V E R P O W E R S G U A R D , E S C A P E S FROM EASTERN ILLINOIS JAIL This undated photo provided by the Kankakee County Sheriff’s Office shows Kamron T. Taylor. Taylor, a convicted murderer awaiting sentencing, escaped early Wednesday, April 1, 2015, from the Jerome Combs Detention Center in Kankakee, Ill., after overpowering a guard and taking his keys, uniform and SUV.
KANKAKEE, Ill. (AP) -- A convicted murderer awaiting sentencing escaped from a jail in eastern Illinois Wednesday after beating a guard into unconsciousness, taking his keys and uniform and speeding off in his SUV. Kamron T. Taylor, who has a history of escape attempts, fled from the Jerome Combs Detention Center in Kankakee at about 3 a.m. He somehow escaped from his cell, hid inside the facility and then beat and choked the guard who was making rounds, said Kankakee County Sheriff Timothy Bukowski. Taylor, a 23-year-old from Kankakee, is considered armed and dangerous, the sheriff said. Heightening the sense of urgency, authorities issued a missing person alert Wednesday afternoon for a 15-year-old girl who they believe may be with Taylor. The relationship between the girl and Taylor was unclear, but she’s considered to be in danger, Chief Deputy Ken McCabe said. The alert described her as white, 5 feet 7 inches tall, and 160 pounds with brown eyes. She was wearing a black jacket and black jeans. Besides hunting him down, investigators are eager to determine how Taylor got free in what was the first successful escape from the decade-old lockup housing about 450 detainees. “The speculation on my part is somebody didn’t do their job properly,” Bukowski said. After getting free of his two-man cell in a lockdown unit, Taylor hid out and attacked the guard, a military veteran with 10 years of correctional experience, Bukowski said. By wearing the guard’s uniform, Taylor was able to fool other guards in a master control room who opened three sets of doors for him after visual verification by surveillance video, Bukowski said. Once outside, the suspect repeatedly pressed the guard’s key fob to locate his Chevrolet Equinox in a parking lot and drive away. Authorities didn’t learn of the escape until about 30 minutes later when jail staff found the wounded officer, who is hospitalized in intensive care with head wounds. “He was in and out of consciousness, unable to understand the ques-
tions that were given to him,” Bukowski said of the guard at a news conference. A few hours after sunrise, officers found the abandoned SUV in a residential area of Kankakee and approached the vehicle with their guns drawn. But Taylor was nowhere to be found and it wasn’t clear whether he fled on foot or someone picked him up in another vehicle, the sheriff said. Jail staffing levels and procedures will be re-examined, but Bukowski said Taylor’s history of violence and previous escape attempts didn’t necessarily single him out for stricter security measures. “It raises an alert, I guess,” he said. “But you figure the people that are locked up in our facility aren’t altar boys and you take certain precautions for all of them. And you can’t become complacent with anybody ... especially a murderer.” During his trial in February, Taylor tried to escape from the courthouse minutes after hearing the guilty verdict. Several sheriff’s deputies and bailiffs wrestled him to the ground, and Taylor shouted expletives at the gallery as they led him away, according to a report in The (Kankakee) Daily Journal. He also escaped briefly after his arrest in 2013 but was detained several blocks away, the newspaper reported at the time. Taylor was found guilty of first-degree murder for the June 2013 shooting death of 21-year-old Nelson Williams Jr. during a botched robbery at Williams’ home in Kankakee. He faces a sentence of 45 years to life.
Parliament speaker Salim al-Jabouri urged the government to find the means to resettle residents from damaged Tikrit buildings. He said this “requires effort and support by the central government in order to financially support the people in rebuilding their houses.” Aziz Jaber, a political science professor at Baghdad’s Mustansiriyah University, said retaking Tikrit could be seen as the “beginning of the end” for the Islamic State group in Iraq. “Daesh was very talented in psychological warfare, but not any more after its defeat in Tikrit,” he said. “Now, the morale of the Iraqi forces is high, while that of Daesh is low.” In the fighting in Syria, where Islamic State militants control large parts of the north, the extremists entered the Palestinian refugee camp in the capital of Damascus from the nearby Hajar Aswad neighborhood. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the IS group took control of large parts of the Yarmouk camp. If they gain full control, they can potentially threaten the heart of Damascus, the seat of President Bashar Asssad’s power. The Observatory reported heavy clashes in the camp between IS fighters and members of an anti-Assad Palestinian faction called Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis. Yarmouk, a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Damascus, has been under government siege for nearly two years. U.N. aid workers have been sending food parcels into the camp, where thousands of civilians remain trapped and in desperate need of food and medicine. The camp had seen fighting in the past between government forces and militants who control much of the camp. Anwar Raja, the spokesman for the pro-Assad Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command, said IS fighters had been based in the Hajar Aswad neighborhood for months. He said Wednesday’s push into the camp showed coordination between IS and a rival group, the Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s branch in Syria. “The Nusra Front opened the road for them in order to infiltrate the camp and several hours ago they entered Yarmouk,” Raja said by telephone.
MASSIVE FIRE ENGULFS MEXICAN OIL RIG, 4 DEAD MEXICO CITY (AP) -- A massive ball of flames engulfed an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, killing four people and sending terrified workers jumping into the sea. State-run oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said there was no evidence yet of a major oil spill following the blast, which injured 16 workers, two seriously, and forced the evacuation of 300. Fleets of helicopters ferried workers with bandaged hands and faces, and burn marks on their overalls to the nearby city of Ciudad del Carmen, where crowds of concerned relatives of oil workers thronged outside hospitals. A survivor of the blaze on the shallow-water Abkatun Permanente platform in the Campeche Sound said workers “jumped into the sea out of desperation and panic.” “There was nothing you could do but run,” said Roger Arias Sanchez, an employee of Pemex contractor Cotemar who escaped the burning platform in an evacuation boat. Eight firefighting boats were trying to extinguish the fire, said Pemex. Mexico’s Energy Security Agency said the fire “is being extinguished.” President Enrique Pena Nieto said the causes of the accident are under investigation. Pena said he had issued orders “to carry out the appropriate investigations to find whoever is responsible, but above all, to avoid this type of accident in the future.” On its Twitter account Wednesday afternoon, Pemex raised the death toll from one to four. Many of the injured appeared to be Cotemar employees. Pemex’s media office said it was unclear whether any significant amount of oil had spilled from the Abkatun Permanente platform, which largely serves to separate gas, oil and other petroleum products, and pump them to refineries onshore. Previous spills from Mexican facilities had usually occurred at active offshore wells, not processing stations such as Abkatun. The Abkatun platform lies off the coast of the states of Campeche and Tabasco. It is further out to sea than the platform involved in the last severe fire in the area, the 2007 fire at the Kab 121 offshore rig. That accident was caused by high waves that hit the rig, sending a boom crashing into an oil platform’s valve assembly. The blaze killed at least 21 workers and the rig spilled crude and natural gas for almost two months. Mexico’s worst major spill in the Gulf was in June 1979, when an offshore drilling rig in Mexican waters - the Ixtoc I - blew up, releasing 140 million gallons of oil. It took Pemex and a series of U.S. contractors nearly nine months to cap the well, and a great deal of the oil contaminated Mexican and U.S. waters. Pemex has had serious security problems in the past, mainly in its onshore pipeline network, where thieves drilled around 2,500 illegal taps in the first nine months of 2104, and stole more than $1 billion in fuel. That problem got so bad that in February, the company announced it would no longer ship finished, usable gasoline or diesel through pipelines. That apparently hasn’t stopped the thieves, though. On Wednesday, federal police announced they had seized three tanker trucks and 148,000 liters (39,100 gallons) of stolen fuel at several different sites throughout the country, as well as locating two illegal pipeline taps.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Weekly News Digest, April 6, thruApril 13, 2015
7
I S E N T E R S PA L E S T I N I A N C A M P I N DAMASCUS; JORDAN CLOSES BORDER
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- Islamic State militants infiltrated a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus on Wednesday and were clashing with a Palestinian group, the deepest foray yet by the extremist group into the Syrian capital, seat of President Bashar Assad’s power, according to opposition activists and Palestinian officials.
The Nasib crossing is the only functioning crossing between Jordan and Syria and is considered a crucial gateway for Syria’s government and for Syrian, Lebanese and Jordanian traders and merchants.
Jordan, meanwhile, closed its only functioning border crossing with Syria, following heavy clashes on the Syrian side between rebels and government forces.
A Syrian Foreign Ministry statement on Wednesday said it holds Jordanian authorities responsible for “obstructing the movement of trucks and passengers and any ensuing economic or social repercussions.”
Islamic State fighters, who control large swaths of territory in northern Syria, entered the Yarmouk camp from the nearby Hajar Aswad neighborhood. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the IS group took control of large parts of the camp. If they gain full control, they can potentially threaten the heart of the capital. The Observatory reported heavy clashes in the camp between IS fighters and members of an anti-Assad Palestinian faction called Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis. Anwar Raja, the spokesman for the pro-Assad Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command, said that IS fighters had been based in the Hajar Aswad neighborhood for months. He said Wednesday’s push into the camp showed coordination between IS and a rival group, the Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s branch in Syria. “The Nusra Front opened the road for them in order to infiltrate the camp and several hours ago they entered Yarmouk,” Raja said by telephone. It was not immediately clear why Nusra would facilitate the entry of IS into the camp. Yarmouk, a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Damascus, has been under government siege for nearly two years. U.N. aid workers have been sending food parcels into the camp, where thousands of civilians remain trapped and in desperate need of food and medicine. The camp had witnessed fighting in the past between government forces and militants who control much of the camp. The U.N. agency that supports Palestinians, known as UNRWA, said it was extremely concerned about the safety and protection of the Syrian and Palestinian civilians in Yarmouk, particularly the children.
Also Wednesday, a Nusra Front leader said that a Syrian city captured from government forces last week would be ruled according to Islamic law, or Sharia.
This picture taken on Jan. 31, 2014, and released by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), shows residents of the besieged Palestinian camp of Yarmouk, queuing to receive food supplies, in Damascus, Syria. On Wednesday, April. 1, 2015 Islamic State militants infiltrated the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in the Syrian capital marking the deepest foray yet by the extremist group into Damascus, seat of President Bashar Assad’s power, Syrian opposition activists and Palestinian officials said.
“Credible information from public sources indicate that a variety of armed groups are engaged in fierce fighting in areas where Yarmouk’s 18,000 civilians, including a large number of children reside, placing them at extreme risk of death, serious injury, trauma and displacement,” the agency said in a statement. It demanded “an end to the fighting and a return to conditions that will enable its staff to support and assist Yarmouk’s civilians.”
“It is such an unprecedented lack of snow, it is way, way below records,” said Frank Gehrke, chief of snow surveys for the California Department of Water Resources. Brown previously declared a drought emergency and stressed the need for sustained water conservation, but the Democratic governor has come under increasing pressure to be more aggressive as the state enters its fourth year of drought.
The move will affect residents, businesses, farmers and other users. “We’re in a historic drought and that demands unprecedented action,” Brown said at a news conference at Echo Summit in the Sierra Nevada, where state water officials found no snow on the ground for the first time in their manual survey of the snowpack. “We have to pull together and save water in every way we can.” Brown’s order follows previous cutbacks imposed by the water board. It will require campuses, golf courses, cemeteries and other large landscapes to significantly cut water use; direct local governments to replace 50 million square feet of lawns throughout the state with drought-tolerant landscaping; and create a temporary rebate program for consumers who replace old water-sucking appliances with more efficient ones. “We’re in a new era; the idea of your nice little green grass getting water every day, that’s going to be a thing of the past,” Brown said. The order calls on local water agencies to implement tiered water pricing that charges higher rates as more water is used and requires agricultural users to report more water use information to state regulators. Brown’s office said that would boost the state’s ability to enforce laws against illegal water diversions and water waste. The order also prohibits new homes and developments from using drinkable water for irrigation if the structures lack water-efficient drip systems. In addition, the watering of decorative grasses on public street medians is banned. The snowpack has been in decline all year, and Wednesday’s survey showed
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) -- Sierra Leone found 10 new Ebola cases during a three-day countrywide shutdown, an official said Wednesday, declaring that the West African country is now at the "tail end" of the epidemic.
A spokesman for rebels in southern Syria, Issam al-Rayess, confirmed that rebel fighters were trying to take control of the border crossing from Syrian authorities.
Snow supplies about a third of the state’s water, and a lower snowpack means less water in California reservoirs to meet demand in summer and fall. There was no snow at the site of Wednesday’s manual survey near Echo Summit, about 90 miles east of Sacramento.
Standing in dry, brown grass at a site that he said normally would be snow-covered this time of year, Brown announced he had signed an executive order requiring the State Water Resources Control Board to implement measures in cities and towns to cut the state’s overall water usage by 25 percent compared with 2013 levels.
10 EBOLA CASES FOUND DURING SIERRA LEONE’S SHUTDOWN
“It is important for us to keep the safety for the passengers and those who are trying to cross between the two countries,” he said. “So we decided to close the border temporarily, until things calm down. Then we will open it again.”
the statewide snow water is equivalent to 5 percent of the historical average for April 1 and the lowest for that date since the state began record-keeping in 1950.
ECHO LAKE, Calif. (AP) -- California Gov. Jerry Brown ordered officials Wednesday to impose statewide mandatory water restrictions for the first time in history as surveyors found the lowest snow level in the Sierra Nevada snowpack in 65 years of record-keeping.
A group of rebels led by the Nusra Front and the ultra-conservative Ahrar al-Sham group seized Idlib from government officials Saturday, after a four-day assault.
Meanwhile, Jordanian government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani told The Associated Press that the Nasib crossing was temporarily closed late Tuesday because of clashes nearby.
CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR ORDERS M A N D A T O R Y WA T E R R E S T R I C T I O N S
Gov. Jerry Brown, center, talks Mark Cowin, left, Director of the California Department of Water Resources and Frank Gehrke, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program for the DWR, on a snow barren meadow where the snow survey is held near Echo Summit, Calif., Wednesday, April 1, 2015. Gehrke said this was the first time since he has been conducting the survey that he found no snow at this location at this time of the year. Brown and Cowin attended this snow survey to see the conditions for themselves and later Brown announced that he signed an executive order requiring the state water board to implement measures in cities and towns to cut water usage by 25 percent compared with 2013 levels.
In an audio recording released by the group online, Abu Muhammed al-Golani also indicated the group does not seek to monopolize power in the northwestern city of Idlib, and called for the protection of state institutions and property.
In the past year, the state water board has imposed mandatory water-saving restrictions on urban users that prohibit sprinklers running off onto pavement, bans residents from watering lawns two days after rain, and bars restaurants from serving water unless customers ask for it. Wednesday’s order has fewer provisions addressing the state’s biggest user of water: agriculture. There is no water reduction target for farmers, who have let thousands of acres go fallow as the state and federal government slashed water deliveries from reservoirs. Instead, the order requires many agricultural water suppliers to submit detailed drought management plans that include how much water they have and what they’re doing to scale back. After the previous drought, state officials acknowledge that some suppliers did not submit similar required plans in 2009. Mark Cowin, director of the Department of Water Resources, said the state will provide money to make sure the plans are written and may penalize those who do not comply. The state is not aiming to go after water-guzzling crops such as almonds and rice the same way Brown has condemned lawns. “We’re not at the point yet where we are going to declare the irrigation of any particular crop `waste and unreasonable use,’” Cowin said.
Hundreds of sick people were identified on Friday, Saturday and Sunday as health teams went door-to-door in an operation that also aimed to remind people how to prevent Ebola. But only 10 of the sick eventually tested positive for the disease, said Alfred Palo Conteh, the head of the country's Ebola response. That figure indicates that there were not hordes of hidden Ebola cases as some had feared. By contrast, during a three-day shutdown in September, when the epidemic was raging, more than 260 new cases were found. "The fact that there weren't that many cases after this effort, I think that's a great sign," said Dr. Dan Jernigan of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Conteh said Sierra Leone had "conquered the Ebola disease and we are now at the tail end." But others have cautioned that there is still much to be done to get rid of the disease in the country. In fact, the three-day shutdown was meant to remind people that the outbreak is not over and to fight complacency. Conteh himself said the shutdown revealed that some traditional leaders are still conducting unsafe burials. The bodies of people who have died from Ebola are particularly contagious, so they must be handled with extreme care; traditional burials, where people touch the dead, have been a major source of new infections. The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed around 10,500 people, the vast majority in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
G U I D E TO NEW YORK continued from page 1
specials that pay-TV subscribers can find on the HBO Go app will be available for Sling TV’s HBO subscribers. That means you can watch as many “Sex and the City” episodes as you want in one sitting or watch the latest “Game of Thrones” episode later in the week if you missed it on Sunday night. HBO on Sling TV is supposed to start in time for the season premiere of “Game of Thrones” on April 12, but there’s no specific launch date yet.
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 6, thruApril 13, 2015
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I R A N N U C L E A R T A L K S N E A R DEADLINE; DIFFERENCES REMAIN Tuesday only if there was a realistic chance for a deal.
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) -- Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program reached a critical phase Monday with diplomats struggling to overcome substantial differences just a day before a deadline for the outline of an agreement.
Meanwhile, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told Iranian state television that the talks were not likely to reach any conclusion until “tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.”
With Tuesday’s target date for a framework accord just hours away, the top diplomats from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany were meeting with Iran to try to bridge remaining gaps and hammer out an understanding that would serve as the basis for a final accord to be reached by the end of June.
“We are not still in the position to be able to say we are close to resolving the (remaining) issues but we are hopeful and we’ll continue the efforts,” he said. The Obama administration says any deal will stretch the time Iran needs to make a nuclear weapon from the present two to three months to at least a year. But critics object that it would keep Tehran’s nuclear technology intact.
“We are working late into the night and obviously into tomorrow,” said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who has been meeting with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Lausanne since Thursday in an intense effort to reach a political understanding on terms that would curb Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. “There is a little more light there today, but there are still some tricky issues,” Kerry said. “Everyone knows the meaning of tomorrow.” Kerry and others at the table said the sides have made some progress, with Iran considering demands for further cuts to its uranium enrichment program but pushing back on how long it must limit technology it could use to make atomic arms. In addition to sticking points on research and development, differences remain on the timing and scope of sanctions removal, the officials said. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Iran’s expectations from the talks are “very ambitious” and not yet acceptable to his country or the other five negotiating: the U.S., Britain, China, France and Russia. “We will not allow a bad deal,” he said. “We will only arrive at a document that is ready to sign if it ... excludes Iran getting access to nuclear
Shiite militiamen guard at the front line in Tikrit, 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, March 25, 2015. At Iraq’s request, the U.S. began airstrikes in Tikrit on Wednesday in support of a stalled Iraqi ground offensive to retake the city from Islamic State fighters, a senior U.S. official said.
weapons. We have not yet cleared this up.” In particular, Steinmeier said the question of limits on research and development that Iran would be allowed to continue was problematic. Other officials said the issue of the scope and timing of sanctions relief was also a major sticking point. In a tweet, Gerard Araud, the French ambassador to the United States, said that “very substantial problems remain to be solved.” In a sign that the talks would go down to the wire on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov left, just a day after arriving, to return to Moscow. His spokeswoman said he would will return to Lausanne on
1 1 AT L A N TA E D U C AT O R S C O N V I C T E D I N T E S T C H E AT I N G S C A N D A L for organized crime.
The entire process was lengthy: The months-long trial began in August with more than six weeks of jury selection, and testimony concluded in late February. The criminal investigation by the Fulton County district attorney’s office lasted nearly two years. The investigation involved at least 50 schools as well as hundreds of interviews with school administrators, staff, parents and students. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said it was the biggest and most complex case his office had ever handled. “Our entire effort in this case was simply to get our community to stop and take a look at the education system,” Howard said. ATLANTA (AP) -- Eleven former Atlanta public school educators were convicted Wednesday of racketeering for their role in a wide-ranging conspiracy to inflate scores on students’ standardized tests. Only one teacher was acquitted of all charges. The 11 convicted represented teachers, testing coordinators and other administrators who were accused of participating in the conspiracy dating to 2005, motivated by pressure to meet federal and local standards to receive bonuses or keep their jobs in the Atlanta Public Schools district of about 50,000 students. A state investigation in 2011 found that educators gave answers to students or changed answers on tests after they were turned in. Evidence of cheating was found in 44 schools with nearly 180 educators involved, and investigators found teachers who tried to report it faced retaliation. A grand jury indicted 35 educators in March 2013 on charges including racketeering, false statements and theft. Many reached plea agreements, and some testified at the trial. Superintendent Beverly Hall never went to trial, successfully arguing she was too sick to mount a defense. She died last month of breast cancer.
The cheating came to light after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that some scores were statistically improbable. Hall served as superintendent for more than a decade, which is rare for an urban schools chief. She was named Superintendent of the Year by the American Association of School Administrators in 2009 and credited with raising student test scores and graduation rates, particularly among the district’s poor and minority students. But the award quickly lost its luster as her district became mired in the scandal.
“But we do not shut our eyes, and we will continue to act against any threat,” he said, an allusion to Israeli warnings that it will use force as a last resort against Tehran’s nuclear program. Officials in Lausanne said the sides were advancing on limits to aspects of Iran’s program to enrich uranium, which can be used to make the core of a nuclear warhead. Tehran has said it is willing to address concerns about its stockpiles of enriched uranium, although it has denied that will involve shipping it out of the country, as some Western officials have said. One official said on Monday that Iran might deal with the issue by diluting its stocks to a level that would not be weapons grade. A senior State Department official said that shipping the stockpile is one of the “viable options that have been under discussion for months ... but resolution is still being discussed.” Uranium enrichment has been the chief concern in over more than a decade of international attempts to cap Iran’s nuclear programs. But a Western official said the main obstacles to a deal were no longer enrichment-related but instead the type and length of restrictions on Tehran’s research and development of advanced centrifuges and the pace of sanctions-lifting. Both demanded anonymity - the State Department official in line with U.S. briefing rules and the Western official because he was not authorized to discuss the emerging deal. Over the past weeks, Iran has moved from demanding that it be allowed to keep nearly 10,000 centrifuges enriching uranium, to agreeing to 6,000. The officials said Tehran now may be ready to accept even fewer. Tehran says it wants to enrich only for energy, science, industry and medicine. But many countries fear Iran could use the technology to make weapons-grade uranium.
WHO’S WHO I N M U SI C STREAMING: TIDAL, SPOTIFY, PANDORA & MORE
In a video message to schools staff before she retired, Hall warned that the state investigation launched by former Gov. Sonny Perdue would likely reveal “alarming” behavior. “It’s become increasingly clear that a segment of our staff chose to violate the trust that was placed in them,” Hall said. “There is simply no excuse for unethical behavior and no room in this district for unethical conduct. I am confident that aggressive, swift action will be taken against anyone who believed so little in our students and in our system of support that they turned to dishonesty as the only option.”
a model wears SMS Audio BioSport In-Ear Headphones at the Intel booth during the International CES, in Las Vegas. With paid subscriptions to music streaming services like Tidal, Spotify, Pandora and others, you can listen to as many songs as you want on a variety of personal computers,
NEW YORK (AP) -- Since Apple shook up the music world with iTunes a little more than a decade ago, online music has exploded and become the central way many people enjoy and discover music. Internet services such as Pandora and Spotify have millions of users. Now, several high-profile musicians are behind what’s being billed as the first artist-owned music-streaming service.
Hall insisted she was innocent and had no part in any cheating. But the educators said she was among those pressuring them to inflate students’ scores to show gains in achievement - which were needed to meet federal benchmarks tied to extra funding. Defense attorneys argued those convicted should remain free until sentencing because they don’t have prior records, have community ties and showed up to trial every day. However, only one was allowed to remain free on bond - teacher Shani Robinson - because she is expecting to give birth soon.
Tidal isn’t new, but it’s getting a reboot from rapper Jay-Z, who bought the Scandinavian company behind it, Aspiro. Madonna, Rihanna and Beyonce are among the co-owners. That’s notable because many artists complain about how little payment they get from other music services, such as Spotify. As owners, artists could insist on better deals.
“They are convicted felons as far as I’m concerned,” said Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter.
There are now three main ways to get music, and many services offer a blend:
“They have made their bed and they’re going to have to lie in it.”
- Pay per song. Apple’s iTunes has made it easy to buy singles or albums. Many artists release new albums early through iTunes. Google and Amazon now compete, but the premise remains the same: Buy songs or albums to own forever.
Bob Rubin, the defense attorney for former elementary school principal Dana Evans, said he was angry the judge decided to take the convicted former educators into custody immediately. “I am shocked that he felt it necessary to do that,” Rubin said. “I felt it to be unnecessary and vindictive.” Prosecutors said the 12 former educators on trial were looking out for themselves, seeking bonuses for higher test scores rather than worrying about the education of the children they were charged with teaching. Defense attorneys said their clients were caught up in an overly broad prosecution that overreached in charging them with violating racketeering laws most often used
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at the forefront of accusations that Iran helped Shiite rebels advance in Yemen, says the deal in the works sends the message that “there is a reward for Iran’s aggression.”
POTECTING SPEICIES worldwildlife.org
- Unlimited listening. For a monthly subscription of about $10, you can listen to as many songs as you want on a variety of personal computers, phones, tablets and other devices. Many also let you download songs for offline playback. Once you stop paying, though, you lose all your songs, even ones you’ve already downloaded. Some offer free versions with ads and other restrictions, such as song selection only on PCs. - Internet radio. You can’t choose specific songs or artists, as you can
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The Weekly News Digest, April 6, thruApril 13, 2015
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L A T E S T O N N S A S H O O T I N G : DRIVER REFUSED ORDERS TO STOP
4:20 p.m.
appear to be linked to terrorism.
Mary Phelan, a spokeswoman for the Howard County Police Department, says the car involved in the NSA shooting was stolen Monday morning from a hotel in Jessup, Maryland. She declined to name the hotel, citing the ongoing investigation, or release any further details, referring all questions to the FBI.
Authorities say at least one of the men in the car has died. Noon Aerial images of the scene at a National Security Agency gate at Fort Meade shows that a white SUV marked “NSA Police” is damaged, with its front end crumpled and the hood up. The other damaged vehicle is a dark, unmarked sport utility vehicle.
3:55 p.m. Authorities aren’t saying yet why two men dressed as women tried to enter the National Security Agency’s campus at Fort Meade, Maryland without permission shortly before 9 a.m. Monday. But the NSA has issued a statement providing a point by point description of what happened next.
11:50 a.m. The FBI says the shooting at the NSA gate is not believed to be related to terrorism.
NSA Spokesman Jonathan Freed said in a statement that an agency officer gave the driver “routine instructions for safely exiting the secure campus,” but the driver disobeyed them, so barriers were deployed. Freed says the driver then accelerated toward an NSA Police vehicle blocking the road, and that police fired at them when the driver refused to stop, crashing into the police vehicle. One person inside the unauthorized vehicle died at the scene of causes that were not immediately determined. The other was hospitalized, as was one police officer. The NSA statement does not mention anyone other than NSA police firing a weapon. 2:15 p.m. The National Security Agency says one of its officers fired on a car whose driver refused to obey instructions for safely exiting a restricted area. An NSA statement says two people were in the vehicle that attempted to make an unauthorized entry to the agency’s campus at Fort Meade, Maryland.
FBI spokeswoman Amy J. Thoreson said in an email Monday that the shooting scene is contained. She says the agency is working with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland to determine if federal charges are warranted. A Maryland State Police cruiser sits at a blocked southbound entrance on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway that accesses the National Security Agency, Monday, March 30, 2015, in Fort Meade, Md. A spokeswoman at Fort Meade says two people have been injured near a gate to the NSA.
civilian employees.
One man was killed and another critically injured after officials said they tried to ram their SUV through a gate that serves as the entrance to the NSA just off the scenic Baltimore-Washington Parkway. Aerial video of the crime scene showed emergency workers loading an injured man in uniform into an ambulance. Two senior government officials told The Associated Press that one of the men in the dark, unmarked SUV was killed. 12:45 p.m.
The agency says “the driver then failed to obey an NSA Police officer’s routine instructions for safely exiting the secure campus. The vehicle failed to stop and barriers were deployed.”
FBI agents from Baltimore are investigating a firefight Monday morning outside a gate at the National Security Agency, where two men dressed as women apparently tried to force their sport utility vehicle past security.
The agency says the unauthorized vehicle then accelerated toward an NSA Police vehicle blocking the road, and police fired at them when the driver refused to stop, crashing into the police vehicle.
The shooting happened outside the NSA’s campus in Fort Meade, Maryland, just off Interstate 295 in Anne Arundel County.
The agency says one person inside the unauthorized vehicle died at the scene, while the other was taken to a local hospital with injuries. One police officer also was injured and hospitalized. 1:20 p.m. Fort Meade’s commander says one person was killed and another injured when they tried to drive a vehicle into the National Security Agency portion of the installation without authorization. A statement from Col. Brian Foley says NSA personnel prevented the two from gaining access to the campus of intelligence agencies. Foley also says that the shooting is contained and under investigation. He says “the residents, service members and civilian employees at the installation are safe” and that Fort Meade will “continue to remain vigilant at all of our access control points.”
FBI spokeswoman Amy Thoreson says an “Evidence Response Team” is processing the crime scene and that FBI agents are interviewing witnesses. The FBI will then work with federal prosecutors in Maryland to see if charges are warranted. 12:40 p.m. Another building on the NSA campus was damaged by gunfire earlier this month. Authorities captured a man March 3 who they believe fired that night on the NSA site, as well as earlier at several nearby places and two moving vehicles. The suspect in that case, Hong Young, told police he heard voices directing him to fire on one of the occupied vehicles. 12:20 p.m.
1 p.m.
A senior defense department official says the two men who tried to ram their sport utility vehicle through a gate at the National Security Agency were dressed as women.
The FBI is taking the lead investigating a deadly firefight outside Fort Meade, one of the most secure locations near the nation’s capital.
The official says Defense Secretary Ash Carter has been briefed on the situation, which is being investigated by the FBI.
The fortified campus includes the National Security Agency, the Defense Information systems Agency and the U.S. Cyber Command. The post is the largest single employer in Maryland, with offices for about 11,000 military personnel and 29,000
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is still developing. FBI spokeswoman Amy J. Thoreson says the scene is contained and that it does not
GETTY OIL HEIR FOUND DEAD WROTE O F S E R I O U S H E A LT H P R O B L E M physician.” A law enforcement official briefed on the investigation said that Getty had been complaining of stomach pain in the days prior. Another official with knowledge of the investigation said authorities found prescription medications and “injectables” at the home, where court records indicate he had lived for 18 years. The officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
A police officer creates a perimeter outside a home in the Hollywood Hills area of Los Angeles, Tuesday, March 31, 2015. Police say a man was found dead at the home of Andrew Getty, heir to Getty oil fortune.
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Andrew Getty, among the heirs in a family whose name is synonymous with elite American wealth, said in a court filing before he was found dead that he suffered from a serious health problem that could endanger his life. Getty, 47, whose grandfather J. Paul Getty’s fortune made his family among the richest in U.S. history, wrote in a March 16 court document that he had been diagnosed with a condition, which he did not specify, in fall 2011. “A rise in my blood-pressure places me in grave risk of substantial and irreparable injury or death,” he wrote. Neither the coroner nor police had officially identified him, but a statement from Getty’s parents, Ann and San Francisco billionaire scion Gordon Getty, confirmed their son had died Tuesday. Andrew Getty’s death appeared to be from natural causes, Los Angeles County coroner’s Assistant Chief Ed Winter said, but it has been initially called an accident because of medication found at the scene. He said coroner’s officials need to wait for the results of further examination and toxicology tests, which could take up to 10 weeks to process. “The tentative information that we do have is that he was not feeling good for the last couple months,” Winter said, “and he supposedly had an appointment tomorrow with a personal
The second official said Getty’s girlfriend, Lanessa DeJonge, who had a room at Getty’s Hollywood Hills house and had apparently recently moved back in, found him with blood around him and called 911. Getty’s court filing was for a restraining order against DeJonge. The oil heir said in the March 16 document that he couldn’t get her to move out. A judge ordered her to leave and stay 100 yards away from him, his home and vehicle. The court order was active at the time of his death and the next hearing on the issue was scheduled for Monday.
Thoreson also says FBI agents are doing interviews with witnesses.
S P O T I F Y, PA N D O R A continued from page 8
with the unlimited-listening services. But you can fine-tune your Internet stations by specifying a song, artist, genre or playlist. The station will then stream songs similar to your choices. You can personalize stations further by giving thumbs up or thumbs down to songs you hear. Music services typically have deals with all major recording companies, so they differ mainly in features rather than song selection. That said, Taylor Swift took her music off Spotify last fall in a dispute over fees. All but her most recent album are on Tidal, Rdio and Beats. Here’s a look at who’s who in music streaming. SPOTIFY One of the most popular music services, with 60 million active users worldwide, and a quarter of them paying subscribers. Just this week, Spotify launched an app on Sony’s PlayStation game console. The two companies worked closely to make listening seamless, so music can be heard in the background while playing games, without losing the game’s sound effects, for instance. Spotify offers unlimited listening and Internet radio. It’s free with ads; on mobile devices, users are limited to Internet radio and can’t choose songs. Paying $10 a month gets you an ad-free premium service that offers song selection and offline playback on mobile devices. PANDORA Offers Internet radio only. More than 81 million active listeners. Free with ads, or pay $5 a month for an ad-free premium service and higher-quality audio over Web browsers. TIDAL Unlimited listening. Among the few services offering high-fidelity songs, which many audiophiles prefer over MP3s and other formats that reduce quality in the compression process. Offers music video and curated playlists from experts. $10 a month for standard sound quality and $20 for high fidelity. There’s no free offering. APPLE Pay per song to download and own forever through iTunes. Free Internet radio through iTunes Radio on Apple devices. Also owns Beats Music, which offers unlimited listening for $10 a month, with no free version. Beats touts its playlists and other recommendations curated by experts, not computers. GOOGLE Pay per song through Google Play. Google Play Music service offers unlimited listening for $10 a month, with no free option. Google also offers YouTube Music Key for selected music videos, free of ads, for $10. Paying for one gets you the other, too. AMAZON Pay-per-song offering. Amazon’s $99-a-year Prime membership comes with unlimited listening, though the song selection isn’t as broad as what rivals offer. SAMSUNG’S MILK MUSIC Offers free Internet radio like Pandora and others, but tries to make it easier to find music to match your mood. Instead of typing in songs or artists to find matching stations, you spin an on-screen wheel to go through various genres until you land on something you like. Initially exclusive to Samsu
However, the law enforcement official said it appeared that DeJonge would come and go as she liked despite the restraining order, which was not uncommon in some relationships. Getty is one of four sons of Gordon Getty, who is one of five sons of J. Paul Getty, founder of the Getty Oil Co. who died in 1976 at age 82. J. Paul Getty was an avid collector of art and antiquities, and the Getty name is perhaps best known in the Los Angeles area for the museum that houses much of it, along with many other high-priced artworks bought since his death. Another Getty grandson, J. Paul Getty III, lost an ear in a grisly kidnapping in Rome when he was a teenager. The family reportedly stalled on paying a ransom, and the kidnappers cut off part of his ear, sending the severed organ to a newspaper to prove they had taken him captive. The oil heir, then 16, was freed after five months in captivity and a payment of $2.7 million. He died in 2011 at age 54.
Children Incorporated 4205 Dover Road Richmond, VA 23221-3267
www.childrenincorporated.
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The Weekly News Digest, April 6, thruApril 13, 2015
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F E A R S O F M E D D L I N G R A I S E D I N NIGERIAN ELECTION VOTE COUNT ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) -- Election officials worked into the night Monday counting the results from Nigeria’s tight presidential vote, while the U.S. and Britain warned of “disturbing indications” the tally could be subject to political interference.
After Buhari lost to Jonathan in 2011, more than 1,000 people died and some 65,000 were forced from their homes in northern riots, according to the National Human Rights Commission. Police in Port Harcourt, a center of oil production in Nigeria’s south, fired tear gas Monday morning to disperse thousands of opposition supporters who demanded the cancellation of the election in Rivers state.
Early returns gave former military dictator Muhammadu Buhari seven states while incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan had five, including the Federal Capital Territory.
The opposition wants new elections in the southern states of Rivers and Akwa Ibom, alleging irregularities that include missing and false results sheets and electoral officials being replaced by government officials loyal to Jonathan. The national election commission said it was investigating numerous complaints.
But results from another 25 states were still to be tallied, and 22 states had not yet delivered their results to the counting center in Abuja, indicating a winner could not be announced before Tuesday. As expected, Buhari swept two major northern states of Kano and Kaduna, delivering crushing defeats to Jonathan there. In Kano, the state with the second-largest number of voters, Buhari had 1.9 million votes to Jonathan’s 216,000. Turnout was high Saturday among the nearly 60 million people eligible to vote in the high-stakes election, which took place despite a campaign of violence by the Islamic extremists of Boko Haram in northern Nigeria. The count was being carried out in the presence of party representatives, national and international observers and media. The counting began two hours late, with no explanation given for the delay. Jonathan and Buhari are the front-runners among 14 candidates for president. Widespread rigging has occurred in many previous elections, along with violence after those votes. New biometric cards aimed at stemming fraud were used but some newly imported card readers were not working properly, and voting was extended to Sunday in 300 out of 150,000 polling stations where that problem occurred, the election commission said. The U.S. and Britain issued a joint statement that said they would be “very concerned” by any attempts to undermine the independence of the electoral commission and distort the will of the Nigerian people.
A group of Nigerian men drink beer and listen to television updates on the election results, at the Flexx Bush Bar and Lounge in the Sabon Gari neighborhood of Kano, Nigeria, Monday, March 30, 2015. Nigerians are waiting in hope and fear for results of the most tightly contested presidential election in the nation’s turbulent history.
“So far, we have seen no evidence of systemic manipulation of the process. But there are disturbing indications that the collation process - where the votes are finally counted - may be subject to deliberate political interference,” said the statement, signed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his British counterpart, Philip Hammond. The National Human Rights Commission said 50 people were killed during the balloting, including a state legislator, a soldier and two electoral workers. Nevertheless, commission chairman Chidi Odinkalu said the election showed “a maturing political system.” “The best guarantee of a violence-free election is a credible count and collation,” Odinkalu said in a statement. Relatively smooth voting was reported in this nation of 170 million people despite technical glitches, deadly attacks by Boko Haram, and allegations of political violence and threats in some areas. There was still concern, however, that the announcement of the results could trigger violence.
YEMEN AIRSTRIKES TO GO ON U N T I L R E B E L S W I T H D R AW Speaking after Elaraby, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said leaders also agreed in principle to creating a joint Arab military force. He said a high-level panel will work under the supervision of Arab chiefs of staff to work out the structure and mechanism of the force. Elaraby said the chiefs of staff would meet within a month and have three more months to decide on the structure, budget and mechanism of the force before they present their proposals to a meeting of the Arab League’s Joint Defense Council. “It is an important resolution given all the unprecedented unrest and threats endured by the Arab world,” Elaraby said.
Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby, left, speaks during a press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri at the conclusion of an Arab summit meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, South Sinai, Egypt, Sunday, March 29, 2015
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) -- Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen will continue until Shiite rebels there “withdraw and surrender their weapons,” a summit of Arab leaders decided Sunday, as they also agreed in principle to forming a joint military force.
A summit resolution said the force would be deployed at the request of any Arab nation facing a national security threat and that it would also be used to combat terrorist groups. “There is a political will to create this force and not to leave its creation without a firm time frame,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri told a news conference.
The decision by the Arab League puts it on a path to more aggressively challenge Shiite power Iran, which is backing the Yemeni rebels, known as Houthis.
Egyptian military and security officials have said the proposed force would consist of up to 40,000 elite troops and be headquartered in either Cairo or Riyadh, the Saudi capital. The force would be backed by jet fighters, warships and light armor.
A Saudi-led coalition began bombing Yemen on Thursday, saying it was targeting the Houthis and their allies, which include forces loyal to Yemen’s former leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Current and former Yemeni military officials have said the campaign could pave the way for a possible ground invasion.
However, it is unlikely that all 22 member nations of the often-fractious Arab League will join the proposed force. Creation of such a force has been a longtime goal that has eluded Arab nations in the 65 years since they signed a rarely used joint defense agreement.
At the summit, held in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm elSheikh, Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby read a final communique outlining the leaders’ views.
Iraq, whose Shiite government is closely allied with non-Arab and Shiite Iran, has said more time is needed to discuss the proposed force.
“Yemen was on the brink of the abyss, requiring effective Arab and international moves after all means of reaching a peaceful resolution have been exhausted to end the Houthi coup and restore legitimacy,” Elaraby said.
Now in its fourth day, the Saudi-led air campaign has pushed Houthi rebels out of contested air bases and destroyed any jet fighter remaining in Yemen, Saudi Brig. Gen. Ahmed bin Hasan Asiri said.
The Houthis swept down from their northern strongholds last year and captured the capital Sanaa in September. Embattled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, a close U.S. ally against a powerful local al-Qaida affiliate, fled first to the southern city of Aden and left the country last week.
The strikes also continued to target Scud missiles in Yemen, leaving most of their launching pads “devastated,” according to remarks carried Saturday by the state-run Saudi Press Agency. However, he warned that the rebels could have more missiles. His account could not be immediately corroborated.
Speaking at the summit Saturday, Hadi directly accused Iran of being behind the Houthi offensive, raising the specter of a regional conflict. Iran and the Houthis deny that Tehran arms the rebel movement, though the Islamic Republic has provided humanitarian and other aid.
Yemen’s Foreign Minister Riad Yassin said the air campaign,
Asked at a news conference to explain vague references to “foreign powers” being behind conflicts in different Arab nations, Elaraby said: “I will answer this question indirectly. There is meddling by some neighbors, Israel on one side, Turkey and Iranian interference in several countries.”
Just days before the vote, Nigeria’s military, backed by armies from neighboring countries, announced major victories over Boko Haram extremists after months of defeats. The U.N. secretary-general’s special envoy to West Africa, Mohammed Ibn Chambas, told the Security Council Monday that Boko Haram was “unable to disrupt the electoral process.” The legitimacy of Nigeria’s next government is important for ensuring the support of the international community, he said. African members of the council said discussions continue on a draft resolution that would endorse military action by a five-country African force against Boko Haram. Issues that remain include funding of the force. Jonathan, 57, is a Christian from a minority tribe in the lush oil-producing south, while 72-year-old Buhari is a Muslim from the semi-arid north that is home to farmers, cattle herders and centuries-old caliphates. Voters also are electing legislators for parliament, where the opposition currently has a slight edge over Jonathan’s party in the House of Assembly. Voting for 13 constituencies was postponed until April because of shortages of ballot papers. Dozens of legislators defected from Jonathan’s party to a new opposition coalition that has transformed Nigeria’s political landscape by uniting behind one candidate for the first time and face Jonathan, whose party has governed Nigeria since decades of military dictatorship ended in 1999. Detractors accuse Jonathan of being ineffectual and Buhari of being anti-democratic. Some progress has been made - a nearly 20 percent boost in manufacturing and a mini agricultural revolution tripling production of some basics like rice - but corruption is endemic and the vast majority of Nigerians remain poor.
codenamed Operation Decisive Storm, had prevented the rebels from using planes they seized to attack Yemeni cities or to using missiles to attack neighboring Saudi Arabia. It also stopped Iran’s supply line to the rebels, he said. Yassin said military experts will decide when and if a ground operation is needed. “This is a comprehensive, a package operation and (ground operations) will depend on the calculations of the military,” he told reporters. Yassin said political dialogue will only happen after the Houthis surrender the weapons they seized from the state. Meanwhile Sunday, Pakistan dispatched a plane to the Yemeni city of Hodeida, hoping to evacuate some 500 citizens gathered there, said Shujaat Azim, an adviser to Pakistan’s prime minister. Azim told state-run Pakistan Television more flights would follow as those controlling Yemen’s airports allowed them. Pakistan says some 3,000 of its citizens live in Yemen. Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj also tweeted Sunday: “We are doing everything to e
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The Weekly News Digest, April 6, thruApril 13, 2015
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SAUDI-LED FORCES STRIKE YEMEN R E B E L S , B L O C K A D E P O R T S
SANAA, Yemen (AP) -- Saudi-led naval forces imposed a blockade on Yemen’s ports as coalition airstrikes on Monday repelled an advance on the southern port city of Aden by Shiite rebels and forces loyal to a former president, in what appeared to be the most intense day of fighting since the air campaign began five days ago.
their ground in Aden province and still control most of the city.
The move to block ports appeared aimed at preventing the rebels, known as Houthis, from rearming, and comes after the coalition achieved full control of the skies and bombed a number of rebel-held airports. The rebels are supported by Iran, but both Iran and the Houthis deny Tehran has armed them.
The strikes in Sanaa have targeted militants, jets, air defense systems and Scud missile launch pads that could threaten Saudi Arabia.
As night fell, intense explosions could be heard throughout the rebel-held capital Sanaa, where warplanes had carried out strikes since the early morning. Military officials from both sides of the conflict said that airstrikes were targeting areas east and south of the third largest city of Taiz, as well as its airport, while naval artillery and airstrikes hit coastal areas east of Aden. “It’s like an earthquake,” Sanaa resident Ammar Ahmed said by telephone. “Never in my life have I heard such explosions or heard such raids.” He said he could hear missiles whistling through the air and see flames rising from a military area in the southern neighborhood of Faj Attan, where Scud missiles are believed to be stored. Saudi Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asiri, the coalition spokesman, told reporters in Riyadh that naval forces are blocking the movement of ships to prevent weapons and fighters from entering or leaving Yemen. He said they had not yet intercepted anything. The airstrikes have targeted at least nine of Yemen’s 21 provinces and have prevented the Houthis from reaching Aden, the former capital of the once-independent south, where President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi declared a temporary capital after fleeing rebel-controlled Sanaa. Hadi, who was a close U.S. ally against a powerful local al-Qaida affiliate, fled the country last week, but remains Yemen’s internationally recognized leader. The U.S. has provided support to the Saudi-led coalition but is not carrying out direct military action. The conflict marks a major escalation in the regional struggle for influence between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which also back rival sides in Syria’s civil war. Arab leaders unveiled plans Sunday to form a joint military intervention force, which could raise tensions further. Asiri said much of the airstrikes on Sunday and Monday focused on slowing the Houthi advance on Aden. He said the Houthis tried to fire ballistic missiles on Monday but that they malfunctioned. Warplanes then struck the force that had tried to launch them, he said, without providing further details. The Houthis’ TV network said the coalition bombed a displaced persons
The death toll from the ground fighting in Aden since Thursday has reached at least 86, with some 600 people wounded, according to Abdel-Nasser al-Wali, head of a local medical center.
Officials said aircraft struck areas near the presidential palace in Sanaa and several other sites across the city, sending fireballs rising into the sky, shattering windows and shaking houses. The thunder of rockets, artillery and tank rounds echoed through the streets. Smoke rises from an area due to Saudi-led airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, March 30, 2015.
camp in the northern rebel stronghold of Saada, killing 40 people. Doctors Without Borders tweeted that 29 people from a displaced persons camp were dead on arrival at a hospital it supports and that it treated two dozen injured, among them women and children. However, witnesses told The Associated Press that the camp - used to house people displaced by an earlier conflict that ended five years ago - is now occupied by Houthi forces and that most of those killed were fighters. When asked about the allegations, Asiri said the Houthi fighters operate among civilians. It was not immediately possible to resolve the conflicting accounts. The Houthis and security forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh had earlier launched a fresh offensive against Aden, shelling it and battling local militias, but were pushed back by at least two airstrikes, security officials said. Saleh stepped down following a 2011 Arab Spring uprising, but has maintained wide influence through loyalists in the security forces. Yemeni security officials say the combined force of Houthis and Saleh loyalists is positioned about 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of Aden, near the southern city of Zinjibar. The rebels have used artillery to target proHadi militias known as the Popular Committees. Battles are also underway near the airport. Fighting in the area continued late into the night. Reached by telephone, Aden resident Shakib Rajah said that the toughest fighting was taking place near the city’s northern Dar Saad neighborhood, where heavy weapons including tanks were being used.
The daily airstrikes have bred a climate of anxiety and uncertainty in Sanaa. Schools are shuttered, residents are staying indoors, and hundreds have fled to the safety of nearby villages. In the southern city of Baihan in Shabwa province, airstrikes mistakenly struck a gathering of anti-Houthi tribesmen, causing a number of deaths and injuries, a tribal leader said on condition of anonymity, citing security concerns. It was not clear how many were killed. In the western coastal city of Hodeida, medical officials said one person was killed and others wounded when the Houthis dispersed a demonstration denouncing their takeover and demanding the release of detainees. Fighting meanwhile intensified in the southern city of al-Dhale, where the Houthis and Saleh loyalists have been trying to open up a corridor to Aden. They have met fierce resistance there, and the city is currently split between supporters and opponents of the rebels. Since the air campaign began, the Houthis have arrested some 140 foreign nationals on suspicion that they are providing the Saudis with intelligence on the locations of army barracks, radars and air defense positions, according to the rebel-controlled Interior Ministry.
SCION YOUTH LOOKS TO SEDAN, HATCHBACK TO REVIVE SALES
The account of the fighting was confirmed by four military and security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters. Emboldened by the airstrikes, the Popular Committees have largely held
IRAN EXTENSIONS UNDERSCORE O B A M A ’ S D I L E M M A I N T A L K S The end-of-March benchmark was part of a two-pronged blueprint to bring the negotiations to a close. The U.S. and its partners Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China - aimed to reach a framework agreement on major issues by March, then finalize technical details by the end of June. Obama was able to use the prospect of a March framework to keep Congress at bay. Earlier this year, skeptical Democrats agreed to put off supporting a new Iran sanctions bill while negotiators tried to hammer out a framework. While Republicans control the Senate, they would need support from some Democrats in order to override an Obama veto. Congress is on a two-week recess, giving Obama some breathing room as negotiations continue. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office reiterated Wednesday that the chamber would vote on an Iran measure regardless of the outcome of the talks. White House press secretary Josh Earnest speaks to the media during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Wednesday, April 1, 2015. Negotiation over Iran’s program resumed Wednesday but were almost immediately beset by competing claims, just hours after diplomats abandoned a March 31 deadline to reach the outline of a deal and agreed to press on.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama’s willingness to extend Iranian nuclear talks at least twice this week has laid bare the dilemma he faces as he pursues a high-stakes accord. Walking away from negotiations would strip Obama of a legacy-shaping deal, deeply complicate international efforts to stop Iran’s suspected pursuit of a bomb, and perhaps raise the specter of U.S. military action against Tehran’s nuclear installations. But by blowing through self-imposed deadlines, Obama risks further antagonizing lawmakers in both parties who are poised to take their own action to upend a deal if they feel the president has been too conciliatory to Tehran. The initial response to the extensions from Republicans suggested they had already come to that conclusion. “The longer the Obama administration stays at the negotiating table with Iran, the more concessions it makes,” said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who is seeking the GOP presidential nomination. Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines said the desire for successful negotiations “should not blind the Obama administration from the reality that only Iran is benefiting from the current approach.” Citing progress in the marathon negotiations, the U.S. and its international negotiating partners agreed earlier this week to ignore a March 31 deadline to reach a framework agreement with Iran. After an extra day of talks in Switzerland on Wednesday, the negotiators agreed to continue their discussions at least into Thursday.
If a framework is reached, McConnell wants to hold a vote on a measure that gives Congress authority to approve, reject or amend a deal. Obama has vowed to veto that legislation. If no framework is agreed upon, the Senate would vote on a separate measure slapping Iran with another round of economic sanctions. The president has warned that implementing sanctions in the midst of negotiations could upend the delicate diplomacy, but it’s unclear whether he would sign the measure if the talks had ground to a halt. Obama has invested significant political capital in reaching a nuclear accord with Iran, straining the longstanding U.S. alliance with Israel, which views Iran as an existential threat, and putting congressional Democrats in a difficult spot. Faced with turmoil throughout the Middle East and a fierce conflict between Russia and Ukraine, a nuclear deal would be a much-needed bright spot for Obama in his presidency’s closing years. The negotiations center on curtailing Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from biting international sanctions. The U.S. and much of the international community say Iran is pursuing a bomb, while Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. White House officials say Obama is willing to walk away from a bad deal but doesn’t want to be beholden to what they have called largely arbitrary deadlines. Officials insisted the extensions would end eventually if negotiators stopped making progress, but they’ve refused to specify how much longer Obama was willing to wait. “This is not an open-ended commitment to talking that we’re willing to make here,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. “The time has come for Iran to make some decisions and we’re hopeful that they’ll do that.”
NEW YORK (AP) -- Toyota is turning to a sporty hatchback and a low-cost sedan to restore some hipness - and sales - to its youth-oriented Scion brand. If it snags a few baby boomers along the way, so be it. The brand, started in 2003 to lure people 18 to 34 to the aging Toyota family, has worked to a point. The average head of a Scion-owning household is 51, three years below the industry average. Even though many boomers bought the versatile but boxy xB wagon to downsize from larger SUVs, the average age of a Scion driver has stayed around 37. Brand chief Doug Murtha says the new cars to be unveiled at the New York auto show this week stay true to the original mission. But he also says: "We're not turning away older buyers." At this point, Murtha can't be too choosy. Buyers of any age haven't been gravitating to Scion of late. Sales fell nearly 18 percent last year to around 58,000, and Scion hasn't come close to its peak sales of more than 173,000 in 2006, according to Ward's Automotive. Murtha blames the sales drop on an aging lineup. Scion hasn't had a new car since 2012. The hatchback iM is aimed at young buyers who want a sporty car that can haul things. With an estimated price under $20,000, owners will still be able to make the rent, pay off school loans and have enough left for a weekend outing with friends, according to Toyota. Hatchbacks generally haven't sold well in the U.S., but Murtha says research shows that trend is changing. Hatchbacks have the hauling utility of small SUVs, which are now hot sellers, yet have a lower center of gravity for better handling, something that appeals to youths, he says. Toyota expects the iA sedan, to cost around $16,000, to appeal to today's young people's more practical nature. Sedan designs, like the iA, he said, look more like coupes than the boxy cars of yesterday, Murtha adds, and give young buyers space to drive around with friends. Both cars, due to hit showrooms in September, have technology for younger people. Each comes with a six-speaker multi-media sound system with a 7-inch display. The cars are also easier on the gas budget. The iA's 1.5-liter engine and sixspeed automatic or manual transmissions can get up to 42 miles per gallon on the highway. The sportier hatchback, with a 1.8-liter engine and six-speed manual or continuously variable transmissions gets up to 37 mpg. The new cars should make Scion fresh, and that will appeal to many buyers, said Stephanie Brinley, senior analyst for IHS. "The easiest way for them to appeal to younger buyers is to kind of not think of the age," she said. "They need to find a way to be hip and fresh again, and they haven't been for a while." She says it's hard to make a car for just one demographic. "Baby boomers and millennials all want technology. They all want storage, they all want visibility," she said. "I think focusing on making it right is more important than the number associated with it."
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The Weekly News Digest, April 6, thruApril 13, 2015
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C R I T T E R S F O U N D I N A N TA R C T I C I C E SHOW HOW TENACIOUS LIFE IS DECEPTION ISLAND, Antarctica (AP) -- Deep below the ice, far from the playful penguins and other animals that bring tourists to Antarctica, is a cold and barren world that by all indications should be completely void of life.
the fish, they “started screaming and yelling and clapping,” Powell said. By the time a couple of days had passed, Scherer said the fish had become so common that “we got to the point of, `Oh, there’s another fish,’ instead of, `Oh my God! There’s a fish!’”
But recently, scientists researching melting ice watched a half-foot-long (15-centimeter) fish swim by. Not long after that, they saw shrimp-like creatures.
As a joke, someone had brought a fish cage from New Zealand. But now it was no joke. The scientists tried to catch a fish using a giant net attached to the submarine’s camera system and making leftovers out of bait from the previous night’s supper.
In even more remote places on the continent, areas that haven’t been exposed to sunlight for millions of years, scientists found a surprise right out of an alien movie: the DNA of a microscopic creature that looks like a combination of a bear, manatee and centipede. Life that is simultaneously normal and weird, simple and complex thrives in this extreme environment. To the scientists who brave the cold and remoteness to find life amid the ice, it’s a source of surprise and wonder. For extreme life experts, it’s a testimony to the power of evolution. “It really shows how tenacious life is,” said Reed Scherer, a micropaleontology professor at Northern Illinois University. “The possibilities are just beyond our prediction.” Scientists look at creatures found in harsh Antarctica and ask: If life can survive here, why not on Mars or one of the ice-covered moons of Jupiter and Saturn where water lurks beneath the frozen surface? Maybe we aren’t alone. Certainly not here. “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to look around and see how extreme this environment is,” biochemist Jenny Blamey said, pointing to the black, volcanic rock covered by ice all around her on Deception Island. She wore a red parka with a black hood that was blown by the hard wind. While she spoke, her glasses fogged up and droplets of rain gathered on them. “This is really like a desert, where you have extreme low temperatures,” said Blamey, research director at the Biosciences Foundation in Chile who is studying the genetic material of microorganisms, essentially microbes that can’t be seen. Deception Island is a volcanic crater off the Antarctic Peninsula that used to be a refuge for whalers at the turn of the 20th century. It was evacuated many years ago after a handful of eruptions. Yet it is a garden
They never caught a fish, but they did nab some of the amphipods. Still, Scherer, who loves seafood, wasn’t tempted to nibble. “I thought they smelled kind of baity,” he said. Powell and Scherer are now trying to figure out where the animals came from and, even more importantly, where they get the food to survive. This undated image released by Bob Goldstein and Vicki Madden taken with an electron microscope, shows a micro-animal “tardigrade” also known as a water bear, at the UNC in Chapel Hill, N.C. In Jan. 2015, scientists found the DNA of a tardigrade in Antarctica’s Lake Vostok, located in an area considered the most remote place on Earth. The mostly freshwater lake is buried under miles of ice, and hasn’t been near open air for 15 million years, exciting astronomers who search for possible forms of life on other planets.
compared to the spot where Ross Powell stopped to talk. Powell had trekked across a separate part of the vast continent, hundreds of miles away from any buildings or research post, in a National Science Foundation mobile base camp. Speaking by satellite phone at the armpit edge of the Ross Ice Shelf in January, the professor from Northern Illinois University described what he and colleagues saw when they stuck a remote-controlled submarine a half mile under the ice to look at the leading underground edge of one of Antarctica’s melting ice sheets. It is an area of total darkness, 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) from the nearest ocean and with just 30 feet of liquid water under the ice. The water is 28 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 2 Celsius), but the saltiness keeps it from freezing. Scientists turned on the cameras and were astonished to see a fish, thin and almost translucent, darting around and at times seeming to be playing peekaboo with the camera. Orange-shelled creatures called amphipods also drifted by. When the scientists in the makeshift control room on the ice first saw
A M E R I C A N , R U S S I A N L E AV I N G E A R T H F O R Y E A R AT S PA C E S TAT I O N Harvard and Oxford universities and elsewhere. In general, around 105 boys are born for every 100 girls worldwide. The imbalance, first noticed centuries ago, is a natural phenomenon not due to selective abortion of girls in some areas. The study authors drew on a variety of sources for information on the male-female ratio throughout pregnancy, including abortions, genetic sampling of fetuses in the womb, and fetal deaths. To estimate the sex ratio at conception, they examined data on nearly 140,000 embryos that had been routinely screened at fertility clinics in the United States and elsewhere for genetic problems. The embryos were 3 to 6 days old. Analysis concluded that by that point, the sex breakdown was virtually 50-50. So extrapolating backward, “the best evidence we have is that the sex ratio at conception is even,” Orzack said. a nurse holds a baby in the nursery of the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. Every year, slightly more boy babies than girl babies are born. But back when sperm meets egg, the two sexes are conceived in equal numbers, according to a new study released on Monday, March 30, 2015. The finding contradicts the idea found in many textbooks and scientific articles that males predominate at conception, researchers said.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Every year, slightly more boy babies than girl babies are born worldwide. But back when sperm meets egg, the two sexes are conceived in equal numbers, a new study suggests. That contradicts the idea found in many textbooks and scientific articles that males are in the majority at conception, researchers said.
The fertility-clinic data provide the best available stand-in for what happens in natural conception, the authors said; their analysis shows those two ways of conceiving produce identical sex ratios for babies at birth.
TIN Y S ON GBIRD TRACKED ACROSS 1,700 MILES OF OPEN OCEAN
And it implies more females than males die before birth, resulting in the excess of male births, says Steven Orzack, a study author.
The search for life has also taken scientists to Lake Vostok, considered the most remote place on Earth. The mostly freshwater lake is buried under 2.3 miles (3.7 kilometers) of ice, and hasn’t been near open air for 15 million years. A couple of years ago, scientists took water samples from the lake and tested them for traces of life. They found genetic sequences for 3,507 recognizable species as well as about 10,000 species not yet known to science, said Scott Rogers, a professor of microbiology at Bowling Green State University, who worked on the study. “It seems like most of (the species) were alive recently” and not fossils from thousands of years ago, Rogers said. About 94 percent of the species they could identify were bacterial, essentially simple microbial life. But there were also fungi and even a couple of genetic traces of microscopic animals. That included DNA from tardigrades, also known as water bears, the tiny creatures that look like one-eyed extraterrestrial grizzlies when seen under an electron microscope. There were even indications that there might be small fish elsewhere in the chilly lake. These types of findings excite astronomers who search for possible forms of life on other planets. Just this month, astronomers found that Jupiter’s giant moon Ganymede had water under the ice. So does Europa, another moon of Jupiter, and Enceladus, a moon of Saturn. And then there are exoplanets, those circling bodies outside our solar system. When unexpected creatures are found under the ice, “you start to wonder if that couldn’t happen on an icy moon or exoplanet,” said Lisa Kaltenegger, an astronomer and director of the Institute for Pale Blue Dots at Cornell University. Science doesn’t have those cosmic answers yet, but the mysterious fish in the darkness of Antarctica may hold clues. summer of 2013 when scientists attached tracking devices to the birds was the first time that the flight has been proven, according to results published Wednesday in the United Kingdom in the journal Biology Letters. "It is such a spectacular, astounding feat that this half-an-ounce bird can make what is obviously a perilous, highly risky journey over the open ocean," said Chris Rimmer of the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, one of the authors. The warblers, known to bulk up by eating insects near their coastal departure points before heading south, are common in parts of North America, but their numbers have been declining. "Now maybe that will help us focus attention on what could be driving these declines," Rimmer said. Knowing how the blackpoll warblers migrate helps scientists know more about the implications of changing climate, said Andrew Farnsworth, a research associate at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology who specializes in migration biology and was not involved in the study. "What happens if birds aren't able to fuel sufficiently to make this kind of flight because of habitat fragmentation and habitat loss in New England or the Canadian Maritimes?" Farnsworth said. "How much energy do they need and if they don't get it, what happens?" A number of bird species fly long distances over water, but the warbler is different because it's a forest dweller. Most other birds that winter in South America fly through Mexico and Central America. In the summer of 2013, scientists tagged 19 blackpolls on Vermont's Mount Mansfield and 18 in two locations in Nova Scotia. Of those, three were recaptured in Vermont with the tracking device attached and two in Nova Scotia.
“We don’t have good information on the cause of this difference,” he said.
Four warblers, including two tagged in Vermont, departed between Sept. 25 and Oct. 21 and flew directly to the islands of Hispaniola or Puerto Rico in flights ranging from 49 to 73 hours. A fifth bird departed Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and flew nearly 1,000 miles before landing in the Turks and Caicos before continuing on to South America.
The work, released Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also estimates the ratio of males to females at various points in pregnancy. It finds a see-sawing pattern over that time in which sex is more prone to die in the womb, as various genetic influences take their toll. “We’re gaining fundamental new insights in the biology of humans in the first nine months of life,” Orzack said. That biology “unfolds differently, starting soon after conception, between boys and girls,” he said. Orzack is president of the nonprofit Fresh Pond Research Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He reports the work with scientists from
a blackpoll warbler sits on a limb in New Hampshire. A study to be published Wednesday, April 1, 2015, in the journal Biology Letters found that the tiny songbird that summers in the forests of northern North America has been tracked on a 1,700-mile, over-the-ocean journey from the northeastern United States and eastern Canada to the islands of the Caribbean.
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- A tiny songbird that summers in the forests of northern North America has been tracked on a 1,700-mile, over-theocean journey from the northeastern United States and eastern Canada to the Caribbean as part of their winter migration to South America, according to a new study. Scientists had long suspected that the blackpoll warbler had made its journey to the Caribbean over the ocean, but the study that began in the
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