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GUARD SHOT AND CRITICALLY WOUNDED AT C E N S U S B U R E A U Police search a building on the U.S. Census Bureau headquarters campus for an armed man who, according to a fire official, shot a security guard at a gate to the facility in Suitland, Md., Thursday, April 9, SUITLAND, Md. (AP) -- A person shot and critically wounded a guard at the U.S. Census Bureau headquarters Thursday before leading police on a chase that reportedly ended with the suspect and a an officer wounded. The guard had a gunshot wound to his upper body and was taken to a local hospital in extremely critical condition, Prince George’s County Fire Department spokesman Mark Brady told The Associated Press in a text message. The Washington Post quoted law enforcement officers as saying there was a chase after the guard was shot and that the suspect was shot in the head. Police did not respond to repeated requests for comment from the AP. The Census Bureau is located in Suitland, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Thousands of people work on the campus. The roads around the enormous compound were still closed late Thursday, but an AP reporter could see some cars leaving the area fairly regularly. The reporter also could hear a loud announcement being made from inside the complex, but it was unintelligible.

H IL LA RY CL INTO N TO ANNOUNCE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN ON SUNDAY

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RE-IMPOSING SANCTIONS ON IRAN NOT AS EASY AS IT MIGHT SOUND WASHINGTON (AP) -- Snap back? Not so fast. The biggest enforcement provision in the preliminary nuclear agreement with Iran is turning into one of the mostly hotly contested elements. And the debate barely involves Iran. Instead, it concerns the Obama administration’s promise to quickly re-impose sanctions on Iran if the Islamic Republic cheats on any part of the agreement to limit its nuclear program to peaceful pursuits.

At present, there’s no firm agreement on how or when to lift the sanctions in the first place. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and President Hassan Rouhani said Thursday they want all sanctions lifted on the first day of implementation. That’s not the position of U.S. and other negotiators, a major issue that still must be worked out. Assuming it can be, that still would leave the big question of possible re-imposition. The disagreement on this issue is between the U.S. and its European allies on one side, and Russia and China on the other - all countries involved in the nuclear negotiations. And even though all six world powers and Iran agreed last week to the framework agreement that is supposed to be finalized by June 30, the “snapback” mechanism for U.N. sanctions remains poorly defined and may prove unworkable.

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In each scenario and others, the final agreement will include “automaticity,” the sense of sanctions returning automatically, a senior U.S. official said. That official and the others weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the deliberations and demanded anonymity.

The IAEA’s 35-nation board includes countries sympathetic to Iran. Also members are Russia and China, powers that are concerned about the country’s nuclear ambitions yet seek closer commercial, economic, military and even nuclear ties. The organization’s rulings can take weeks, months and even years.

That assertion rests on an informal compromise reached at the talks in Lausanne, Switzerland, to bypass the typical U.N. Security Council process if Iran breaks the agreement. Normally in that body, any one of the five permanent members - the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China, which are all party to the Iran negotiations - can veto resolutions.

Further complicating matters, a U.S. fact sheet released after the diplomatic breakthrough in Switzerland mentions a “dispute resolution process” that would enable Iran or anyone else to raise disagreements and seek compromises through mediation - yet another element officials say hasn’t been agreed to in detail. “I don’t want to give the false impression that we have all this resolved,” Obama said this week. Questions are everywhere. In the buildup to the framework, French officials questioned if the U.N. sanctions could be snapped back into place at all. They suggested the U.N. penalties be kept in place for years.

MAN REPORTED MISSING AT SEA FOR 6 6 D AY S F O U N D I N G O O D H E A LT H Jordan was unclear how long after leaving port his boat first capsized, said Petty Officer David Weydert, a Coast Guard spokesman. Jordan demonstrated a firm handshake and weary-looking blue eyes before declining an interview with The Associated Press on Friday. He told WAVYTV in Portsmouth, Virginia, ( http://bit.ly/1FpmfUd ) he rationed his water and energy to keep going. “Every day I was like, `Please God, send me some rain, send me some water,’” he said. Jordan had been living on his 1950s-era boat at a marina in Conway, South Carolina, near Myrtle Beach, until January. He told his family he was going into open water to sail and fish, said his mother, Norma Davis.

The people familiar with Clinton’s plans spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

Republicans have been preparing for a second Clinton campaign

Russia and China are unlikely to accept any process that sees them sacrifice their veto power. And they could block any plan with Iran that would leave them powerless to stop majority votes by the U.S. and its European allies.

He went further this week, saying that restoring the international sanctions would not require consensus among U.N. Security Council members. And Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who helped seal last week’s pact, insisted “no one country could block the snapback.”

One Democrat familiar with campaign rollout said Clinton’s stops would include visits to people’s homes in those early states.

Clinton will return to politics following a two-year leave from government. If elected, the former first lady would be the nation’s first female president.

One idea would put the burden on the U.N. Security Council. Rather than voting to re-impose sanctions, it would have to vote to stop the automatic re-imposition, officials said. Or, an extraordinary procedure could be created with the permanent, veto-holding members voting by majority.

“If Iran violates the deal, sanctions can be snapped back into place,” Obama declared last week.

The first official word that Clinton will seek the Democratic Party’s nomination will come via an online video posted on social media. She’ll then make stops in key early voting states, including Iowa and New Hampshire, where she’ll hold small events with voters.

Should she win the nomination, Clinton would face the winner of a Republican primary season that could feature as many as two dozen candidates. Among them, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who is expected to formally announce his campaign in Miami on Monday - a day after Clinton’s announcement on social media.

In an interview with NPR Monday, Obama said the sanctions would be “triggered” when the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency identified a “very real problem” and a majority of countries involved agreed. But that process also is undefined - and slow.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hillary Rodham Clinton will end months of speculation about her political future and launch her long-awaited 2016 presidential campaign on Sunday, according to people familiar with her plans.

The former secretary of state will be making her second bid for president and will enter the race in a strong position to succeed her rival from the 2008 Democratic primary, President Barack Obama. Clinton appears unlikely to face a stiff primary opponent, though a handful of lower-profile Democrats have said they are considering their own campaigns.

Washington and its negotiating partners plan to suspend or lift many sanctions after the U.N. nuclear agency confirms Iran has scaled back its activity in accordance with a final deal. But the U.S. and its European partners want the capacity to quickly reinstate the restrictions if Iran reneges.

This would be relatively straightforward for the sanctions imposed by the U.S., as Congress is eager Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, or Ecole Polytechnique to keep the pressure on. But it is Federale De Lausanne, in Lausanne, Switzerland after Iran nuclear program talks finished with extended far from clear whether President sessions. Snap back? Not so fast. The biggest enforcement provision in the preliminary nuclear agreement with Iran is turning into one of its mostly hotly contested elements. And this debate barely involves Iran. Barack Obama can guarantee Instead, it concerns the Obama administration’s promise to quickly re-impose sanctions on Iran if it cheats The Obama administration is such action at the United Nations, on any part of the agreement to limit its nuclear program to peaceful pursuits tossing around different ideas to which has imposed wide-ranging ensure it can snap back the U.N. penalties that all U.N. members must enforce. sanctions, though there are problems with all of them.

But many questions remain, including what would happen if two or more countries object. Russia and China have traditionally opposed almost all U.N. sanctions measures, and, perhaps tellingly, neither country’s foreign minister was present when the April 2 framework was unveiled.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks in Washington. Clinton will launch her long-awaited 2016 presidential campaign on Sunday, April 12, 2015, according to people familiar with her plans. The former secretary of state is making her second presidential bid and enters the race in a strong position to succeed her one-time rival, President Barack Obama

April 13 thru April 20, 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.

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (AP) -- Louis Jordan says he survived 66 days at sea by capturing rainwater in a bucket, snagging little fish to catch bigger fish, and praying to God. On Friday, a day after he was found, the 37-year-old bearded man walked out of a Norfolk hospital grateful for his good fortune and showing no obvious ill effects. “We were expecting worse with blisters and severe sunburn and dehydration,” said Petty Officer 3rd Class Kyle McCollum, who had the first contact with the sailor. Jordan was plucked out of the Atlantic Ocean about 200 miles off the North Carolina coast on Thursday afternoon by a German-flagged container ship. The mast of Jordan’s 35-foot sailboat had broken off in heavy weather, and the vessel appeared to have flipped over multiple times, said the ship’s captain, Thomas Grenz. His boat was upright at the time he was found, Grenz said.

Jordan told WAVY that he was traveling north when his boat hit bad weather. He said he saw a wave crash into his window, and the boat eventually filled with water. He said he rationed his water to about a pint a day, but “for such a long a time I was so thirsty.” Jordan said that at one point he was flying through the air, and he thinks he broke his shoulder. McCollum, a member of the Coast Guard helicopter rescue crew, said Jordan had slight bruising on his right clavicle when he was found, but it did not appear serious: “He was moving that arm so fluidly, without any skip and there wasn’t any sign of pain in his face as he was moving.” On Jan. 29, the Coast Guard in Miami was notified by his father, Frank Jordan, that he hadn’t seen or heard from his son in a week, agency spokeswoman Marilyn Fajardo said. Alerts were issued from New Jersey to Miami, according to the Coast Guard. Officials searched financial data to determine whether Jordan had come ashore

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The Weekly News Digest, April 13, thru April 20, 2015

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1 5 0 Y E A R S A G O , L E E SURRENDERS TO GRANT

EDITOR’S NOTE: When Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in a farmhouse parlor in Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9, 1865, standing with other war correspondents in the front yard was William Downs MacGregor of The Associated Press.

The names of many AP Civil War correspondents, along with their original manuscript reports, have been lost. But those like MacGregor, whose names were occasionally printed beneath their dispatches, are remembered for delivering disciplined and restrained accounts in an era when reporting was often laced with shrill and sectarian opinion.

CORRECTS RELEASE DAY TO SATURDAY, NOT SUNDAY - ADVANCE FOR SATURDAY APRIL 4 AND THEREAFTER - This image provided buy the Library of Congress shows an artist rendering of the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee to Union General Ulysses S. Grant in the front parlor of the McLean house at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. A reenactment of the surrender will take place in Appomattox on April 9, 2015, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the surrender.

The Associated Press had been organized as a newspaper cooperative in 1846, just two years after the first successful telegraph message had been sent. During the war, the AP and most big city papers utilized the thousands of miles of ever-expanding telegraph lines to revolutionize war reporting. For the first time, battlefield victories and defeats could be transmitted and even printed within a day. Competition was often fierce: When Washington officially confirmed Lee’s surrender, one northern paper boasted it beat AP’s telegraphic report by 15 minutes. News of the Union victory spread within hours to most major cities in the North and was published there the following day. (Southern papers, for the most part, had by this time been taken over by Union loyalists, had their presses destroyed, or could no longer publish for want of ink and paper.) But telegraph lines were wildly unreliable too, subject to storms and constant cutting by the combatants. Longer and more fully detailed accounts of the moment most associated with the end of the war didn’t appear until April 14, the day Abraham Lincoln was shot and Union troops re-entered Fort Sumter, South Carolina, the place where the war began. Here are excerpts of some original AP dispatches sent 150 years ago, many filed by MacGregor, who was long attached to the armies of Grant and his predecessors: FIGHTING IN VIRGINIA, March 29: “... The (Union) column started at 3 o’clock this morning. A large cavalry force, under Gen. Sheridan, took the Halifax road toward Dinwiddie Court-house. The infantry column ... met with no opposition until they

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since she left Obama’s administration in early 2013. They intend to campaign against her by equating her potential presidency to that of a “third” Obama term, during which they argue she would continue his most unpopular policies. Children Incorporated 4205 Dover Road Richmond, VA 23221-3267

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Clinton’s announcement was preceded by withering criticism over her use of a personal email account and server while she was secretary of state, as well as the Clinton Foundation’s acceptance of donations from foreign governments. She said at a news conference last month she used the personal email account for convenience. Republicans running a select congressional committee reviewing the 2012 attack on a U.S. facility in Benghazi, Libya, which took place during Clinton’s tenure at the State Department, are investigating her decision to delete thousands of emails she has deemed personal in nature. By campaigning heavily in Iowa and New Hampshire, Clinton hopes to avoid making the same stumbles against Obama as she did in the 2008 Iowa caucuses, which he won in an upset. She also sees such campaigning as a way not take for granted her formidable position in the Democratic field.

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Among the Democrats who could challenge Clinton in the primary are former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and Vice President Joe Biden. Clinton’s race is expected to cost more than the $1 billion Obama raised for his 2012 re-election and aides have said she is expected to focus heavily on online fundraising. Her campaign will be required to release its first fundraising report in July and it will be closely examined to measure the strength of her support.

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reached within a short distance of the Boydtown plank-road, where the enemy’s pickets were found and driven back. Griffin’s division was sent up the Quaker road, and about three o’clock in the afternoon a division of the enemy made its appearance ... formed in line and charged, but the rebels were repulsed with heavy loss. A number of prisoners were taken and brought in. They said the (Union) move had been a complete surprise to them ... It is believed that the rebels were hurrying men toward the South Side Railroad all the afternoon, in the hope of being able to prevent its destruction .. If this should be accomplished, it is claimed that the evacuation of Petersburgh and Richmond must follow ...” LEE’S LAST GAMBIT, April 7:

“Lee had intended to fall back to Danville, but being cut off ... he changed his course and started toward Lynchburg. Part of his force passed through Farmville on the morning of the 7th. After crossing the Appomattox the bridges were burned, and before our troops could get over the enemy had taken a position a mile from the river, where they erected works and made a stand in order to allow their wagon train to get out of the way ... The (Union’s) 2d division, under General Crook, attacked them vigorously, driving them back some distance. But they had a force dismounted, lying in ambush, which poured a severe fire into our men as they advanced to the second attack, and they were compelled to fall back on their supports. The rebels soon after departed from this place, not being disposed to await another charge ... “ SOLDIER-BY-SOLDIER SURRENDERS, April 8: “Stragglers are found scattered all along the line of march, and as the troops pass they come in and surrender themselves, expressing their determination to fight no longer, as they consider the rebellion as good as over. Four guns were brought in this morning, besides a long train of ambulances, many containing wounded, who were placed in hospital and cared for.” A FINAL SKIRMISH, April 9: “Early this morning Sheridan attacked vigorously, and for some time a brisk engagement was carried on. About nine a.m. a flag-of-truce appeared in front of his line and he was informed that hostilities had been suspended in order to arrange terms of surrender. This was caused by an agreement ... General Sheridan’s Adjutant ... was allowed to come through the rebel column to communicate ... that he knew of no such arrangement, and that he was about to move forward in accordance with his previous intentions. Gen’l Lee, however, sent another message, desiring to have an interview with General Grant, to arrange the terms of surrender, and General Meade was thus obliged to grant a two hours armistice in order to communicate with Gen’l Grant ... The two hours expired without any result and the second corps ... had commenced to advance, when word came to halt, General Grant consenting to see General Lee, and discuss the matter ... greatest excitement prevailed throughout our lines, cheer upon cheer rending the air ... “ THE SURRENDER: “It was Palm Sunday. At four o’clock they shook hands.” THE TERMS: “It is understood that the men of Lee’s army are to be paroled and allowed to return to their homes. They gave up everything in their hands, but last night they destroyed large amounts of property in the shape of wagons, gun carriages, baggage, papers ... The number of Lee’s forces is put down at about twenty thousand men. Very few guns are in their possession, as they have abandoned nearly all they did not lose in action

SANCTIONS ON IRAN continued from page 1

In Congress, lawmakers threatening to get involved in Obama’s diplomacy are concerned as well. Sen. Ben Cardin, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s top Democrat, is among those asking about snapback sanctions. “Undertaking the `snapback’ of sanctions is unlikely to be as clear or as automatic as the phrase implies,” former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz said in a joint opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal. “Restoring the most effective sanctions will require coordinated international action,” they wrote. With commercial interests and popular opinion swaying some countries against a prompt snapback, any U.S. attempt at forcing such a move “risks primarily isolating America, not Iran

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H I G H P O L I T I C A L S T A K E S F O R C L I N T O N O N I R A N N U C L E A R where 52 Americans were held hostage for more than a year.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hillary Rodham Clinton can claim a piece of the victory if the U.S. and other world powers ultimately complete a final nuclear deal with Iran.

When Obama was getting credit for the clandestine negotiations, Clinton’s aides made sure reporters knew that the approach had started during her tenure at the State Department.

She will own a piece of the failure if the negotiations collapse or produce a weak deal.

Clinton wrote in her memoir of how she set the negotiations in motion by facilitating back-channel discussions with Iran through the sultan of Oman, who suggested the talks after he helped free an American hiker held by Iran. Clinton tapped Sullivan to establish contact with the Iranians in 2012, an important step in the path to Thursday’s preliminary agreement.

Her statement after Thursday’s tentative agreement suggests the soonto-be Democratic candidate for president knows those are her stakes. She called the framework “an important step,” while cautioning that “the devil is always in the details.” “The onus is on Iran and the bar must be set high,” said Clinton, who helped lay the groundwork for the diplomacy with Iran as President Barack Obama’s first secretary of state. “There is much to do and much more to say in the months ahead, but for now diplomacy deserves a chance to succeed.” The issue will figure prominently in the foreign policy debate of the 2016 presidential campaign. Nearly all the expected GOP candidates said the outline agreement was dangerous to U.S. interests. “This attempt to spin diplomatic failure as a success is just the latest example of this administration’s farcical approach to Iran,” said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. He is likely to make foreign policy a centerpiece of his candidacy. But Clinton occupies a unique space on the nuclear issue because of her role in Obama’s Cabinet. She sent a close adviser, Jake Sullivan, to participate in the secret talks with Iran that led to the start of the international negotiations over the country’s nuclear ambitions. Clinton is also navigating delicate ties with Israel and the American Jewish community, an influential group of voters and donors. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a fierce critic of the Obama administration’s outreach to Iran, described the framework deal as a threat to “the very survival” of his nation.

n this photo taken March 23, 2015, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton listens during an event hosted by the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the America Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), in Washington. A final nuclear deal with Iran would enable Clinton to claim a piece of the victory. But if negotiations fall apart or produce an agreement that lets Iran pursue a bomb, Clinton would own a piece of the failure. The likely Democratic presidential candidate and former secretary of state seems well aware of the implications.

“I don’t know how you can maneuver all aspects of this politically,” said Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “You can be supportive and skeptical. I suspect that’s the direction.” The tentative agreement announced Thursday by the U.S. and its negotiating partners - Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia - is aimed at keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Negotiators have until June 30 to settle the technical details. The deal would remove economic penalties against Iran once the U.N. nuclear agency verifies Tehran’s compliance. At times, Clinton has tried to play up her connection to the historic diplomacy. The U.S. and Iran severed diplomatic relations in 1979 after the Islamic revolution and the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran,

S P E C I A L O P S T R O O P S DOUBT WOMEN CAN DO THE JOB “They’re concerned that this might result in the lowering of the standards in what are currently our male-only occupations, and that would then reflect on either them or on the women who come into those occupations,” said Hamilton.

Sullivan has closely consulted with Clinton on policy as she prepares to announce her presidential campaign this month. The 38-year-old Sullivan is seen as her likely pick, if she wins the presidency, as national security adviser. Yet Clinton also expressed doubt as the talks dragged on and she neared a return to politics. Last year, Clinton told an American Jewish organization that while Obama had given 50-50 odds of an agreement, she was “skeptical the Iranians will follow through and deliver.” She said she had “seen many false hopes dashed through the years.” Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress who focuses on national security policy in the Middle East and South Asia, said if a full deal is reached by the summer, Clinton would be “part of something historic” because of her initial role. If it failed, he predicted she still would be “in a strong position at the center of the debate, because Iran would be widely viewed as the spoiler.” With public polling showing a majority of Americans favor a diplomatic resolution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Katulis said, “any effort by Republicans to criticize Clinton’s support for diplomacy might ultimately push them to the margins of today’s national security debate and away from the center.” Clinton appears set to go on offense against the Republicans in the race on Iran. After dozens of Republican senators sent a letter to Iran’s leaders warning that Congress could upend a deal, Clinton said the lawmakers were “out of step with the best traditions of American leadership.” “Either these senators were trying to be helpful to the Iranians or harmful to the commander in chief in the midst of high-stakes international diplomacy,” she said. “Either answer does discredit” to the letter-signers.

Pentagon leaders lifted the ban on women in combat jobs in 2012, but gave the military services time to integrate women gradually and systematically into the male-only front-line positions. By January 2016, the military must open all combat jobs to women or explain why any exceptions must be made.

an Army SPC hoists a 44-pound section of a 50 caliber machine gun onto a M1 A2 Abrams tank during a physical demands study at Ft. Stewart, Ga. Surveys find that men in U.S. special operations forces do not believe women can meet the physical and mental demands of their commando jobs, and they fear the Pentagon will lower standards to integrate women into their elite units, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Surveys find that men in U.S. special operations forces do not believe women can meet the physical and mental demands of their commando jobs, and they fear the Pentagon will lower standards to integrate women into their elite units, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Associated Press. Studies that surveyed personnel found “major misconceptions” within special operations about whether women should be brought into the male-only jobs. They also revealed concerns that department leaders would “capitulate to political pressure, allowing erosion of training standards,” according to one document. Some of those concerns were not limited to men, researchers found, but also were found among women in special operations jobs. Dan Bland, force management director for U.S. Special Operations Command, told the AP that the survey results have “already driven us to do some different things in terms of educating the force.” About 68,800 people serve in the command, including 3,000 civilians. The main survey went to about 18,000 people who are in positions closed to women, and the response was about 50 percent. The high response rate, officials said, reflects the wide interest in the subject. The studies are part of the Pentagon’s effort to open all military combat positions to women or provide reasons why any jobs should remain closed. One survey, by RAND Corp., reflected doubts that women could meet the overall job demands, found concerns that sexual harassment or assault could increase, and cited worries about “unequal treatment” of special operations candidates and personnel. Some worried that if women were let in to some jobs, they might be treated more harshly. Survey details have not been released. This was the first time that officials from Special Operations Command publicly discussed the results. Andy Hamilton, who works with Bland and has expertise on this issue, noted that women in special operations jobs had concerns, too, about the broader integration.

Positions within the special operations forces, including the clandestine Navy SEAL and Army Delta units, are considered the most grueling and difficult jobs in the military, with training and qualifying courses that push troops to their physical, mental and emotional limits. The commandos often work in small teams in harsh, remote locations.

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As a result, those jobs are some of the last to be addressed as commanders review the qualifications needed and assess the impact of bringing in women. As integration unfolds, the surveys have brought home the reality that there are “some reservations or misperceptions in the force in terms of why we’re doing this,” Bland said. Defense officials have stressed that they will not reduce standards in order to let in women. Women have so far had mixed results as they try to move into the more demanding combat positions - jobs for which men also have difficulty qualifying. So far, about 7,200 positions within the special operations forces have been opened to women, including combat jobs in the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, a specialized unit used to fly forces fast, low and deep behind enemy lines at night. For the first time, a woman last year made it through training and began serving as a pilot in the unit. Three female pilots, 25 women in other jobs, and 16 other women are now going through initial training for these helicopter crews, known as Night Stalkers.

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Most female soldiers do not want combat jobs, an earlier survey found. But among those who do, the Night Stalkers were a popular choice. Women have moved into Army artillery jobs and serve on Navy submarines and in the naval Riverine units. But none has made it through the Marine Corps’ officer infantry course. Special operations command leaders have made it clear that genuine concerns exist about incorporating women into some jobs. In 2013, when the planning was in its infancy, then-Maj. Gen. Bennet Sacolick spoke of demanding nature of missions requiring forces “to operate in small, self-contained teams, many of which are in austere, geographically isolated, politically sensitive environments for extended periods of time.” In an email last month to members of the special operations forces across the services, Gen. Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Special Operations Command, said leaders had done initial analysis on training, facilities, education and other policies. Now, officials are examining “the social and cultural challenges of integrating females” into male-only jobs.

Next, Votel said, officials will analyze requirements for the jobs to make sure standards are accurate and gender neutral. “We will continue in our commitment to provide the best manned, trained, and equipped special operations personnel to execute our nation’s most difficult and sensitive missions,” Votel said. “With that in mind, we can assure you that our high standards will not be lowered.” Bland said that in addition to Votel’s email to service members, leaders have discussed the issue with commanders at frequent meetings so they can better educate their troops.

The Weekly News Digest, April 13, thru April 20, 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

Northbound I-275 lanes are now open

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_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________The Weekly News Digest, April 13, thru April 20, 2015

I N V E S T I G AT I O N P R O M P T S E M E R G E N C Y R E S C U E O F 3 0 0 P L U S S L AV E S BENJINA, Indonesia (AP) -- At first the men filtered in, by twos and threes, hearing whispers of a possible rescue.

popular brands of pet foods. The U.S. State Department said Friday that it is pressing Myanmar to quickly repatriate the men. U.S. companies also called for action and commended Indonesian officials.

Then, as the news rippled around the island, hundreds of weathered former and current slaves streamed out, many with long, greasy hair and tattoos. They came from trawlers and villages, even out of the jungle, running toward what they had only dreamed of for years: Freedom.

“We don’t condone human trafficking in the supply chain, and we applaud the government’s work to end this abuse. Our hearts go out to these men, and we wish them well on their journeys home,” said Marilee McInnis, spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the U.S., which was among those the AP found with supply chains linked to tainted seafood.

“I will go see my parents. They haven’t heard from me, and I haven’t heard from them since I left,” said Win Win Ko, 42, who’s been gone from Myanmar for four years. His smile revealed a mouthful of missing teeth, kicked out by the Thai captain on his fishing boat with military boots, he said, because Win was not moving fish fast enough from the deck to the hold below. The Burmese men were among hundreds of migrant workers revealed in an Associated Press investigation to have been lured or tricked into leaving their countries to go to Thailand, where they were put on boats and brought to Indonesia. From there, they were forced to catch seafood that was shipped back to Thailand and exported to consumers around the world, including the United States. In response to the AP’s findings, Indonesian officials visited the island village of Benjina on Friday and offered immediate evacuation after finding brutal conditions, down to an “enforcer” paid to beat men up.

Burmese fishermen raise their hands as they are asked who among them wants to go home at the compound of Pusaka Benjina Resources fishing company in Benjina, Aru Islands, Indonesia, Friday, April 3, 2015. Hundreds of foreign fishermen on Friday rushed at the chance to be rescued from the isolated island where an Associated Press report revealed slavery runs rampant in the industry. Indonesian officials investigating abuses

The officials first gave the invitation for protection just to a small group of men who talked openly about their abuse. But then Asep Burhanuddin, director general of Indonesia’s Marine Resources and Fisheries Surveillance, said everybody was welcome, including those hiding in the forest.

Even then, the enforcer would not stop.

“They can all come,” he said. “We don’t want to leave a single person behind.” About 320 men took up the offer. Even as a downpour started, some dashed through the rain. They sprinted back to their boats, jumped over the rails and threw themselves through windows. They stuffed their meager belongings into plastic bags, small suitcases and day packs, and rushed back to the dock, not wanting to be left behind. A small boat going from trawler to trawler to pick up men was soon loaded down. Throughout the day and until darkness fell, they kept coming, more and more men, hugging, laughing, spilling onto the six trawlers that were their ride out. Even just before the boats pushed off Benjina for the 17-hour trip to neighboring Tual island, fishermen were still running to the shore and clambering onto the vessels. Some were so sick and emaciated, they stumbled or had to be carried up the gang plank. While excitement and relief flooded through many of the men on the dock, others looked scared and unsure of what to expect next. Many complained they had no money to start over. “I’m really happy, but I’m confused,” said Nay Hla Win, 32. “I don’t know what my future is in Myanmar.” Indonesian officials said security in Benjina is limited, with only two navy officials stationed there to protect them. The men will instead be housed at a government compound on Tual while immigration issues are sorted out. Officials from Myanmar are set to visit the islands next week and will assist with bringing the men home and locating others. The dramatic rescue came after a round of interviews Indonesian officials held with the fishermen, where they confirmed the abuse reported in the AP story, which included video of eight migrants locked in a cage and a slave graveyard. The men, mostly from Myanmar, talked of how they were beaten and shocked with Taser-like devices at sea, forced to work almost nonstop without clean water or proper food, paid little or nothing and prevented from going home. There was essentially no way out. Benjina is in the far reaches of Indonesia and so remote, there was no phone service until a cell tower was installed last month, and it is a difficult place to reach in the best of circumstances. Some of the men said the abuse went even further at the hands of an Indonesian man known as “the enforcer.” He was deeply feared and hated by the workers, who said he was hired by their boat captains to punish them for misbehavior. Saw Eail Htoo and Myo Naing were among those tormented. After three months at sea working with only two to four hours of sleep a night, the two Burmese slaves just wanted to rest and fell asleep on the deck as soon as they hit shore.

S E A F O R 6 6 D AY S continued from page 1

without being noticed, but they found no such indication, Fajardo said. A search began Feb. 8, but Fajardo said the Coast Guard abandoned it after 10 days. Some sailors reporting seeing Jordan’s boat, but no sightings were confirmed. Grenz said Jordan told him he’d left Charleston, South Carolina, with about a month’s worth of provisions. Jordan described learning to catch fish with his hands after finding the creatures attracted to the clothes he was soaking in salt water to get clean. Grenz said he made a copy of Jordan’s U.S. passport describing the American as weighing 290 pounds. Jordan now was probably only about 200 pounds and he looked little like the man in the passport photo, Grenz said. “It was a bit like the movie of Tom Hanks on that movie, you know, Castaway,” Grenz said.

They said their Thai captain decided to make an example of them. So the two were driven by motorbike up a hill above the port. They were handcuffed together and placed in front of an Indonesian flag. Then they were punched in the face and kicked until they collapsed into the dirt, they said, blood oozing from their ripped faces.

“He kept kicking me,” said Naing, rail-thin with a military-style haircut. “I kept thinking, if I was at home, this wouldn’t be happening.” The findings documented by Indonesian officials and the AP came in stark contrast to what a Thai delegation reported from a visit to Benjina earlier this week when they searched for trafficked Thai nationals. They denied mistreatment on the boats and said the crews were all Thai, even though the AP found many migrant workers from other countries were issued fake documents with Thai names and addresses. “We examined the boats and the crews, and the result is most of the crews are happy and a few of them are sick and willing to go home,” said Thai police Lt. Gen. Saritchai Anekwiang, who was leading the delegation. “Generally, the boat conditions are good.” Thailand, the world’s third-largest seafood exporter, has been under further pressure to clean up its industry since the AP tracked a boat of slave-caught seafood by satellite from Benjina to a port outside of Bangkok. Records then linked it to the supply chains of some of America’s largest supermarkets and retailers and among the most

Last week, the International Organization for Migration said there could be as many as 4,000 foreign men, many trafficked or enslaved, who are stranded on islands surrounding Benjina following a fishing moratorium called by the Indonesian Fisheries Ministry to crack down on poaching. The country has some of the world’s richest fishing grounds, and the government estimates billions of dollars in seafood are stolen from its waters by foreign crews every year. Three-quarters of the more than 320 migrant workers who left the island on Friday were Burmese, but about 50 from the country refused to go, saying they had not received their salaries and did not want leave without money. Some were also from Cambodia and Laos. A few Thais were allowed to board the boats, but the Indonesians said most Thai nationals could stay on Benjina more safely, since Thai captains were less likely to abuse them. “I expected to evacuate all of them, but I did not expect it this soon,” said Ida Kusuma, one of the leaders of the Fisheries Ministry delegation. “But I think it’s good.” Police are investigating in Benjina and will decide whether to prosecute those involved in abuse, said Kedo Arya, head of Maluku province prosecutor’s office. The Indonesian officials were told “the enforcer” was being detained. For those like Naing, who recalled being tortured, beaten and locked in a room for a month and 17 days for simply falling asleep, the thought of finally leaving the island was impossible to believe. “Is it real that we are going home?” he asked. A firework soon shot off from one of the boats, signaling it was indeed time to go. The same trawlers where the fishermen had suffered years of abuse were heading back to sea. This time crowded with free men full of hope.

The Weekly News Digest, April 13, thru April 20, 2015

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P R O S E C U T O R S : M I L A N G U N M A N A C T E D W I T H ‘ C O L D P R E M E D I TAT I O N ’ The shooting immediately raised questions about how the man gained entrance to the Fascist-era courthouse with a weapon, given that visitors must pass through metal detectors.

MILAN (AP) -- Prosecutors say the man who gunned down three people in Milan’s courthouse fired at least 13 shots during the spree and had two spare cartridges for his weapon, indicating he acted with “cold premeditation.”

The courthouse has metal detectors at the four main entrances, but lawyers and courthouse employees with official IDs are regularly waved through without the additional security screen and accredited employees can drive into the internal garage.

Prosecutor Tommaso Buonanno of Brescia is conducting the investigation into Thursday’s shooting. At a press conference he cited the carnage and the fact that Claudio Giardiello first fired on his lawyer and two co-defendants, then walked downstairs and shot an acquaintance and finally a judge, as evidence that he had planned the spree.

Attornies Mirko and Davide Pupo noted that the metal detector from the lawyers’ entrance had been removed several months ago.

Prosecutor Edmondo Bruti Liberati hypothesized that Giardiello may have been able to sneak the weapon into the courthouse by using a false ID. Magistrates, court employees and accredited lawyers bearing proper ID don’t have to pass through metal detectors to get inside the building. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below. A man on trial for fraudulent bankruptcy opened fire in Milan’s courthouse Thursday, killing his lawyer, a co-defendant and a judge before being captured nearly 25 kilometers away as he fled on a motorbike, officials said. Premier Matteo Renzi promised a full-fledged investigation into how the gunman, Claudio Giardiello, managed to bring a gun into the fortress-like tribunal, where metal detectors are used for visitors but not for employees, magistrates and accredited lawyers.

Employees who emerged after the shooting suggested that the gunman could easily have gained entrance without passing through the metal detector by entering with his lawyer, though other attorneys said their clients routinely are told to go in via the public entrance. A woman cries as she is evacuated from the tribunal building in Milan, Italy, after a shooting was reported inside a courtroom Thursday, April 9, 2015. Italy’s interior minister says the gunman who opened fire in Milan’s courthouse has been detained as he tried to flee. At least one judge was shot and killed Thursday morning by the gunman, who was in the courthouse for a bankruptcy proceeding

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said the suspect was caught by carabinieri police in Vimercate, near Monza, indicating he had traveled some 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the scene before being captured. An ambulance with escort was seen leaving the Vimercate police station, but it wasn’t immediately clear if the gunman was inside.

“Our commitment is that this never happens again, and that those responsible pay,” Renzi said.

Prosecutor Edmondo Bruti Liberati said the gunman first fired on his lawyer and co-defendant, killing both and then seriously injured a second co-defendant.

However, he added that police deserved praise for “heroically” finding and disarming the gunman without incident.

Afterwards, he “walked through the building, going down a floor, and killed the judge,” Bruti Liberati told The Associated Press.

As the shots rang in the tribunal, court employees barricaded themselves inside their offices and took cover under their desks while police hunted for the gunman who moved unimpeded from one floor to the next.

He said it wasn’t clear whether there was any relationship between the gunman and the judge.

“There was a lot of panic at the beginning when people came running toward us saying there was a person with a pistol who had been shooting,” said lawyer Mirko Ricetti, who said he locked himself in a first-floor court room after hearing a shot. After texting loved ones that they were OK, employees and lawyers were eventually allowed to trickle out of the tribunal, women first, followed by the men who had their court ID cards checked.

He identified the slain judge as Fernando Ciampi, who worked in the civil section of the bankruptcy court.

The deputy interior minister, Filippo Bubbico, said an investigation would determine who was to blame for any security lapse, given also that the gunman wasn’t stopped as he moved from one floor to the next to continue the spree, and then was able to flee unimpeded. “There’s no doubt that this episode signals a non-functioning of the protection mechanisms, which must be employed daily and which have worked for years at the Milan tribunal,” he told Sky TG24. Security concerns are particularly high in Milan given the May 1 opening of the Expo world’s fair. In fact, the interior minister, Alfano, was in Milan on Thursday to preside over a public security coordination meeting for Expo when the shooting erupted.

VIDEO SHOWS CALIFORNIA DEPUTIES BEATING MAN FLEEING ON HORSE

Bruti Liberati said the gunman was on trial with two others for fraudulent bankruptcy. Giardiello’s former attorney, Valerio Maraniello, told RAI state TV the case concerned a failed real estate business and that Giardiello was “very unusual” and “over the top” in his legal dealings.

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 and policing in the U.S. and internationally. However, blacks and Hispanics “are more cautious on this issue because of their personal experiences and/or the historical treatment their groups have experienced at the hands of the police, which is only recapitulated in recent disputed killings,” he said. The General Social Survey is conducted by the independent research organization NORC at the University of Chicago. Because of its long-running and comprehensive set of questions about the public, it is a highly regarded source of data about social trends. Numbers from the 2014 survey came out last month, and an analysis of its findings on attitudes toward police and the criminal justice system was conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the General Social Survey. People demonstrate across the street from the Ferguson Police Department. Whites in the United States approve of police officers hitting people in far greater numbers than blacks and Hispanics do, at a time when the country is struggling to deal with police use of deadly force against men of color, according to a major American trend survey.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Whites in the United States approve of police officers hitting people in far greater numbers than blacks and Hispanics do, at a time when the country is struggling to deal with police use of deadly force against men of color, according to a major American trend survey.

Seven of 10 whites polled, or 70 percent, said they can imagine a situation in which they would approve of a police officer striking an adult male citizen, according to the 2014 General Social Survey, a long-running measurement of trends in American opinions. When asked the same question - Are there any situations you can imagine in which you would approve of a policeman striking an adult male citizen? - 42 percent of blacks and 38 percent of Hispanics said they could. These results come as Americans grapple with trust between law enforcement and minority communities after a series of incidents, including the deaths Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner on Staten Island, New York, both black men. Thousands of people protested in the streets last year after the deaths of 18-year-old Brown and 43-year-old Garner, who gasped “I can’t breathe” as police arrested him for allegedly selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. But the survey shows the gap between whites, blacks and Hispanics long predates the recent incidents. The poll results don’t surprise experts on American attitudes toward police, who say experiences and history with law enforcement shape opinions about the use of violence by officers. “Whites are significantly more likely to give police officers the benefit of the doubt, either because they have never had an altercation with a police officer or because they tend to see the police as allies in the fight against crime,” said Ronald Weitzer, a George Washington University sociology professor who has studied race

Deep racial divides exist in other law enforcement areas as well: - A larger number of blacks could approve police striking a murder suspect who is being questioned: 24 percent, compared to 18 percent of Hispanics and 12 percent of whites. - At more than half of whites, 69 percent, and half of Hispanics approve of police hitting suspects trying to escape from custody but only 42 percent of blacks approve. - Two-thirds, or 66 percent, of whites say they favor the death penalty for convicted murderers, while 44 percent of blacks and 48 percent of Hispanics agree. - Almost everyone seemed to approve of police officers hitting suspects back when attacked with fists, but whites again outpaced blacks and Hispanics with their approval. Nine in 10 whites approved of police hitting a person when attacked by fists, with 74 percent of blacks and Hispanics agreeing. Charles R. Epp, a University of Kansas professor and author of the book about race and police stops, said the majority of whites believe they are going to get “reasonable and fair” treatment from officers, and that encounters ending in violence are caused by the suspect. “My strong sense is that African Americans and Hispanics have too often experienced or have heard of experiences of police officers acting unfairly, so they’re less willing to support the use of force by police officers,” Epp said. “They’re not sure it will be used fairly.” There were areas of agreement: Similar small percentages of whites, blacks and Hispanics approved of police hitting suspects for using vulgar or obscene language toward an officer (9 percent for whites, 7 percent for blacks and 10 percent for Hispanics). Similar percentages agreed there is too little spending on law enforcement (47 percent of whites; 49 percent of blacks; 40 percent of Hispanics).

In this frame from video provided by KNBC-TV, officers beat and kick a man Thursday, April 9, 2015, near Apple Valley, Calif. A Southern California sheriff on Thursday ordered an immediate investigation after deputies were recorded beating and kicking a man who fled in a car and on horseback.

HESPERIA, Calif. (AP) -- A news video shows California sheriff’s deputies tracking down a man fleeing on horseback and then punching and kicking him dozens of times when he’s on the ground. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s office ordered an investigation into the beating Thursday. “The video surrounding this arrest is disturbing,” San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner John McMahon said. A sheriff’s statement said Francis Pusok, 30, fled from deputies early in the afternoon as they tried to serve a search warrant in an identity-theft investigation. He eventually abandoned a car in the Hesperia area and stole a horse, but was tracked down by deputies. KNBC-TV ( http://bit.ly/1H8UC3D ) helicopter footage shows the man dressed in bright red clothing falling from the horse as a deputy runs up and uses a stun gun on him. The sheriff’s department statement said the stun gun was ineffective. The man falls face-down with his arms and legs outstretched and the video shows two deputies appearing to come up and kick him in the head and crotch. He puts his hands behind his back as they continue to pound him. Other deputies arrive moments later. KNBC-TV said up to 13 deputies eventually surrounded the man, and some of them kicked, hit and punched him dozens of times over a two-minute period. Pusok’s attorney said to him the video showed “thugs beating up my client.” “These questions about what was he doing, what were they doing?” attorney Jim Terrell told KCAL-TV. The beating of Pusok, who is white, came as recent violent episodes by law officers dealing with suspects have provoked outrage after being captured on video, including the shooting death of an unarmed black man as he ran from a police officer last weekend in North Charleston, South Carolina. Pusok’s girlfriend of 13 years Jolene Bindner said he has had several run-ins with the law but is a great father. “I’m not going to stand here and say that he’s perfect, because who is?” she told the TV station. “I couldn’t believe it,” Bindner said after seeing the video. “The first thing I said was `they cannot do that.’” The American Civil Liberties Union released a statement saying it is “deeply troubled by the video images” and applauding McMahon’s call for an investigation. Pusok was taken to a local hospital with unknown injuries, according to the Sheriff’s Department. Two deputies suffered dehydration, a third was kicked by the horse and all were taken to a hospital for treatment, the statement said.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The Weekly News Digest, April 13, thru April 20, 2015

I R A Q ’ S T I K R I T , F R E E O F T H E I S L A M I C S TAT E , I S A C I T Y I N R U I N S

TIKRIT, Iraq (AP) -- In Iraq’s Tikrit, liberation from the Islamic State group comes at a heavy price, both in loss of life and in the sheer devastation the militants leave in their wake.

the city streets. But elsewhere, there is little law and order, and the Shiite militias roam Tikrit streets freely, spray-painting their graffiti and slogans on buildings and homes.

Much of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown and once a bustling city north of Baghdad, now lies in ruins.

Much remains to be done before Tikrit residents, most of whom are Sunnis, can return. Services such as power and water are yet to be restored.

Islamic State extremists captured it during a blitz last June that also seized large chunks of northern and western Iraq, along with a huge swath of land in neighboring Syria. After a nearly 10-month Islamic State occupation, it took Iraqi forces and their allies, including Iranian-backed Shiite militias, a month of ferocious street battles to win the city back. They declared victory in Tikrit on Wednesday, and U.S.-led coalition airstrikes also helped turn the tide in the final weeks of the battle.

The government says police and local Sunni tribes eventually will be empowered to maintain law and order in Tikrit, and the militias are expected to leave. Smoke rises by a destroyed building at one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in Tikrit, 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, April 3, 2015

Today, the houses that still stand are pocked with bullet holes and Tikrit’s streets are lined with potholes where mortars slammed down. The provincial headquarters in the downtown - now adorned with Shiite militia flags in place of the Islamic State group’s black banner - is burned from fire and damaged from heavy fighting.

nations, showed that at least 536 buildings in the city have been affected by the fighting. Of those, at least 137 were completely destroyed and 241 were severely damaged. The Iraqi offensive to recapture Tikrit also exacerbated previous damage, particularly in the city’s southern neighborhoods where clashes were the most intense.

On Friday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi warned that the military will start arresting and prosecuting those who loot abandoned Tikrit properties. He also urged security forces to quickly ensure that normalcy is restored so that Tikrit’s residents, most of whom fled the Islamic State onslaught, can return home.

So much about life in Tikrit under the Islamic State group’s rule remains unknown.

The looting was first reported within hours of the military victory but authorities have refrained from blaming anyone. A number of human rights organizations have accused the Shiite militias of carrying out revenge attacks on Sunnis in newly-recaptured towns, or destroying their homes so they can never return. Some Shiite militias have set up checkpoints on the southern approaches of Tikrit, and stop passing cars to check for looted goods. A satellite image of Tikrit, released in February by the United

Government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists, say a mass grave was found on the camp’s grounds with bodies of up to 1,700 Iraqi soldiers killed by the extremists in Tikrit and northern Iraq last June. In the heart of the city, Iraqi policemen are out in full force, along with explosives experts working to clear remaining roadside bombs and booby traps left behind by the militants. Evidence of the damage caused by the bombs is everywhere - charred military vehicles and remains of cars bombs have yet to be collected from

for taking action to improve relations with Cuba - “our closest neighbor.” “We’re very happy to say to you, Mr. President, you are on the right side of history,” Simpson Miller said. The visit to Jamaica comes amid a perception that Obama’s interest in the region has failed to materialize. Yet his travels - first to Jamaica, then to the Summit of the Americas in Panama - follow a year of increased attention to the region by the U.S. president. His immigration executive orders, his efforts to slow the influx of Central American minors to the U.S. border and his diplomatic outreach to Cuba have put a foreign policy spotlight on U.S. neighbors to the south.

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) -- President Barack Obama will act soon on a recommendation about whether to remove Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, he said Thursday as he opened a three-day trip to the Caribbean and Central America. Obama has long signaled he’s willing to take Cuba off the list as part of his broader move to reopen diplomatic relations with the island nation. Havana has eagerly sought removal from the list, but Obama has kept the decision at bay, citing a formal review process that had to be completed by the U.S. State Department. Speaking after meeting with Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, Obama said that review is now complete and he’s awaiting the actual recommendation from his aides. His decision could come as soon as this week, when Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro are both in Panama to attend the Summit of the Americas. “Throughout this process, our emphasis has been on the facts,” Obama said. “We want to make sure that given this is a powerful tool to isolate those countries that genuinely do support terrorism, that when we make those designations, we’ve got strong evidence that’s the case and as circumstance change, that list will change as well.” Cuba is one of just four countries still on the U.S. list of countries accused of repeatedly supporting global terrorism; Iran, Sudan and Syria round out the list. The designation not only offends Cuba’s pride but also restricts Havana’s access to credit and financial systems. Cuba’s continuing presence on the list has been a sticking point in the effort to restore ties between the two countries. Yet there have been indications that the U.S. has held back on granting Cuba a reprieve while other thorny issues - such as restrictions on U.S. diplomats in Havana - are still being resolved. Obama commented on the first full day of his trip to Jamaica and Panama, where he hopes to make inroads in the face of expanding Chinese influence and weakening power by Venezuela, once the energy juggernaut of the Americas. Simpson Miller thanked Obama

ALLEGED MUMBAI ATTACKS MASTERMIND LEAVES PAKISTANI JAIL

On the city’s outskirts, near Camp Speicher - a base once used by American forces - blood stains are splattered on a wall, next to a window offering a picturesque view of the Tigris River.

O B A M A : D E C I S I O N N E A R O N REMOVING CUBA FROM TERROR

US President Barack Obama and Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller during their bilateral meeting at the Jamaica House, Thursday, April 9, 2015, in Kingston, Jamaica. The president said Thursday that he soon decide whether to remove Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism now that the State Department has finished a review on the question as part of the move to reopen diplomatic relations with the island nation

But that is still off in the future.

After a low-key arrival in Kingston on Wednesday evening, Obama promptly paid tribute to the late reggae star Bob Marley, Jamaica’s cultural hero, with an unannounced visit to his museum. Obama toured Marley’s former home as Marley’s hit “One Love” played through the building’s sound system. “The quick trip that I made last night to Bob Marley’s house was one of the more fun meetings that I’ve had since I’ve been president,” Obama said on Thursday, adding that he’s a lifelong fan. Energy security tops Obama’s agenda as the U.S. seeks to fill a potential void left by Venezuela’s scaled-back oil diplomacy. Earlier this year, Vice President Joe Biden hosted prime ministers and other top officials from all Caribbean countries except Cuba at the first Caribbean Energy Security Summit in Washington. At a meeting with other leaders in the 15-member Caribbean Community, Obama vowed greater cooperation to help the region move toward cleaner, more affordable energy. “This region has some of the highest energy costs in the world,” Obama said. “Caribbean countries are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. And we have to act now.” Obama also was speaking Thursday to young regional leaders in a town-hall setting, continuing a tradition of engaging new generations in foreign political and civil society institutions. In a written interview with EFE News before his arrival in Panama, Obama continued his administration’s efforts to soften the impact of his announced sanctions against seven Venezuelans in protest of President Nicolas Maduro’s crackdown on political opponents. Maduro has characterized the sanctions as direct aggression against Venezuela. “We do not believe that Venezuela poses a threat to the United States, nor does the United States threaten the Venezuelan government,” Obama said, although he added that the U.S. remains “very troubled” by intimidation of political opponents and erosion of human rights in Venezuela. Obama’s visit to Jamaica is the first by a U.S. president since President Ronald Reagan in 1982.

Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi, the main suspect of the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008, raises his fist after his court appearance in Islamabad, Pakistan. A Pakistani lawyer says authorities have released Lakhvi from prison near Islamabad on Friday, April 10, 2015.

ISLAMABAD (AP) -- The suspected Pakistani mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks was freed from a jail near Islamabad on Friday, following a court order that he be set free pending trial, his lawyer said. Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, said to be the operations chief for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the organization blamed for the 2008 attacks, was out of detention early Friday morning, said attorney Rizwan Abbasi. A Pakistani court first ordered Lakhvi’s release on March 13, after Abbasi launched a legal battle claiming Lakhvi was being unlawfully held. But he remained in detention amid mounting pressure on Pakistan to more actively confront Islamic militants. He was ordered released for a second time on Thursday. He still faces terrorism charges over the Mumbai attacks but the trial has not yet started. “This is a triumph for law and justice,” Abbasi said. It’s unclear if Lakhvi is banned from leaving Pakistan but Abbasi says he has to appear in court for his trial. His Pakistani passport was earlier deposited with the court authorities. Lakhvi, who was first granted bail last December, is one of seven suspects on trial in Pakistan in connection with the Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people. He was arrested in 2009 and had been in detention since then - until Friday. Lashkar-e-Taiba is an organization founded by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, who now heads a charity known as Jamaat-ud-Dawa, or JuD, which denies any links to the militant group. Lakhvi could not be reached for comment after his release Friday and a Jamaat-ud-Dawa official denied a request from The Associated Press for an interview with Lakhvi. India has repeatedly urged Pakistan to more actively pursue the case, and Pakistan faced renewed pressure following the Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar in December, which left more than 140 people dead, mainly schoolchildren. India’s Home Minister Rajnath Singh described Lakhvi’s release as “unfortunate and disappointing,” according to the Press Trust of India news agency. “India wants talks with Pakistan but the present development is unfortunate and disappointing,” Singh told reporters in Lucknow, the capital of India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh. On Thursday, when the court ordered Lakhvi’s release for a second time, Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin said that the failure to effectively prosecute “known terrorists” is a “real security threat for India and the world.” India wants Saeed, the JuD leader, also tried for the Mumbai attacks, and the United States has offered a $10 million reward for information that can bring him to justice. Saeed had been in detention for a few months in connection with the Mumbai attacks but was never charged, and today he freely travels around Pakistan, making appearances on TV and in public.

The Weekly News Digest, April 13, thru April 20, 2015

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S N A P B A C K ? N O T S O FA S T. S A N C T I O N S A B I G I S S U E I N N U K E T A L K S more countries object. Russia and China have traditionally opposed almost all U.N. sanctions measures, and, perhaps tellingly, neither country’s foreign minister was present when the April 2 framework was unveiled.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Snap back? Not so fast. The biggest enforcement provision in the preliminary nuclear agreement with Iran is turning into one of the mostly hotly contested elements. And the debate barely involves Iran.

Instead, it concerns the Obama administration’s promise to quickly re-impose sanctions on Iran if the Islamic Republic cheats on any part of the agreement to limit its nuclear program to peaceful pursuits. This would be relatively straightforward for the sanctions imposed by the U.S., as Congress is eager to keep the pressure on. But it is far from clear whether President Barack Obama can guarantee such action at the United Nations, which has imposed wide-ranging penalties that all U.N. members must enforce. At present, there’s no firm agreement to how or when to lift the sanctions in the first place. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and President Hassan Rouhani said Thursday they want all sanctions lifted on the first day of implementation. That’s not the position of U.S. and other negotiators, a major issue that still must be worked out.

President Barack Obama speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington about the breakthrough in the Iranian nuclear talks. Snap back? Not so fast. The biggest enforcement provision in the preliminary nuclear agreement with Iran is turning into one of its mostly hotly contested elements. And this debate barely involves Iran. Instead, it concerns the Obama administration’s promise to quickly re-impose sanctions on Iran if it cheats on any part of the agreement to limit its nuclear program to peaceful pursuits.

Assuming it can be, that still would leave the big question of possible re-imposition.

The disagreement on this issue is between the U.S. and its European allies on one side, and Russia and China on the other - all countries involved in the nuclear negotiations. And even though all six world powers and Iran agreed last week to the framework agreement that is supposed to be finalized by June 30, the “snapback” mechanism for U.N. sanctions remains poorly defined and may prove unworkable. “If Iran violates the deal, sanctions can be snapped back into place,” Obama declared last week.

YEMEN REBELS GAIN AS IRAN CALLS S A U D I A I R C A M PA I G N A ‘ C R I M E ’ Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif meanwhile held talks Thursday in Islamabad with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in an effort to push for Yemen peace talks.

SANAA, Yemen (AP) -- Shiite rebels and allied military units in Yemen defied Saudi-led airstrikes to seize a provincial capital in a heavily Sunni tribal area on Thursday as their patron Iran called the two-week air campaign a “crime” and appealed for peace talks. The rebel fighters, known as Houthis, along with military units loyal to former autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh, overran Ataq, capital of the oil-rich southeastern Shabwa province, after days of airstrikes and clashes with local Sunni tribes. The capture marked the rebels’ first significant gain since the Saudi-led bombing began. The Saudi-led coalition has imposed an air and sea blockade on Yemen and targeted both rebels and military units loyal to Saleh, hoping to eventually allow Yemen’s internationally recognized President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to return to the country. The coalition had hoped to keep the rebels out of the southern port city of Aden, which Hadi had declared his provisional capital after fleeing Sanaa earlier this year and before leaving the country last month. But there too the rebels and Saleh loyalists have advanced, sparking days of heavy clashes. The conflict pits the Saudi-led Sunni Gulf countries against Shiite rival Iran. Tehran supports the Houthis and has provided humanitarian aid but both Iran and the rebels deny allegations that it has armed them. The growing regional involvement nevertheless risks transforming what until now has been a complex power struggle into a full-blown sectarian conflict like those raging in Syria and Iraq. The chaos has also allowed al-Qaida’s powerful local affiliate to gain ground, and the Saudi-led bombing -- backed by U.S. arms shipments and intelligence sharing -- threatens to weaken the rebels and Saleh’s loyalists, who are al-Qaida’s most powerful opponents on the ground. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned the air campaign, saying “this is a crime, genocide and legally pursuable” according to comments posted on his website. He went on to warn that “the Saudis will lose” and that “Yemenis will resist and will win.” In a speech in Tehran on Thursday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani urged a cease-fire in Yemen to allow for broad-based talks on resolving the crisis. “To the countries in the region, I say, let’s adopt the spirit of brotherhood, let’s respect each other and other nations. A nation does not give in through bombing,” said Rouhani. “Do not kill innocent children. Let’s think about an end to the war, about cease-fire and humanitarian assistance to the suffering people of Yemen.” He said the bombing campaign was “wrong,” comparing it to Syria and Iraq, where a U.S.-led coalition is targeting Islamic State militants. “You will learn, not later but soon, that you are making a mistake in Yemen, too,” Rouhani said, without naming any particular country.

The U.N. sanctions ban the transfer of nuclear and ballistic missile technology to Iran, freeze assets of companies and individuals involved in the country’s uranium enrichment program, impose an arms embargo on Iran and sharply limit the international activities of Iranian banks. All are penalties the U.S. wants fully enforced if Iran doesn’t comply with a final deal. The Obama administration is tossing around different ideas to ensure it can snap back the U.N. sanctions, though there are problems with all of them. One idea would put the burden on the U.N. Security Council. Rather than voting to re-impose sanctions, it would have to vote to stop the automatic re-imposition, officials said. Or, an extraordinary procedure could be created with the permanent, veto-holding members voting by majority. Russia and China are unlikely to accept any process that sees them sacrifice their veto power. And they could block any plan with Iran that would leave them powerless to stop majority votes by the U.S. and its European allies. In each scenario and others, the final agreement will include “automaticity,” the sense of sanctions returning automatically, a senior U.S. official said. That official and the others weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the deliberations and demanded anonymity. In an interview with NPR Monday, Obama said the sanctions would be “triggered” when the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency identified a “very real problem” and a majority of countries involved agreed. But that process also is undefined - and slow.

Zarif, who arrived in Islamabad on Wednesday, has said that Iran is ready to facilitate talks that would lead to a broad-based government in Yemen.

Pakistan’s parliament is debating whether to contribute forces to the Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen. A government statement released after the meeting with Zarif said Pakistan would stand “shoulder to shoulder” with Saudi Arabia if its territory were violated but called on Muslim countries to “council restraint and promote a spirit of mutual accommodation.”

On Wednesday Iran dispatched a naval destroyer and another logistic vessel to waters near Yemen- a sign that some saw as posturing by the Shiite powerhouse in the crowded strategic strait where U.S. and Western warships are already located. Iran’s English-language state broadcaster Press TV quoted Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari as saying the ships would be part of an anti-piracy campaign “safeguarding naval routes for vessels in the region.” The United States meanwhile said it was speeding weapons delivery to the Saudi-led coalition, and that it had carried out its first aerial refueling mission, marking a deepening of foreign involvement in the conflict. The rebels’ capture of Ataq came after days of clashes as well as negotiations with local tribes. When the Houthis and Saleh loyalists entered the city they encountered little resistance, raising questions about whether Yemen’s fractured tribes -- even in Sunni areas -can serve as reliable allies. The Houthis and their allies have seized 10 of Yemen’s 21 provinces but could encounter resistance in Shabwa from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which also maintains a heavy presence in the province.

“I don’t want to give the false impression that we have all this resolved,” Obama said this week. Questions are everywhere. In the buildup to the framework, French officials questioned if the U.N. sanctions could be snapped back into place at all. They suggested the U.N. penalties be kept in place for years. In Congress, lawmakers threatening to get involved in Obama’s diplomacy are concerned as well. Sen. Ben Cardin, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s top Democrat, is among those asking about snapback sanctions. “Undertaking the `snapback’ of sanctions is unlikely to be as clear or as automatic as the phrase implies,” former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Schultz said in a joint opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal. “Restoring the most effective sanctions will require coordinated international action,” they wrote. With commercial interests and popular opinion swaying some countries against a prompt snapback, any U.S. attempt at forcing such a move “risks primarily isolating America, not Iran.”

Ataq residents said the rebels and allied soldiers installed checkpoints all around the city. Government offices, shops and schools were closed, and residents appeared reluctant to leave their homes. “Ataq is like a military barracks. A tank here, an armored vehicle there and non-stop patrols,” said resident Saleh al-Awlaki. “I consider this an occupation by all means. And all occupation must be removed, also by all means.” Military and tribal officials said some leading members in the tribes facilitated the rebels’ entry after days of fighting. One official said the Sunni tribesmen didn’t want to keep on fighting, even though they were assisted by coalition airstrikes. The official spoke anonymously because he feared reprisals. The military officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters. Mohamed Abkar, an Ataq resident, said locals looted unguarded weapons warehouses in the city on Wednesday, but that no shot was fired at the rebels as they entered the city. Meanwhile, humanitarian groups say they are running out of medical supplies to deal with the constant flow of casualties, particularly in Aden, where the fighting is most intense. The groups have called for a temporary halt to the fighting to allow aid into Yemen. The World Health Organization said Wednesday that at least 643 civilians and combatants have been killed since March 19. At least 2,226 have been wounded, and another 100,000 have fled their homes.

POTECTING SPEICIES worldwildlife.org

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Weekly News Digest, April 13, thru April 20, 2015

I N V E S T I G AT I O N D E TA I L S P E R I M E T E R B R E A C H E S A T U S A I R P O R T S

Several hundred times over the last decade, intruders have hopped fences, slipped past guardhouses, crashed their cars through gates or otherwise breached perimeter security at the nation’s busiest airports sometimes even managing to climb aboard jets.

In Chicago, Marlow Sahron Land Jr. tossed his bike over a fence in 2010, rode it across taxiways and at least one runway, then knocked on a terminal door; a gate agent let him inside. Witnesses told arresting officers that he looked “wacked out.” Land pleaded guilty to misdemeanor attempting to resist arrest, spent six months under court supervision and paid a $190 fine.

One man tossed his bike over a fence and pedaled across a runway at Chicago O’Hare, stopping to knock on a terminal door. Another rammed a sports-utility vehicle through a security gate at Philadelphia International and sped down a runway as a plane was about to touch down, forcing officials to hold takeoffs and landings. At Los Angeles International, a mentally ill man hopped the perimeter fence eight times in less than a year - twice reaching stairs that led to jets. In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, a man who was on the run after stabbing a plumber scrambled over a barbed-wire fence and dashed into an empty plane. In all, an Associated Press investigation found 268 perimeter security breaches since 2004 at airports that together handle three-quarters of U.S. commercial passenger traffic. And that’s an undercount, because two airports among the 31 that AP surveyed didn’t have data for all years, while Boston’s Logan refused to release any information, citing security concerns. Until now, few of these incidents have been publicly reported. Most involved intruders who wanted to take a shortcut, were lost, disoriented, drunk or mentally unstable but seemingly harmless. A few trespassers had knives, and one man who drove past a raised security gate at O’Hare in January had a loaded handgun on the vehicle console. He told police he was bypassing train tracks. None of the incidents involved a terrorist plot, according to airport officials. The lapses nevertheless highlight gaps in airport security in a post-9/11 world where passengers inside airports face rigorous screening to prevent attackers from slipping through, and even unsuccessful plots - such as the would-be shoe bomber - have prompted new procedures. “This might be the next vulnerable area for terrorists as it becomes harder to get the bomb on the plane through the checkpoint,” said airport security expert Jeff Price. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent to upgrade fencing, cameras and other detection technology along airport perimeters. Many have dozens of miles of fencing, but not all of that is frequently patrolled or always in view of security cameras. Airport officials insist their perimeters are secure. They declined to discuss specifics, other than to say they have layers that include fences, cameras and patrols. Employees are required to ask for proof of security clearance if a badge is not obvious. Other measures may include ground radar and infrared sensors. If a person hops a fence but is immediately caught, “the system did work,” said Christopher Bidwell, vice president for security at Airports Council International-North America, representing airport operators. At the world’s most fortified airports, the outermost security layer has been enough. Tokyo’s Narita and Israel’s Ben Gurion airports report no perimeter intrusions. At Ben Gurion, officials said they spend more than $200 million annually on perimeter security. In the U.S., airport authorities said it is neither financially nor physically feasible to keep all intruders out. “There is nothing that can’t be penetrated,” said LAX Police Chief Patrick Gannon, noting that even the White House has struggled with perimeter security; last year an intruder with a knife climbed a fence and made it inside the executive mansion before being arrested. The AP’s analysis was prompted by a high-profile breach last spring that resulted in one 15-year-old’s improbable journey to Hawaii. Yahya Abdi climbed a fence at San Jose International Airport, hoisted himself into a jet’s wheel well and survived an almost six-hour flight. Abdi, who lived with his father and stepmother, said he was trying to get back to his mother, a refugee in Ethiopia.

Other intruders posed greater dangers or brought operations to a halt when they came too close to planes about to take off or land.

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.

- At least 44 times, intruders made it to runways, taxiways or to the gate area where planes park to refuel or load passengers. In seven cases, including Abdi’s, they got onto jets.

At the nation’s busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, three different intruders reached runways - in 2007, 2012 and 2014. One was an aggravated assault suspect who came within 50 feet of a plane that had landed as he was pursued by police.

- Seven airports in four states accounted for more than half the breaches, although not all provided data for all years examined. San Francisco International reported the most, with 37. The others were the international airports in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Jose, Miami and Tampa, Florida.

In Phoenix in 2006, a pilot told air traffic controllers he “nearly collided with a pedestrian” as he was taking off. Fence jumper Jesus Duarte Verdugo told authorities he wanted to take a shortcut to a bus stop “because I was being lazy,” adding he had done so three days earlier without getting caught.

- Four years had more than 30 breaches each: 2007, 2012, 2013 and 2014. The most was 38, in 2014 and 2012; the fewest 12 in 2009.

Among the intruders, Christopher McGrath stands out.

- Few airports revealed how long it took to apprehend suspects, saying this detail could show security vulnerabilities. Available information showed most arrests happened within 10 minutes. Several people went undetected for hours or never were caught - including a Charlotte, North Carolina, stowaway who was found dead in 2010 after he fell from a wheel well when the landing gear opened on approach to Boston. “Too often ... we don’t really have an idea of how long the individual has been roaming around the airport,” said U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, a San Francisco Bay Area Democrat who began focusing on airport perimeter security after the Abdi incident. While the Transportation Security Administration is responsible for screening passengers and baggage, individual airports are responsible for securing perimeters, typically with a mix of private security guards and airport police. The TSA reviews airport plans, conducts spot checks and can levy penalties. The agency said that from 2010 through 2014, it issued $277,155 in fines for 136 perimeter breaches. Airports are supposed to inform the TSA of such lapses, but the federal Government Accountability Office in 2009 found not all incidents were reported. In 2011, a TSA report shared with a congressional subcommittee counted 1,388 perimeter security breaches since 2001 at the 450 airports that TSA regulates.

Eight times between April 2012 and March 2013, police caught McGrath after he got over the fence at LAX on a mission to board a flight. In an affidavit, FBI special agent David Gates said McGrath demonstrated how he used his travel bag to protect himself from the barbed wire. He never was armed but twice reached the stairs leading to jets, once with a bunch of bananas he hoped a pilot would accept in return for a ride to Australia. It wasn’t clear from police reports whether the planes were empty or full. Another time he hid for hours, later telling the FBI he had spent the night behind a trash bin before an airport employee discovered him. McGrath’s repeated break-ins helped airport police address vulnerabilities: They trimmed a tree branch he had used to get over the fence. When McGrath kept returning following short stints in local jail, LAX police turned to federal prosecutors. Last year, a federal judge found him not guilty by reason of insanity on a charge of entering an airport area in violation of security requirements. He remains at a medical lockup in Missouri. In an email, McGrath told the AP that he had gone to Southern California to live as a transient because of the good weather, but after his belongings were stolen he wanted a fresh start. He said he targeted planes bound for Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and New Zealand.

Details from that report are not publicly available, and nearly a year after the TSA granted expedited status to AP’s Freedom of Information Act request for incident data, it has released nothing. The agency declined to comment on AP’s findings, and pointed to previous statements that perimeter security is the responsibility of each airport.

The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, which oversees Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark airports, refused to provide a full accounting of perimeter breaches, but did provide additional details on incidents reported in the media.

In a news conference called Thursday in response to AP’s findings, the spokesman for San Francisco International suggested that his airport had the most breaches because it disclosed everything, whether the breach was intentional or accidental.

But high-profile incidents have made the news. In one, a man whose watercraft ran out of fuel swam to shore in 2012, climbed an 8-foot fence at Kennedy and crossed two runways before asking an airline employee for help. The airport came under fire because a $100 million system of surveillance cameras and motion detectors failed.

Spokesman Doug Yakel said the airport has beefed up security and that while its airfield is safe, “The goal is always zero” breaches. U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said she’s been asking the TSA and airport officials since the San Jose case to “work together and resolve this alarming situation” and added: “Enough is enough, let’s get it done.”

Afterward, San Jose airport spokeswoman Rosemary Barnes said breaches are more common than people realize.

Former TSA director John Pistole said that fences, patrols and alarms are effective. “Overall, people should feel confident that terrorists and bad guys aren’t able to exploit it, recognizing it’s not a perfect system,” said Pistole, who retired in December.

Through public records requests, news archive searches and interviews, the AP created the most comprehensive public accounting of perimeter security breaches from January 2004 through January 2015 at San Jose and the nation’s 30 busiest airports. The analysis excluded incidents inside the airport, such as when a passenger went unscreened through a security checkpoint or walked out the wrong exit door.

Among the breaches, an elderly woman who apparently thought she was at Sears drove through a security gate at the Philadelphia airport. Also in Philadelphia, two party-goers drove through a gate to ask an officer for directions.

Among the findings:

At Philadelphia International, Kenneth Mazik rammed his SUV through a gate in March 2012 and sped onto the runway as a plane carrying 43 people was about to land. Air traffic controllers told 75 aircraft to circle and held 80 on the ground for about half an hour. He faced a rare federal prosecution and served 16 months, paying a $92,000 fine. Part of his defense was that he was high on the attention deficit drug Adderall.

At Washington Dulles and Tampa International, two men were caught skateboarding on tarmacs.

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

While the AP examination focused on larger airports, perimeter breaches are also a problem at smaller airfields where security measures are less rigid. In 2012, for example, a SkyWest Airlines pilot suspected of killing his ex-girlfriend threw a rug over a razor-wire fence at the airport in St. George, Utah, and stole an empty 50-passenger jet, which he crashed as he taxied near a terminal. He then shot and killed himself. Airport perimeter security firms sold $650 million worth of fences, gates, sensors and cameras in the decade following the 9/11 attacks, according to industry analyst John Hernandez. He projects a drop in spending from $69 million in 2012 to $47.5 million in 2017. Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, which had a string of Palestinian attacks on planes in the 1970s, measures include two fences with a radar system between them, cameras and hundreds of armed agents, according to Shmuel Zakay, the airport’s managing director. In the U.S., officials said there is neither the appetite nor funding to create fortress-like perimeters. And no solution is foolproof, according to airport security experts. One common refrain: Show me a 10-foot fence, and I’ll show you an 11-foot ladder. Outfit cameras with software that is supposed to help identify intruders, and there may not be enough staff to monitor incoming images. Or security personnel might waste time chasing false alarms triggered by something as trivial as a plastic bag caught on a fence. “Most airports that have invested in new technologies spend a lot of time responding to false alarms,” said Renee Tufts, security manager at Philadelphia International. Companies routinely pitch airports to buy technology that may or may not make them safer. To help distinguish, a nonprofit called the National Safe Skies Alliance assesses technology at the request of airports. Its president, Scott Broyles, said airports have to weigh the potential threat of harm from a perimeter breach against the hefty cost of building elaborate defenses. Airports calculate that what they have done keeps passengers safe. Said airport security expert Price: “It’s one of those issues that I think until something really bad happens, not much is going to change.”

The Weekly News Digest, April 6, thru April 13, 2015

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B L A C K M O T O R I S T ’ S FATA L S H O O T I N G : O U T C RY O V E R P O L I C E TA C T I C S NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) -- As North Charleston surged in population last decade, South Carolina’s third-largest city fought rising crime through a simple policing solution: Be aggressive. But the city’s Police Department lost the respect of many black residents in neighborhoods they blitzed, and now many are upset after the fatal shooting of an unarmed black motorist by a white officer.

older, impoverished black neighborhoods near the old naval base. And those poor and black residents have learned to band together and be cautious around a police force that is nearly 80 percent white. Several residents around the city this week told the same story about what they do when an officer turns on the lights to pull them over. They said they immediately call a friend to see if they are nearby and can walk over to be a witness to a traffic stop. If no one is close, the phone is kept on and placed on the seat in or the console so the person on the other end can listen, just in case.

Police in North Charleston used computers to track the neighborhoods where crime was on the rise, then sent waves of officers to patrol and conduct traffic stops, looking for offenders and letting drivers know they were present and cracking down. By the numbers, the tactics worked: Every major category of crime, from murder to burglary to robbery to rape, fell significantly from 2007 to 2012, the last year for which statistics are available for the State Law Enforcement Division. But anger is surfacing as civil rights leaders demand a full U.S. Justice Department investigation of the North Charleston force and its crime-fighting approach. The fatal shooting of Walter Scott as he fled after a traffic stop Saturday stirred outrage around the nation, but people in North Charleston familiar with the Police Department’s focus said they weren’t surprised. “If the image of the city is more important than the lives of their citizens, there is going to be a problem,” said Dot Scott, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Charleston branch. She’s unrelated to the slain motorist. The U.S. Justice Department is conducting a parallel investigation with a local prosecutor into whether there were civil rights violations in the killing of Walter Scott. The NAACP would like that expanded to a full probe of whether racism and lack of respect for civil rights is pervasive through the entire department - like the federal agency’s probe after of another black death at the hands of a law enforcement officer in Ferguson, Missouri. North Charleston, which has suffered an image problem much of its history, formed in 1972 from the merger of several small communities such as Liberty Hill, which was first settled by free blacks and freed slaves at the end of the Civil War. With just over 100,000 people, North Charleston grew by nearly 16,500

“We’ve learned you have to have witnesses,” said one resident, 25-yearold Robert Blanton.

People hold hands in prayer during a rally for the killing of Walter Scott by a North Charleston police officer Saturday, after a traffic stop in North Charleston, S.C., Thursday, April 9, 2015. The officer, Michael Thomas Slager, has been fired and charged with murder.

people or about 20 percent from 2000 to 2010. More than half of its residents are minorities, mostly African-Americans. Despite the effects of spillover prosperity from affluent Charleston next door, poverty endures in pockets in North Charleston. About 28 percent of its families make less than $25,000 a year, according to the U.S. Census. For years, it battled an economic slump caused by the mid-1990s closing of the Charleston Naval Base on the city’s waterfront. For decades, city fortunes were tied to the base, where 38,000 people worked in the late 1980s amid illegal tattoo parlors and prostitution that were the seedy hallmarks of many military towns late last century. But the city had plenty of land and proximity to booming Charleston, itself bounded on three sides by water. North Charleston has since bounced back, largely because of a huge investment by Boeing, which has a 787 aircraft manufacturing plant in the city and employs about 7,500 people in South Carolina, most in North Charleston. Now North Charleston reaches from upscale subdivisions of $700,000 homes near the banks of the Ashley River through a thriving commercial district with its coliseum and outlets malls along Interstate 26 to the

1 DEAD, HOMES DESTROYED IN TINY ILLINOIS TOWN AFTER TORNADO for words. Some 20 additional homes were severely damaged or destroyed in Ogle County, adjacent to DeKalb, Sheriff Brian Van Vickle said, adding no deaths or significant injuries were reported there. Van Vickle said 12 people were trapped in the storm cellar beneath a restaurant that collapsed in the storm in Rochelle, about 20 miles southwest of Fairdale.

A funnel cloud crosses south Perryville Road on Thursday, April 9, 2015, south of Interstate 39 in Rockford, Ill.

FAIRDALE, Ill. (AP) -- A tornado brought chaos to a tiny northern Illinois town, killing one person, injuring eight more and sweeping homes off their foundations, as large storm system rumbled across much of the country. DeKalb County Sheriff Roger A. Scott said in a news release early Friday that 15 to 20 homes in Fairdale were destroyed by the twister that hit the ground around 7 p.m. Thursday. Matthew Knott, division chief for the Rockford Fire Department, told The Associated Press that just about every building in the town about 80 miles northwest of Chicago “sustained damage of some sort.” A 67-year-old woman was found dead inside her home, DeKalb County coroner Dennis Miller told reporters early Friday. Scott said of the 150 Fairdale residents, another eight were taken to hospitals after the storm hit. Authorities expressed confidence that there would be no more victims found in the devastated town but that they would be working to account for every resident Friday. All homes were evacuated and power was out across the area. The Red Cross and Salvation Army established a shelter at a high school. Matt Friedlein, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said Friday that at least two tornadoes swept through six north-central Illinois counties, and that damage survey teams would visit the area to determine how long they stayed on the ground, their strength and the extent of the damage. After raking Illinois, Thursday’s storm and cold front headed northeast, dumping snow in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and sweeping across the Ohio Valley overnight, Friedlein said. The system was headed into the Appalachian region Friday morning with the potential for severe thunderstorms but “not anywhere near the threat” that it packed in the Midwest, he said. Kirkland Community Fire District Chief Chad Connell said he watched the tornado move toward Fairdale from his porch. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” he said, almost lost

One of those rescued from the Grubsteakers restaurant, Raymond Kramer, 81, told Chicago’s WLS-TV they were trapped for 90 minutes before emergency crews were able to rescue them, unscathed. “No sooner did we get down there, when it hit the building and laid a whole metal wall on top of the doors where we went into the storm cellar,” Kramer said. “When the tornado hit, we all got a dust bath. Everyone in there got shattered with dust and debris falling out of the rafters.”

Blacks were routinely putting their hands in the air when police confronted them for years before “Hands up, Don’t shoot” became a slogan against aggressive policing in the wake of the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, according to Blanton. He said he has been stopped plenty of times for simply walking around his neighborhood after dark. “I wonder - do they do that to whites walking in their neighborhood?” Blanton said. North Charleston Police would say `yes.’ The department has refused to talk about its crime-fighting strategies in the days since Scott was killed and officer Michael Slager was charged with murder, saying they want to wait until after Scott’s funeral Saturday out of respect for his family. But in a 2012 article in The Post and Courier of Charleston, then-Police Chief Jon Zumalt justified his more aggressive approach by saying it ensured people were obeying the law. And even if traffic stops didn’t lead to arrests, it got the word out that North Charleston was serious about fighting crime, he told the newspaper, which reported traffic stops in the city increased by about 3,000 to nearly 64,000 in 2011. Numbers gathered by the state back that up. North Charleston had 26 murders in 2007 and 13 murders in 2012. The number of robberies in that five-year span fell 66 percent, while the number of burglaries dropped 29 percent, according to SLED figures. Dot Scott, the local NAACP president who lives in North Charleston, said creating something akin to a police state shouldn’t equal success. “When you take people’s liberty from them to see if they are a criminal, that’s not accepted. And I don’t think it would be accepted in a non-predominantly African American neighborhood,” she said. Zumalt retired in 2012 and the city hired current chief Eddie Driggers. That hiring sparked curiosity because Driggers was known more as a police chaplain than an administrator. His style was in stark contrast to the hard charging, tough-on-crime earlier chiefs. He tried to show empathy toward African Americans, even if he struggled to change the culture of traffic stops and harassment, said the Rev. Joseph Darby, the vice president of Charleston’s NAACP branch. “I think he’s in over his head,” Darby said. “Especially now that he suddenly has this officer who has brought all this scrutiny down on what this department has been doing for years and years.

SCION YOUTH LOOKS TO SEDAN, HATCHBACK TO REVIVE SALES

The severe weather, the region’s first widespread bout, forced the cancellation of more than 850 flights at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on Thursday and dozens of others at the city’s Midway International Airport. The outlook was much improved Friday, although about 90 flights at the city’s two airports were cancelled and dozens of delays were expected. Elsewhere, a severe thunderstorm Thursday night damaged the roof of a nursing home in Longview, East Texas, and prompted the evacuation of about 75 residents. No one was hurt but thousands of homes in the area were without electricity after the high winds downed power lines and trees.

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.

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

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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.

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The Weekly News Digest, April 13, thru April 20, 2015

VA M A K E S L I T T L E H E A D WA Y I N F I G H T T O S H O R T E N WA I T S F O R C A R E FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) -- A year after Americans recoiled at new revelations that sick veterans were getting sicker while languishing on waiting lists - and months after the Department of Veterans Affairs instituted major reforms - government data shows that the number of patients facing long waits at VA facilities has not dropped at all.

But they also acknowledge that in some places, the VA is perpetually behind rising demand. Total enrollees in the VA system have ballooned from 6.8 million in 2002 to 8.9 million in 2013. “I think what we are seeing is that as we improve access, more veterans are coming,” Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs Sloan Gibson said.

No one expected that the VA mess could be fixed overnight. But The Associated Press has found that since the summer, the number of medical appointments delayed 30 to 90 days has largely stayed flat. The number of appointments that take longer than 90 days to complete has nearly doubled.

He also acknowledged that the VA takes too long to plan and build new clinics, and hasn’t been flexible about reallocating resources to areas experiencing fast growth.

Nearly 894,000 appointments completed at VA medical facilities from Aug. 1 to Feb. 28 failed to meet the health system’s timeliness goal, which calls for patients to be seen within 30 days. That means roughly one in 36 patient visits involved a delay of at least a month. Nearly 232,000 of those appointments involved a delay of longer than 60 days.

In this March 11, 2015 photo, a patient walks down a hallway at the Fayetteville Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Fayetteville, N.C. The VA hospital is one of the most backed-up facilities in the country.

A closer look reveals deep geographic disparities.

“To say I was livid is being mild,” she said.

Many delay-prone facilities are clustered in a handful of Southern states, often in areas with a strong military presence, a rural population and patient growth that has outpaced the VA’s sluggish planning process.

The AP examined six months of appointment data at 940 individual VA facilities to gauge changes since a scandal over delays led to the resignation of the VA’s secretary and prompted lawmakers in August to give the VA an additional $16.3 billion to hire doctors, open more clinics and build the new Choice program that allows patients facing long delays to get private-sector care. Data for individual facilities were not available for August.

Of the 75 clinics and hospitals with the highest percentage of patients waiting more than 30 days for care, 12 are in Tennessee or Kentucky, 11 are in eastern North Carolina and the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, 11 are in Georgia or southern Alabama and six are in north Florida. Seven more were clustered in the region between Albuquerque, New Mexico and Colorado Springs, Colorado. Those 47 clinics and hospitals represent just a fraction of the more than 1,000 VA facilities nationwide, but they were responsible for more than one in five of the appointments that took longer than 60 days to complete. That has meant big headaches for veterans like Rosie Noel, a retired Marine sergeant awarded the Purple Heart in Iraq after rocket shrapnel slashed open her cheek and broke her jaw. Noel, 47, said it took 10 months for the VA to successfully schedule her for a follow-up exam and biopsy after an abnormal cervical cancer screening test. Her first scheduled appointment in February of 2014 was postponed due to a medical provider’s family emergency, she said. Her make up appointment at the VA hospital in Fayetteville, one of the most backed-up facilities in the country, was canceled when she was nearly two hours into the drive from her home in Sneads Ferry on the coast. Noel said she was so enraged, she warned the caller she had post-traumatic stress disorder - and they better have security meet her in the lobby.

The analysis reveals stark differences between the haves and have-nots. In the Northeast, Midwest and Pacific Coast states, few VA sites reported having significant delays. A little less than half of all VA hospitals and clinics reported averaging fewer than two appointments per month that involved a wait of more than 60 days. But at the VA’s outpatient clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, 7,117 appointments completed between Sept. 1 and Feb. 28 involved a wait of more than 60 days. There were more vets experiencing extended delays there than in the entire states of New York and Pennsylvania combined. VA officials cite numerous efforts to ramp up capacity by building new health centers and hiring more staff. Between April and December, the system added 8,000 employees. In Fayetteville, the VA is finishing a new 250,000-square-foot health center to help alleviate the delays that frustrated Rosie Noel. And they say that in one statistical category, the VA has improved: The number of appointments handled by VA facilities between May and February was up 4.5 percent compared to the same period a year earlier. Referrals to private sector doctors are rising.

AMBASSADOR: US HANDED CAMBODIA T O ‘ B U T C H E R ’ 4 0 Y E A R S A G O worries me and many of us old guys who were there is that we are still seeing it happen,” says Frank Snepp, a senior CIA officer in Saigon and author of “Decent Interval,” which depicts the final years of the Vietnam War. After Cambodia and Vietnam came Laos; there would be other conflicts with messy endings, like Central America in the 1980s, Iraq and potentially - Afghanistan. Today, at 89, Dean and his French wife reside in an elegant Paris apartment graced by statues of Cambodian kings from the glory days of the Angkor Empire. A folded American flag lies across his knees, the same one he clutched under his arm in a plastic bag as he sped to the evacuation site. Captured by a photographer, it became one of the most memorable images of the Vietnam War era. In the apartment’s vestibule hangs a framed letter signed by President Gerald R. Ford and dated Aug. 14, 1975. It highlights that Dean was “given one of the most difficult assignments in the history of the Foreign Service and carried it out with distinction.” U.S. Marines provide cover during Operation Eagle Pull as Americans and Cambodians board Marine helicopters in Phnom Penh during the final U.S. pullout of Cambodia. Five days after Operation Eagle Pull, the dramatic evacuation of Americans, the U.S.-backed government fell as communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas stormed into Phnom Penh. Nearly 2 million Cambodians - one in every four - would die from executions, starvation and hideous torture.

PARIS (AP) -- Twelve helicopters, bristling with guns and U.S. Marines, breached the morning horizon and began a daring descent toward Cambodia’s besieged capital. Residents believed the Americans were rushing in to save them, but at the U.S. Embassy, in a bleeding city about to die, the ambassador wept. Forty years later, John Gunther Dean recalls one of the most tragic days of his life - April 12, 1975, the day the United States “abandoned Cambodia and handed it over to the butcher.” “We’d accepted responsibility for Cambodia and then walked out without fulfilling our promise. That’s the worst thing a country can do,” he says in an interview in Paris. “And I cried because I knew what was going to happen.” Five days after the dramatic evacuation of Americans, the U.S.-backed government fell to communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas. They drove Phnom Penh’s 2 million inhabitants into the countryside at gunpoint. Nearly 2 million Cambodians - one in every four - would die from executions, starvation and hideous torture. Many foreigners present during the final months remain haunted to this day by Phnom Penh’s death throes, by the heartbreaking loyalty of Cambodians who refused evacuation and by what Dean calls Washington’s “indecent act.” I count myself among those foreigners, a reporter who covered the Cambodian War for The Associated Press and was whisked away along with Dean and 287 other Americans, Cambodians and third country nationals. I left behind more than a dozen Cambodian reporters and photographers about the bravest, may I say the finest, colleagues I’ve ever known. Almost all would die. The pullout, three weeks before the end of the Vietnam War, is largely forgotten, but for historians and political analysts, it was the first of what then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger termed “bug-outs.” “It was the first time Americans came anywhere close to losing a war. What

But Dean says: “I failed.” “I tried so hard,” he adds. “I took as many people as I could, hundreds of them, I took them out, but I couldn’t take the whole nation out.” The former ambassador to four other countries is highly critical of America’s violation of Cambodian neutrality by armed incursions from neighboring Vietnam and a secret bombing campaign in the early 1970s. The U.S. bombed communist Vietnamese sanctuaries and supply lines along the Vietnam-Cambodia border, keeping Cambodia’s Lon Nol government propped up as an anti-communist enclave, but it provided World War II aircraft and few artillery pieces to Phnom Penh forces fighting the Khmer Rouge. In his memoirs, Kissinger says the U.S. had no choice but to expand its efforts into the neighboring country which the North Vietnamese were using

“We are doing a whole series of things - the right things, I believe - to deal with the immediate issue,” Gibson said. “But we need an intermediate term plan that moves us ahead a quantum leap, so that we don’t continue over the next three or four years just trying to stay up. We’ve got to get ahead of demand.” He also asked for patience ramping up the Choice program. Between Nov. 5 and March 17, about 46,000 patients had made appointments for private-sector care through the new option - a drop in the bucket for a system averaging 4.7 million appointments per month. as a staging area and armory, and that anti-war sentiment prevented it from giving Cambodia more assistance. Dean is bitter that Washington did not support his quest to persuade ousted Cambodian King Norodom Sihanouk to return from exile and forge a coalition between the Khmer Rouge and Lon Nol. It was Dean’s “controlled solution.” “Ambassador Dean never had (President Richard) Nixon’s or Kissinger’s support because both of them wanted out of Indochina,” Snepp says, though he, and some historians, doubt that Dean’s plan could have worked. By early 1975, the embassy’s cables, most of them declassified in 2006, were becoming increasingly frantic. Meeting me one day, a haggard Dean, who had lost 15 pounds, asked rhetorically: “Isn’t there any sense of human decency left in us?” The Khmer Rouge were tightening their stranglehold on the capital, shutting down its airport from which the embassy had flown out several hundred Cambodians. An April 6 cable from Dean said the Cambodian government and army “seem to be expecting us to produce some miracle to save them. You and I know there will be no such miracle.” Congress was cutting the aid lifeline to Phnom Penh. The American public had had enough of the war. Among Cambodians in-the-know, some anti-American feeling was growing. “We in Cambodia have been seduced and abandoned,” Chhang Song, a former information minister, said one night in early 1975. But among Phnom Penh residents I found only smiles - “Americans are our fathers,” one vegetable vendor told me - along with a never-never-land mindset that things would turn out to be all right. Somehow. The morning of the evacuation, Dean sat in his office one last time and read a letter from Prince Sirik Matak in which the respected former deputy prime minister declined evacuation and thus sealed his own death. It read: “I never believed for a moment that you have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. I have only committed this mistake of believing in you the Americans.” Dean today describes it as the “greatest accusation ever made by foreigners. It is wrenching, no?” His embassy closed down at 9:45 a.m., the evacuees driven to a soccer field. The “Jolly Green Giant” helicopters were setting down. The Marines fanned out to form a security cordon, but fears of Cambodian reprisals proved unfounded. Children and mothers scrambled over fences to watch. They cheered, clapped and waved. A Cambodian military policeman smartly saluted Alan Armstrong, the assistant defense attache. Disgusted and ashamed, Armstrong dropped his helmet and rifle, leaving them behind. I tried to avoid looking into faces of the crowd. Always with me will be the children’s little hands aflutter and their singsong “OK, Bye-bye, bye-bye.” Five days later we received a cable from Mean Leang, an ever-jovial, baby-faced AP reporter who had refused to seek safety. He wrote about the brutal entry of the Khmer Rouge into the city, its surrender and its gunpoint evacuation. “I alone in office, losing contact with our guys. I feel rather trembling,” he messaged. “Do not know how to file our stories now ... maybe last cable today and forever.” Barry Broman, then a young diplomat, remembers a Cambodian woman who worked upcountry monitoring the war for the embassy who had also refused evacuation. “One day she said, `They are in the city,’ and her contact said `OK, time to go.’ She refused. Later she reported, `They are in the building,’ and again refused to leave her post. Her last transmission was, `They are in the room.

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

The Weekly News Digest, April 13, thru April 20, 2015

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TA L K I N G T U R K E Y: H O W B I R D F L U O U T B R E A K S A R E P L AY I N G O U T

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- A deadly strain of bird flu has reached the Midwest, killing or requiring hundreds of thousands of turkeys to be euthanized. Some questions and answers about the outbreak:

Turkey Store, Cargill or Butterball but are being raised by contract growers. And a barn can be returned to production within a few months, once it’s been thoroughly cleaned out and disinfected.

WHAT KIND OF FLU IS THIS, EXACTLY?

WHY DOES MINNESOTA HAVE SO MANY TURKEYS?

H5N2 is a highly contagious virus that kills commercial poultry quickly once it gets into a barn. It can spread through an infected bird’s droppings or nasal discharges - yes, turkeys can sneeze. But the risk to the public is considered low, and infected birds are kept out of the food supply.

Minnesota is the top turkey state in the U.S. It produces around 46 million turkeys each year worth about $750 million, and exports around 8 percent of its production. Turkey farms have become clustered over the decades around processing plants and cheap sources of feed, and Minnesota has plenty of both. Jennie-O is based in prime turkey territory in western Minnesota, and Minnesota is also leading corn and soybean producer.

WHERE IS THIS TURNING UP, AND IN WHAT KINDS OF BIRDS? Minnesota has been hit harder than any other state, but it’s not clear why. The virus has caused outbreaks at nine turkey farms in central and western Minnesota since late February, as well as farms in the Mississippi and Central flyways in Missouri (2) South Dakota (1), Kansas (1) and Arkansas (1). Nearly all the losses have been at big commercial turkey farms. But this strain of bird flu can be just as deadly to chickens. The Kansas outbreak involved a backyard flock of chickens and ducks. H5N2 and other highly pathogenic strains have also been found since late last year among wild birds, backyard flocks and commercial farms in some western states and British Columbia. Canadian officials confirmed Wednesday that a turkey farm in southern Ontario had also been infected with H5N2. AREN’T MOST COMMERCIAL POULTRY BARNS SHUT TIGHT TO KEEP DISEASES OUT? They are. Poultry farms with good biosecurity strictly limit who’s allowed in. Workers often have to shower on their way in and out, wear protective coveralls and step in disinfectant to kill viruses on their boots. Equipment coming in and out is typically sanitized. Trucks entering and leaving a farm might get their tires scrubbed. But the system doesn’t always work. Experts say it requires everyone to do everything right all the time. Plus rodents and wild birds that sneak into a barn can bring in the virus. SO WHAT HAPPENS TO THESE TURKEYS WHEN BIRD FLU ARRIVES? They die, and quickly. The first symptom farm workers notice may be a rapid spike in sudden deaths. Less severe symptoms can be similar to colds and flu in humans, or a flock turning quiet. Vaccines have been used around the world to protect flocks against various bird flu strains

SO DOES THIS MEAN I’LL BE PAYING MORE FOR TURKEY? In this Nov. 2, 2005 file photo, turkeys are pictured at a turkey farm near Sauk Centre , Minn. A deadly strain of bird flu has reached the Midwest, killing or requiring hundreds of thousands of turkeys to be euthanized.

ahead of time, but this strain is new to the U.S. Once an infection is confirmed at a farm, all surviving birds on the property are typically killed to prevent it from spreading. These flocks are usually killed by pumping a water-based foam into the barn, following guidelines from the U.S. Department of Agriculture endorsed as humane by the American Veterinary Medical Association. The foam suffocates the birds within minutes. OH. SO WHAT DO THEY DO WITH ALL THESE DEAD BIRDS?

They compost them - usually right in the same barn where they died. It sounds gross, but composting is a widely used and approved method throughout the poultry industry to dispose of birds that die in the usual course of business on a farm - and those that die in disease outbreaks. Studies show that properly done, the heat generated by composting is enough to kill flu viruses and other pathogens commonly present in poultry such as salmonella. The compost then can be safely spread as fertilizer.

An outbreak that kills tens of thousands of birds certainly can cost a farm dearly. The government doesn’t compensate producers for birds that die of the disease itself, but it does reimburse them for birds that have to be euthanized as a precaution. That gives farmers an incentive to report suspected outbreaks and deal with them swiftly. Often the birds themselves belong to a big poultry company such as Jennie-O

beds. The region is home to the San Juan Basin, North America’s most productive area coal bed methane extraction area. Methane also is released by coal mining and oil and gas drilling systems, and cattle produce large amounts of the gas. Scientists can pinpoint the kind of methane created by fossil fuels by looking for the presence of associated hydrocarbons.

DENVER (AP) -- Scientists are working to pinpoint the source of a giant mass of methane hanging over the southwestern U.S., which a study found to be the country’s largest concentration of the greenhouse gas.

HEALTH EFFECTS The methane emissions pose no direct safety or health risks for Four Corners residents, although the hot spot does factor into overall global warming.

It’s possible methane levels over the Four Corners have changed since 2009, said Gabrielle Petron, a scientist at the University of Colorado’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences who is working on the latest study. Coal bed methane operations have declined since then, but oil production has increased.

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

The study found the concentration of methane detected there would trap more heat in the atmosphere than all the carbon dioxide produced each year in Sweden.

POSSIBLE SOURCES Methane occurs naturally and also is emitted by landfills and the agricultural and oil and natural gas industries. One possible source of the hot spot is methane released from the region’s coal deposits. The releases can happen naturally, especially where coal seams reach the earth’s surface. They also occur deliberately when energy companies extract methane - the primary component of natural gas - from coal

A frequent traveler as a tech company employee, Seipler had a thought one night at a Minneapolis hotel. “I picked up the phone and called the front desk and asked them what happens to the bar of soap when I’m done using it,” he recalled. “They said they just threw it away.”

Thus began his mission to help save lives with soap and even half-used bottled amenities like shampoo.

The European satellite that captured the hot spot is no longer in use, but Japan’s GOSAT satellite plans to focus in on the Four Corners when it passes over the area.

Methane doesn’t last as long in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, but it’s far more potent for capturing heat in the short term.

The nonprofit initiative, now called Clean the World, has since grown to include industrial recycling facilities in Las Vegas, Orlando and Hong Kong, cities where hotels are plentiful and used bars of soap can be gathered easily by the thousands.

INVESTIGATING THE MYSTERY

Now, scientists from the University of Colorado, the University of Michigan, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA are conducting a monthlong study to figure out exactly where it came from.

Last year’s study by NASA and the University of Michigan was based on images from a European satellite captured between 2003 and 2009. They showed the methane hot spot as a red blip over the area, which is about half the size of Connecticut.

It began about seven years ago as a tiny operation with a few friends and family in a single-car garage in Orlando, Florida, where they used meat grinders, potato peelers and cookers to recycle used soap into fresh bars.

Seipler, now the group’s CEO, said some research revealed that millions of used bars of soap from hotels worldwide are sent to landfills every day while many people in developing nations are dying from illnesses that could be prevented with access to simple hygiene products.

For the next month, scientists based in Durango will fly in planes with a variety of instruments that can sense methane in the San Juan Basin. Crews in vans will follow up on their leads on the ground.

HOT SPOT

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Shawn Seipler is on a mission to save lives with soap.

Also, methane emitted from traditional oil and gas operations usually is accompanied by hydrocarbon emissions that can create ozone, a pollutant that leads to smog and is linked to asthma and respiratory illness.

The report that revealed the methane hot spot over the Four Corners region - where Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona meet - was released last year.

The answer could help reduce methane emissions that contribute to global warming. Here are some key things to know:

GROUP HOPES RECYCLED HOTEL SOAP HELPS SAVE LIVES WORLDWIDE

DO THESE OUTBREAKS WIPE OUT AFFECTED FARMERS?

SCIENTISTS SEEK SOURCE OF GIANT METHANE MASS OVER SOUTHWEST

This undated handout image provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Michigan, shows The Four Corners area, in red, left, is the major U.S. hot spot for methane emissions in this map showing how much emissions varied from average background concentrations from 2003-2009 (dark colors are lower than average; lighter colors are higher. Satellite data spotted a surprising hot spot of the potent heat-trapping gas methane over part of the American southwest. Those measurements hint that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considerably underestimates leaks of natural gas, also called methane. In a new look at methane from space, the four corners area of New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Utah jump out in glowing red with about 1.3 million pounds of methane a year. That’s about 80 percent more than the EPA figured and traps more heat than all the carbon dioxide produced yearly in Sweden.

Probably not. While Minnesota alone has lost at least 373,000 birds from this outbreak, and the toll nationwide is over 500,000, that’s just a sliver of U.S. turkey production - 235 million birds in 2014. If anything, the loss of export markets because of these outbreaks may put downward pressure on prices because that turkey will have to be sold domestically. And don’t worry about Thanksgiving. Turkey prices around the holidays often have nothing to do with the costs of production. Retailers often sell turkeys at a loss just to draw in customers who’ll stock up on stuffing mix, cranberries, sweet potatoes, pies and other traditional favorites.

“It’s a huge problem,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. “One of the most common kinds of illnesses in the world are those that are transmitted from person to person and to oneself because of germs that are on one’s hands.” In the U.S. and other developed nations, Schaffner noted, people take hygiene products for granted because they are everywhere - soap in public restrooms and even cleanser wipes at the entrances of grocery stores to sanitize shopping cart handles. Not so in some other countries. Schaffner recalled visiting a hospital in the Middle East to find soap was in such short supply that patients had to provide their own or go without. “It’s such a fundamental part of the interruption of transmission of infectious agents that could save so many lives,” he said. “It’s not a magic wand, but it’s a very important element.” Clean the World announced this week that it was partnering with the similar Global Soap organization to increase production, hygiene education and delivery. The combined group now collects used soap from more than 4,000 hotels and says it has delivered some 25 million bars to 99 countries, including homeless shelters in the U.S.

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

www.directrelief.org

The process is fairly simple, with the collected soap getting shredded, run through machines that remove any residual bacteria and then pressed into new bars and packaged for delivery. The group uses local aid and non-governmental organizations to help with distribution and education, as well as sending their own teams into rural communities around the world to hand-deliver hygiene products and to teach residents about the importance of keeping clean. “A lot of people are surprised to find out that one of the most effective ways to prevent many deaths is actually just hand-washing with soap,” Global Soap director Sam Stephens said. “We’re hoping to make a difference.”