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S W E D E N TA R G E T S P I R AT E B AY A G A I N AFTER COMPLAINT COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- Swedish police have raided a server room in Stockholm in an action targeting the file-sharing website The Pirate Bay.

He declined to give further details.

Police spokesman Paul Pinder said Wednesday the raid took place after Rights Alliance, a Swedish Internet anti-piracy group, had reported Pirate Bay for alleged copyright violations.

He said the file-sharing website went down shortly after Tuesday’s raid.

On its website, Rights Alliance head Sara Lindback said Pirate Bay is “an illegal commercial service” making “considerable earnings by infringing the works of others.”

Pirate Bay is one of the world’s biggest free file-sharing websites offers millions of users a forum for downloading music, movies and computer games. The entertainment industry has failed to shut it down, even after its operators were convicted of copyright violations.

PASSENGERS, AIRLINES C A N ’ T A F F O R D L AT E 1ST FLIGHT

Southwest Airlines ramp supervisor Steve Belch, left, confers with ground crewman Dillard Blue after a mechanical glitch developed on the early morning originator flight waiting for departure from the gate behind them, at Love Field in Dallas. Throughout the airline industry, the first flight of the day sets the tone for keeping the system’s flights running on-time.

DALLAS (AP) -- For years, Southwest was the most punctual of big U.S. airlines, so its tumble toward the bottom of government rankings for on-time arrivals was stunning.

Southwest officials needed to fix an ill-fated decision to squeeze more flights into the schedule. This summer, they backed off by allowing more time between flights. And they told employees that the first flight of the day on every route had to leave on time.

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Dec 8 thru Dec 15, 2014

OBAMA CONFRONTS BUSH LEGACY WITH REPORT’S RELEASE WASHINGTON (AP) -- For President Barack Obama, the long-delayed release of a scathing Senate report on harsh CIA interrogations underscores the degree to which the legacy of George W. Bush’s national security policies has shadowed the man elected to change or end them.

do better,” Obama said in a written statement. He showed some sympathy with Bush, saying, “The previous administration faced agonizing choices about how to pursue al-Qaida and prevent additional terrorist attacks against our country.”

After six years in office, While Obama banned waObama is still struggling to dismantle some of the steps terboarding and other tactics upon taking office, his adminBush said he was taking in the name of preventing terrorism. istration struggled for years with how to publicly reveal the The most glaringly unfulfilled scope of the program. Even as promise is his pledge to close Obama claims closure in the torture debate, big chunks of President Barack Obama boards Air Force One after a visit to Nashville, Tenn., Tuesday, Dec. 9, the Guantanamo prison within Bush’s national security appa- 2014. Obama went to the Casa Azafran community center and delivered remarks and answered his first year in office, a commitment he made the same ratus remain in place, includ- questions regarding immigration reform. day he banned the harsh CIA ing the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and sweeping government surveillance pro- interrogation techniques. More than 130 detainees remain at the detengrams. Obama has also thrust the U.S. back into a military conflict in Iraq tion center, and the pathway for removing most of them is unclear. and faces questions about his ability to end the Afghanistan war by the Many of Obama’s supporters were infuriated when documents made time he leaves office. public by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden revealed “It’s been a lot harder to move certain things than they anticipated,” said that the president had maintained and in some cases expanded mass surKen Gude, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a White veillance programs that began under Bush. Obama pledged to make some House-aligned think tank. “There have been other areas in which they reforms, but put the onus on Congress for overhauling the most controversial program: Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, which authorized intentionally have not made much progress.” the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records.

To some former Bush administration officials, Obama’s mixed record in dismantling his predecessor’s national security apparatus has vindicated With little pressure from Obama for change, overhaul efforts have lanthe necessity of the steps they took in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, guished on Capitol Hill, and Section 215 was renewed again this month. terror attacks.

Perhaps Obama’s most consistent promise after the Bush presidency was “When you say things in campaigns and then you actually get into office to end the two wars that started alongside the surveillance and interrogaand you’re confronted by the breadth and scope of what the national se- tion programs. Just a few months ago, Obama appeared on track to fulfill curity infrastructure is all about, it’s a totally different perspective,” said that pledge, with the Iraq war having ended in 2011 and combat missions Michael Allen, who worked at the White House and State Department in Afghanistan scheduled to end later this month. during the Bush administration.

But Islamic State militants who strengthened in Iraq after the withdrawUpon taking office, Obama moved quickly to issue an executive order al of U.S. troops drew the American military back into a conflict there, prohibiting the CIA from using harsh interrogation techniques that he though so far the U.S. is only using air power, not ground troops. The addenounced as torture and backed a Senate inquiry into the practices. ministration also announced this week that it planned to keep 1,000 more But Tuesday’s release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report has troops than originally planned in Afghanistan after this year, though the repeatedly been delayed, in part because of the administration’s con- Pentagon says it is still on track to withdraw all U.S. forces by the time cerns about the breadth and specificity of what would be made public Obama’s presidency ends in early 2017. and whether it was worth potentially inflaming anti-American sentiment For White House supporters, the question now is whether the final two around the world. years of Obama’s presidency will bring about other significant shifts The president cast the report as an important step in moving the country away from Bush’s national security legacy. beyond actions he called “inconsistent with our values as a nation.”

“This is going to be the defining issue of the president’s last two years in “One of the strengths that makes America exceptional is our willingness to openly confront our past, face our imperfections, make changes and continued on page 2

10 KEY FINDINGS FROM REPORT O N C I A I N T E R R O G AT I O N S

“If you’re late out of the driveway in the morning, you’re probably going to be a little bit late to work,” says Steve Hozdulick, Southwest’s senior director of operational performance. “You’re going to hit the two traffic lights that you never hit.”

- The CIA’s management of coercive interrogations and its system of “black site” prisons was “deeply flawed.” Personnel were sometimes poorly trained, medical personnel assisted in harsh treatment, and record-keeping was mismanaged.

In the airline world, delays build as the day wears on. This summer, for example, airlines were on-time around 85 percent or better until midmorning.

By midafternoon, the rate dropped into the low 70s, then plunged into the 60s by dinner time.

- The agency’s use of coercive interrogations was based on a program developed by two psychologists who had no experience in interrogations or counterterrorism. The CIA never conducted a comprehensive analysis of the program’s effectiveness.

Delays are costly for airlines and their passengers. A 2010 study commissioned by the Federal Aviation Administration estimated that flight delays cost the airline industry $8 billion a year, much of it due to increased spending on crews, fuel and maintenance. Delays cost passengers even more - nearly $17 billion.

- The CIA actively impeded or avoided congressional oversight. Senior CIA officials repeatedly gave inaccurate information to congressional leaders and at one point undercounted the number of terror detainees who were subjected to harsh treatment under questioning.

In the first nine months of the year, more than 1 million U.S. airline flights arrived late - about one in five. Tardiness creates other problems including missed connections, lost bags and short tempers among frustrated travelers.

On a freezing morning recently at Dallas Love Field, Southwest supervisors showed up at 4 a.m., two hours before the first flights. They’ll assign two or more bag handlers to each flight.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, left, and Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., center, take an elevator to the Senate on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014, as Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., was scheduled to release a report on the CIA’s harsh interrogation techniques at secret overseas facilities after the 9/11 terror attacks.

The last bag should be on the plane and the bin doors closed five minutes before scheduled departure, says Dave Obeso, a Southwest ramp supervisor.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ten major findings from the newly released summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program:

The pilots for Flight 454 to Phoenix inspected their Boeing 737 in the dark.

Workers called “ops agents” calculated load weight and balance and completed paperwork. A fueler gassed up the jet. Inside the terminal, agents at Gate 12 started boarding the 136 passengers - they’re supposed to close the aircraft door five minutes before scheduled departure.

- Enhanced interrogation techniques used on terror detainees, including simulated drowning and sleep deprivation, were ineffective in gaining intelligence leads that led to important operations against terrorist groups or prevented attacks on the U.S.

And then, a snag. A broken communications radio. A replacement was ordered and installed, a tug pushed the plane back from the gate, and the pilots taxied into position for takeoff. But the damage had been done.

- The prison conditions and harsh interrogations of detainees were more brutal than the CIA officials acknowledged to the American public and in contacts with Congress and the White House. The simulated drowning technique of waterboarding was “physically harmful,” with effects that included vomiting and convulsions. At least one terror detainee died of exposure in an overseas prison.

Flight 454 left 29 minutes behind schedule and arrived in Phoenix 34 minutes

continued on page 2

- CIA officials often gave inaccurate information about the interrogation program to Bush administration White House and legal officials, preventing a proper legal analysis of the prison operations. Bush legal officials relied on erroneous CIA data to codify the use of waterboarding and nine other enhanced interrogation techniques.

- Interrogators sometimes used harsh tactics not condoned by CIA superiors or White House legal officials. But interrogators and prison officials who violated CIA policies were rarely disciplined or reprimanded.

- Much of the information that the CIA provided to the media about its interrogation and detentions program was inaccurate, preventing clear scrutiny of detainees’ treatment.

- The CIA’s reliance on harsh interrogations complicated the national security missions of other federal agencies. The FBI abandoned its traditional role in interrogations as the CIA began to rely on harsh methods.

And the CIA often resisted efforts by the agency’s inspector general to investigate the use of harsh interrogations and conditions in black sites.

- The CIA’s harsh interrogations and secret detentions in overseas prisons damaged the reputation of the U.S. around the world.

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The Weekly News Digest, Dec 8 thru Dec 15, 2014

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AS BEEF PRICES RISE, CATTLE HERDS GO MISSING IN IDAHO BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- More than 150 cattle valued at about $350,000 have been reported missing in southeastern Idaho, and authorities suspect modern-day cattle rustling as beef prices have soared.

He said the size of the nation’s cattle herd has shrunk in 15 of the last 17 years, while at the same time the human population has grown.

He also said some cattle producers are currently withholding cows and heifers from the market in an attempt to increase herd sizes, another factor leading to less beef on supermarket shelves.

“Right now it’s just insane what those things are worth - it scares me to death,” Idaho State Brand Inspector Larry Hayhurst said. “Which means the incentive is there.”

Three ranchers say roundup searches in recent weeks in the hills and gulches on the remote summer range where the cattle graze have come up empty in two counties.

“It’s supply driven,” Good said. “At some point we’ll expand the herd.” livestock stand in a feedlot outside Caldwell, Idaho. More than 150 cattle valued at about $350,000 have been reported missing in southeastern Idaho, and authorities suspect modern-day cattle rustling as beef prices have soared. Three ranchers say roundup searches in recent weeks in the hills and gulches on the remote summer range where the cattle graze have come up empty in Bingham and Bonneville counties. The losses include a herd of 50 Black Angus consisting of 25 cows and 25 calves valued at $150,000.

Another herd of 41 cow-calf pairs, meaning 82 animals total, plus 10 cow-calf pairs, or 20 animals, all valued at about $200,000, from another rancher are also reported missing.

The losses include a herd of 50 Black Angus consisting of 25 cows and 25 calves valued at $150,000. Another herd of 41 cow-calf pairs, meaning 82 animals total, plus 10 cow-calf pairs, or 20 animals, from another rancher are also reported missing. Those missing cattle are valued at about $200,000.

Authorities say other ranchers in the region have reported smaller losses, but note that typically one or two cow-calf pairs go missing almost every year. An entire herd disappearing is something else.

“At this point we don’t have any suspects,” said Sgt. Jeff Edwards of the Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating the missing Black Angus.

He said an aircraft was used in that search, and so far no other rancher has reported accidently rounding up the cattle, which happens sometimes.

The sheriff’s office in nearby Bingham County, where the 102 cattle are missing, is also stumped.

“It is a very cold trail,” said Capt. Robert Sobieski. “There’s no way of knowing when they went missing. That’s what makes it toughest.”

But he also said that deputies aren’t ready to confirm that the cattle have been stolen because they could have mingled with other herds in the area.

But there have been no reports of that from other ranchers so far.

Authorities said taking that many cattle would likely involve tractor-trailers, and at least several people on horseback or all-terrain vehicles to round them up.

“We’ve never seen cattle prices this high before in the history of the cattle market,” said Brad Higgins, a rancher in northern Idaho near Cottonwood and board member of the Idaho Cattle Association. “I worry about (theft) a little bit out here.”

U.S. cattle industry officials say beef prices are at record highs due to a combination of factors that include past droughts that caused cattle numbers to shrink and increased demand for beef on a global scale following the Great Recession.

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“More people entering the middleclass want to eat up the food chain,” said Kevin Good, a senior market analyst for CattleFax, a group that tracks the industry.

B U S H

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office on national security policy,” Gude said, “whether he can genuinely pass on to his successor a changed and reformed foreign and security policy or whether we’re still mired in some of the same old debates that at that point will be 15 years old.”

PASSENGERS, AIRLINES continued from page 1

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late. Southwest’s control center relayed word of the delay to Phoenix employees, who “turned” the aircraft faster than normal before its next flight. Still, the plane remained nine to 28 minutes behind schedule for the remaining four flights of the day, according to the tracking service FlightAware.com.

As recently as 2009, Southwest led the big airlines in on-time arrivals, which the government defines as within 14 minutes of schedule. Southwest tumbled to last among the largest five carriers in 2013 and much of 2014 but topped American and United in October, according to figures released Wednesday.

Delta went from worst to first among the biggest airlines in 2011 and has stayed there ever since. Dave Holtz, senior vice president of operations, credited schedule changes, monthly bonuses of up to $100 per employee for hitting on-time and other goals, and the rote, repeatable task of sticking to a minute-by-minute pre-departure checklist. Delays early in the day are

www.redcross.org

Good said the U.S. had a cattle population of 88 million in 2014, and that Americans will eat about 54 pounds of beef per person this year. That compares to a cattle population of about 103 million in 1996, when American at about 67 pounds of beef per person per year.

Higgins said ranchers are having to decide whether to cash in on high prices by selling more heifers that would normally be used to replenish or increase herd numbers. Retaining those cattle is essentially betting that prices will stay high. Higgins, 45, said he’s sticking with his plan to hold onto about 15 percent of the heifers to maintain a herd of about 225, but could understand if others chose differently.

“It’d be a great time to cash in on the market if you’re at an age where you’re close to retiring,” he said.

Hayhurst, the state brand inspector, said that earlier this fall his office caught a man trying to sell 10 dairy cattle he’d stolen from a large dairy that didn’t even realize they were gone.

He said that if the eastern Idaho cattle were stolen it would be difficult to sell them in one of mostly western states that exchange information on brands. But he said someone with some planning could get past state ports of entry by using back roads and end up in a state without brand inspections.

“There are ways to get rid of them,” Hayhurst said. “But it’s hard with a branded animal to market them.”

He also said the cattle could simply be used to start another herd, as likely the cows were pregnant. particularly problematic.

“The key is to not let yourself fall behind,” Holtz says. “Keep this thing churning on time for as long as possible because there’s a deteriorating effect on your entire system once it starts to go.”

Many travelers assume that airlines have plenty of spare planes. But Southwest uses about 600 planes on an average day and keeps just a dozen or so in reserve at big airports.

Airlines can boost their on-time grade by loosening or padding the schedule - allowing more time between takeoff and arrival. Southwest has done that, especially at bigger airports.

But padding has drawbacks. Planes don’t fly as much, so they make less money. It drives up labor costs because crews are paid based on scheduled flight times. And it creates the inverse problem - flights that arrive so early that there’s no gate available, forcing passengers to stay on the plane after they land.

Travelers may sympathize with airlines when the delay is caused by bad weather. They are less forgiving when they think the airline could have done better.

Paul Jarley, dean of the business school at the University of Central Florida, said his plane sat at the gate in San Diego because of bad weather in Las Vegas. What bothered him, however, was a second delay to replace a bad tire on the landing gear.

“The obvious question was, if the plane was sitting there for 90 minutes, why didn’t anybody see the tire?” Jarley said.

Jarley, a frequent business flier who missed an appointment because of the delay, said he doesn’t look at airlines’ on-time ratings when booking a trip, “but if it happened to me a couple of times, that would make me change carriers.”

Michael Baiada, a recently retired United captain whose company, ATH Group, calculates arrival times for Delta, thinks airlines could eliminate most delays themselves if they had more consistent procedures, left early if they knew there were headwinds or other delaying factors looming, and worked harder to catch up when they fall behind schedule.

“Airlines are comfortable with their product being late 30 to 40 percent of the time,” Baiada says, using the strict definition of being even one minute late, not the 15-minute cushion. “Would you buy a cellphone that works 60 to 70 percent of the time?”

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D E T A I N E E Z U B A Y D A H A K E Y F I G U R E I N S E N A T E R E P O R T WASHINGTON (AP) -- Abu Zubaydah was the CIA’s guinea pig.

He was the first high-profile al Qaida terror suspect captured after the Sept. 11 attacks, and the first to vanish into the spy agency’s secret prisons, the first subjected to grinding white noise and sleep deprivation tactics and the first to gasp under the simulated drowning of waterboarding. Zubaydah’s stark ordeal became the CIA’s blueprint for the brutal treatment of terror suspects, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report released Tuesday.

U.S. and Pakistani officials grabbed Zubaydah in the town of Faisalabad and wounded him in a firefight in March 2002. He was taken to a prison site in an unidentified country described as “Detention Site Green” in the report, but confirmed as Thailand, according to prior legal documents, media accounts and international investigations. While healing, Zubaydah was questioned by FBI and CIA interrogators. But the FBI veterans soon withdrew from the black site after protesting that CIA interrogators were using abusive techniques on Zubaydah.

The newly released report cites Zubaydah’s detention in Pakistan in March 2002 as a turning point in the Bush administration’s no-holdsbarred approach to terror suspects and the CIA’s development of coercive interrogation tactics.

In his first waterboarding session in early August 2002, CIA interrogators hooded and shackled Zubaydah and pitched him into a wall. They repeatedly asked “questions about threats” to the U.S., but Zubaydah insisted he had no information to give.

The United States brutalized scores of terror suspects with interrogation tactics that turned secret CIA prisons into chambers of suffering and did nothing to make America safer after the 9/11 attacks, Senate investigators concluded Tuesday.

The interrogators strapped Zubaydah to a board, covered his face with a cloth and poured water over it. Zubaydah choked, vomited, then blacked out, coming to under medical supervision after expelling “copious amounts of liquid,” according to CIA records cited by the Senate. “So it begins,” a CIA officer wrote to superiors in a cable from the prison.

The committee report accused the CIA of offering a misleading version about what it was doing with its “black site” captives and deceiving the nation about the effectiveness of its techniques. The report was the first public accounting of tactics employed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and it described far harsher actions than had been widely known.

The tactics employed included confinement to small boxes, weeks of sleep deprivation, simulated drowning, slapping and slamming, and threats to kill, harm or sexually abuse families of the captives. The report catalogued the use of ice baths, death threats, shackling in the cold and much more, including waterboarding. Many detainees developed psychological problems.

The case of Abu Zubaydah offers a personal view of those experiences.

While CIA officials subjected Zubaydah to a growing array of harsh interrogations, legal officials working for President George W. Bush wrote memos citing Zubaydah as a key test case to justify the extreme measures, the report said.

Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002 alone, according to a previously released Bush-era legal document. The new Senate

This undated file photo provided by U.S. Central Command shows Abu Zubaydah at an unknown location. Zubaydah was the CIA’s guinea pig. He was the first high-profile al Qaida terror suspect captured after the Sept. 11 attacks and the first to vanish into the spy agency’s secret prisons, the first subjected to grinding white noise and sleep deprivation tactics and the first to gasp under the simulated drowning of waterboarding.

Zubaydah’s stark ordeal became the CIA’s blueprint for the brutal treatment of terror suspects, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report released Tuesday

report said CIA interrogators had a pre-arranged plan about how to dispose of Zubaydah’s body if he were to die during questioning: He would be cremated.

The physical effects on the terror suspect were immediate and pronounced. Straining under a waterlogged cloth clamped over his face, Zubaydah became “completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth,” according to CIA emails cited in the report. He was body-slammed by his captors. He was hooded, then unmasked and ominously shown a coffin-like box. He was locked in a cramped cell, reduced to wailing and hysteria, the report said.

Zubaydah’s torment became the template for the CIA’s black-site interrogations, the Senate report said. It provided interrogators with reams of data, CIA medical specialists with the limits of human endurance and Bush administration officials with the legal outlines of how they would deal with future terror suspects. At the CIA’s request, the report said, top Bush administration Justice Department officials approved the use of waterboarding and other coercive tactics to humble Zubaydah and enshrined a harsh regime that controlled every aspect of his life.

THOUSANDS CROWD DUBLIN TO DENOUNCE IRISH WATER TAX creation and property sales.

Many leading anti-water tax protesters are opposition lawmakers trying to force an early election. Kenny says his two-party government, despite deep unpopularity in polls, intends to run its full five-year term to 2016.

O I L TA K E S A N O T H E R DIVE ON OPEC REPORT, US SUPPLIES Water tax protesters congregate close to government buildings in Dublin city centre, Ireland, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2014. Thousands of people attended the protest Wednesday in Dublin against the introduction of water tax charges in the Republic of Ireland.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The price of oil took another dive Wednesday, plunging to five-year lows amid mounting evidence that global supplies are far outstripping demand.

DUBLIN (AP) -- Tens of thousands of protesters brought Dublin to a standstill Wednesday in a mass protest against Ireland’s planned new tax on household water supplies, the last major measure in the country’s six-year austerity drive.

The U.S. Energy Department reported a surprise increase in domestic oil inventories and OPEC projected that demand for its crude would sink next year to levels not seen in more than a decade.

Police estimated more than 30,000 people attended the main “Right2Water” rally in the square outside the office of Prime Minister Enda Kenny, where socialist and Irish nationalist politicians appealed from a makeshift stage for the public to boycott their water bills. “No way! We won’t pay!” the crowd chanted. Two of Dublin’s most popular folk-rock singers, Damien Dempsey and Glen Hansard, led the crowd in songs of guitar-strumming protest.

Elsewhere, near the cordoned-off entrance to Ireland’s parliament building, protesters chanting “Whose streets? Our streets!” tried to topple security barriers and hurled objects at police lines. One officer was hospitalized with facial injuries before police reinforcements donning full riot gear spurred the crowd to back off.

As evening rush hour approached, groups of protesters blocked key roads and bridges over the River Liffey, gridlocking traffic for more than three hours and forcing some commuters to abandon their vehicles and walk. An Associated Press reporter saw one protester narrowly avoid being struck by a van, whose driver cursed at him and other protesters as he forced his way past.

Benchmark U.S. crude slumped 4.5 percent, or $2.88, to close at $60.94 a barrel on Wednesday. Prices have not been that low since July of 2009. U.S crude prices have fallen 17 percent in two weeks and are now 43 percent below the $107.26 that a barrel fetched at its peak this year.

Brent crude, an international benchmark used to price oil used in many U.S. refineries, fell $1.95 to close at $64.24 in London.

Energy analyst and trader Stephen Schork said in an interview that he expects that the combination of weak economic news out of Asia and growing global supplies will push oil down further, to below $60, by the end of the week. “It’s the proverbial `trying to catch a falling dagger’ and I’m not going to try to catch it,” he said.

OPEC said Wednesday that it expects demand for its crude to fall to 28.9 million barrels per day next year, 400,000 barrels per day less than in 2014. The cartel’s official production target is 30 million barrels a day, which would mean far more oil on the world market than is being consumed.

Ireland’s 3 1/2-year-old government is facing its greatest test since admitting it bungled the creation of a new nationwide utility, Irish Water.

The initial deadline for households to register for the new charge came and went Oct. 1 with widespread refusals, and militant crowds have blocked Irish Water workers from installing meters in many working-class neighborhoods. The government, seeking to calm the air of rebellion, proposed smaller, more clearly defined water charges due to come into force Jan. 31.

Also on Wednesday, the Energy Department reported a surprise increase in U.S. crude supplies of 1.5 million barrels last week. Analysts were expecting a decline of 2.2 million barrels. Gasoline stocks also increased more than expected.

Right2Water protest leaders vowed Wednesday they would fill Dublin with even more protesters on that day.

Economists say lower gasoline prices act like a tax cut, leaving more money in consumers’ pockets to spend on other things. The national average price of gasoline fell Wednesday to $2.64, according to AAA, saving drivers $1.05 per gallon compared to what they were paying in late June.

The demonstrations coincide, ironically, with the formal end to Ireland’s austerity drive. The government’s 2015 budget contains the first tax cuts and benefit rises since 2008, the year that Ireland’s property-fueled Celtic Tiger boom crumbled amid the global credit crisis. Ireland’s economy is expected to grow more than 4 percent this year amid a revival in job

Falling oil prices are making for sharply lower prices of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and heating oil, giving consumers, shippers and airlines a lift.

The Energy Department projected in a report Tuesday that gasoline will average $2.60 per gallon next year, 23 percent below this year’s

Zubaydah was waterboarded as often as twice a day over the following weeks. Even some CIA veterans at the Thai prison were horrified by the scene, according to the Senate report. In one cable, a staffer said “several on the team profoundly affected ... some to the point of tears and choking up.” The harsh tactics continued through the month until staffers concluded that the detainee was cooperative.

In a 2006 speech that confirmed the detention and interrogation program and cited Zubaydah, Bush said the detainee was a “senior terrorist leader and a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden.” Jose Rodriguez, the senior CIA official who oversaw Zubaydah’s questioning from agency headquarters in Virginia, said on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that Zubaydah became “compliant within three weeks” and “gave us a roadmap that allowed us to capture a bunch of al Qaida senior leaders.”

The Senate report disputes both accounts, saying Zubaydah was a low-level minnow in the al Qaida hierarchy and offered no substantive information about real terror plots or structure.

Senate investigators quote an internal CIA report from 2006 that acknowledged Zubaydah was miscast as a senior terror leader. While the CIA told Bush’s National Security Council that the tactics were effective and “produced meaningful results,” the Senate committee said other CIA documents indicate Zubaydah never provided information such as the next terrorist attack or identities of operatives inside the U.S. The report also branded as “inaccurate” previous CIA contentions that Zubaydah’s harsh treatment coerced him into providing critical early information about the “Dirty Bomb” plot,” a purported plan by terror suspect Jose Padilla to ignite a radiological device in a U.S. city. Arrested in Chicago in 2002, Padilla was convicted in a 2007 trial of conspiracy to commit murder overseas, but not charged with the bomb plot.

Zubaydah mentioned Padilla as a possible threat to FBI interrogators before he was subjected to waterboarding and other severe techniques, the report said.

In the official CIA response to the Senate committee, the agency said that Zubaydah named Padilla as a result of harsh interrogations. But the CIA acknowledged that “it took us too long to stop making references to his infeasible `Dirty Bomb’ plot.”

More than 12 years after his capture, Zubaydah remains confined to the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has yet to be charged with any crimes under the government’s military tribunals - a limbo predicted in 2002 by CIA terror experts, according to the Senate report.

In a 2002 email to CIA headquarters, the CIA’s interrogators said they wanted assurances that Zubaydah would never be allowed to publicly describe what they were doing to him, recommending that he should “remain incommunicado for the remainder of his life.” projected average. If that comes to pass, it will save a typical household $550 next year.

Lower oil prices are taking their toll on oil producers, though, sending company shares plummeting and forcing companies to cut spending.

BP said Wednesday it would aim to cut costs by $1 billion next year, a move that would likely involve significant job cuts.

In other futures trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange: - Wholesale gasoline fell 8.2 cents to close at $1.642 a gallon.

- Heating oil fell 3.8 cents to close at $2.046 a gallon.

- Natural gas rose 5.4 cents to close at $3.706 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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The Weekly News Digest, Dec 8 thru Dec 15, 2014

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F L O R I D A C R A S H S TAT I S T I C S S t u a r t w o m a n s t i l l i n c r i t i c a l condition after multi-car crash on I-95 Palm Beach Post A 26-year-old Stuart woman remained in critical condition Thursday after she was injured in a multi-car crash that shut down a stretch of Interstate 95 in the Jupiter-Hobe Sound area for more than four hours Wednesday night, the Florida Highway Patro[...]

R o a d r a n g e r t r u c k s h i e l d s w o m a n ’s v e h i c l e i n I - 9 5 s h o u l d e r c r a s h 95 JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A road ranger’s truck may have very well saved a woman’s life. The ranger had stopped to help her when she had car trouble on Interstate 95, but then someone slammed into the truck, narrowly missing the ranger and the woman.[...]

D r u n k

d r i v e r h i t s S o u t h i d a R o a d R a n g e r

F l o r-

MIAMI (AP) - The Florida Highway Patrol says a Road Ranger is recovering after he was hit by a drunk driver on Interstate 95. The crash happened Sunday in the northbound lanes of I-95 in Miami.

F H P e x p e c t e d t o r e l e a s e m o r e i n f o a b o u t 6 - v e h i c l e I - 9 5 c r a s h Florida Highway Patrol is expected to release more information Thursday about an Interstate 95 crash that sent three people to the hospital and shut down northbound lanes for four and a half hours Wednesday.[...]

C r a s h w i t h i n j u r i e s s h u t s d o w n I - 9 5 n o r t h b o u n d l a n e s , t r o o p e r s s a y Injuries were reported in a crash that shut down the northbound lanes of Interstate 95 at Broward Boulevard, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. Troopers said the crash happened just before 11 p.m. Friday in Broward County. Check: Latest traffic[...]

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________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Weekly News Digest, Dec 8 thru Dec 15, 2014

C O U R T : N O WA R E H O U S E GENEVA (AP) -- Flying could get cheaper next year as airlines say they will finally start passing on some of the savings made on plummeting oil prices.

P A Y F O R A M A Z O N S E C U R I T Y C H E C K S seen a need to cut prices. That approach has helped drive airline stocks higher as fuel prices have tumbled. But on Tuesday, shares of Spirit Airlines Inc. plunged 12.7 percent and other U.S. airlines fell too - after the discount carrier said it saw signs that cheaper fuel was leading to lower prices on last-minute tickets.

Carriers are forecasting record profits for 2015 thanks to cheaper fuel and rising demand. As a result, they expect to cut the average ticket price by 5 percent in 2015, excluding surcharges and taxes.

Despite higher earnings, many airlines remain cautious about their finances as profit margins remain slim. Geneva-based IATA said margins are forecast at only 3.2 percent, just up from 3.1 percent in 2010.

That may not be a big decrease considering that the price of crude oil has fallen 40 percent since June, but is the most carriers can do for now, the International Air Transport Associated said Wednesday.

The association, which represents 240 airlines, or 84 percent of total air traffic, notes carriers are still stuck with contracts for fuel that pre-date the past months’ price slump.

Austrian Airlines airplane takes off from the airport in Munich, southern Germany. Flying could get cheaper next year as airlines say they will finally start passing on some of the savings made on plummeting oil prices.

remains strong, fares have been going up.

That’s one reason why airlines have this year not cut ticket prices despite the oil price fall. In fact, as demand for flying

But things should start changing next year. That’s when airlines’ fuel costs will start reflecting the recent plunge in energy markets, says IATA’s chief economist, Brian Pearce.

UN EXPERT CALLS FOR PROSECUTION OVER US TORTURE

“It’s going to be six months or so before airlines are seeing lower fuel costs, and at that point consumers are likely to see a fall in travel costs,” Pearce told The Associated Press.

GENEVA (AP) -- Senior U.S. officials who authorized and carried out torture as part of former President George W. Bush’s national security policy must be prosecuted, a top U.N. special investigator said Wednesday.

Ben Emmerson, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, said in addition that all CIA and other U.S. officials who used waterboarding and other torture techniques must be prosecuted.

He said the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s harsh interrogation techniques at secret overseas facilities after the 9/11 terror attacks shows “there was a clear policy orchestrated at a high level within the Bush administration, which allowed to commit systematic crimes and gross violations of international human rights law.”

The report, released Tuesday, has sparked a firestorm of controversy in the U.S. and abroad. President Barack Obama said the interrogation techniques “did significant damage to America’s standing in the world and made it harder to pursue our interests with allies.”

“The individuals responsible for the criminal conspiracy ... must be brought to justice, and must face criminal penalties commensurate with the gravity of their crimes,” Emmerson said. “The fact that the policies revealed in this report were authorized at a high level within the U.S. government provides no excuse whatsoever. Indeed, it reinforces the need for criminal accountability.”

European Union spokeswoman Catherine Ray emphasized that the Obama administration has worked since 2009 to see that torture is not used anymore but said it is “a commitment that should be enshrined in law.”

Bush approved the program through a covert finding in 2002 but he wasn’t briefed by the CIA on the details until 2006. Obama banned waterboarding and other tactics, yet other aspects of Bush’s national security policies remain, most notably the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and sweeping government surveillance programs.

According to Emmerson, international law prohibits granting immunity to public officials who allow the use of torture, and this applies not just to the actual perpetrators but also to those who plan and authorize it. As a result, he said, the U.S. government is “legally obliged to bring those responsible to justice.”

Human Rights Watch’s executive director Kenneth Roth also said “unless this important truth-telling process leads to prosecution of officials, torture will remain a `policy option’ for future presidents.”

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The airlines will still be making more money. They forecast record net profit of $25 billion next year - well above the $19.9 billion this year, the $10.6 billion in 2013 and $6.1 billion in 2012.

That is based on a forecast that the price of oil will average $85 per barrel. On Wednesday, the U.S. contract was trading below $63 a barrel.

IATA’s U.S. counterpart, Airlines for America, declined to comment on where fares are headed but expressed satisfaction with lower fuel prices.

“We’re certainly hopeful that the cost environment and the demand environment will stay healthy” so airlines can invest in new planes and passenger amenities, said the U.S. trade group’s chief economist, John Heimlich.

Demand for travel has been so strong that airlines just haven’t

Tony Tyler, director-general and CEO of IATA, said that even with the fall in jet fuel prices, the average profit would still amount to little more than $7 per passenger per flight - well below other industries.

He note Starbucks, for example, has a declared profit margin of about 14 percent.

“If that is the case, they will retain as much from selling seven cups of coffee as an airline will make selling an average ticket,” Tyler said.

That’s why airlines are taking advantage of a golden moment, in which fuel costs are falling just as demand rises.

Passenger traffic has been expanding by about 5.5 percent per year for the past two decades but IATA said it is expected to grow 7 percent in 2015.

North American airlines are expected to make the biggest profit next year - $13.2 billion, from $11.9 billion this year but see only a modest increase in demand. Carriers in Europe are expected to see net earnings rise to $4 billion in 2015 from $2.7 billion this year, with demand roughly unchanged.

The highest growth in demand is forecast in emerging markets in Asia, the Pacific region, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

Asian airlines should see profits hit $5 billion next year, bringing them back to 2011 levels, while the Middle Eastern ones should rise to $1.6 billion from $1.1 billion.

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The Weekly News Digest, Dec 8 thru Dec 15, 2014

P O L I C E I N D I A

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Q U E S T I O N U B E R A F T E R R A P E A L L E G A T I O N system that needs to be changed. Banning will only cause inconvenience to the people,” Nitin Gadkari told reporters.

NEW DELHI (AP) -- Indian police questioned an Uber executive Tuesday about the company’s claim it conducts comprehensive background checks and a top official called for the taxi-booking service to be banned nationwide after one of its New Delhi drivers was accused of rape.

He called for a digitized system to track driver licenses and allow everyone’s record to be viewed.

New Delhi police official Brijendra Kumar Yadav said there is a possibility of criminal charges against the company if police find evidence the taxi-hailing app misrepresented the safety of its service.

Uber, which had launched in 10 Indian cities including New Delhi and the financial capital Mumbai, is valued at about $40 billion after a recent investment by venture capitalists. The company, which takes a cut of fares, promises a quicker response time that is often less than 10 minutes. Drivers respond using their own Uber-provided smartphones mounted on the dashboard and follow a GPS map to an exact location.

The driver, 32-year-old Shiv Kumar Yadav, is being held by police and will appear again in a New Delhi court on Thursday. A 26-year-old woman who hired Yadav for a ride home from a dinner engagement Friday night accused him of rape.

“What we are doing is trying to ascertain what knowledge Uber had of this person,” said the police official Yadav, who is unrelated to the suspect. Police had questioned Uber’s general manager in India, Gagan Bhatia, for a second day about the company’s operations. They were also investigating whether the driver may have presented false documents to Uber, according to Press Trust of India.

The case, almost two years after a young woman was fatally gang raped on a bus in the capital, has renewed national anger over sexual violence in India and demands for more effort to ensure women’s safety. It is also a blow for Uber, which has attracted praise and controversy around the world with a service based on hailing taxis from a smartphone app.

India’s home minister called for all Indian states and territories to ban Uber following a ban on the service in New Delhi on Monday.

Uber has faced restrictions in other countries after licensed taxi operators claimed the service was competing unfairly. Uber’s drivers are independent contractors using private cars rather than licensed cabs.

Separately, Thailand on Tuesday said it was illegal for private cars to be used as taxis and threatened fines of $60 for each violation.

Police said the chief suspicion against Uber comes from a statement on its web site saying “every ridesharing and livery driver is thoroughly screened through a rigorous process we’ve developed using constantly improving standards.”

Yadav said this could not be the case because Uber’s drivers did not have the special badges that police issue to taxi drivers proving they

India’s opposition Congress party’s women activists shout slogans during a protest after a woman was allegedly raped by a taxi driver in New Delhi, India, Monday, Dec. 8, 2014.

The Indian capital on Monday banned taxi-booking service Uber after a woman accused one of its drivers of raping her

have cleared background checks. He said Uber and other services that operate online platforms linking drivers with customers are registered in India as technology businesses rather than transport companies.

“We need to find out if they have any formulated procedures to honor the promise” of a safe service, he said. “In this case, the victim was going home quite late at night. People don’t take any extra safety precautions because they rely on the promise that is made to them.”

The police official acknowledged, however, the possibility that a background check might not have uncovered anything problematic.

Police are still trying to verify the suspect’s claims that he had been acquitted of rape charges in 2011, after spending seven months in jail. If acquitted, it would not be on his record.

Uber said in a statement it only uses registered for-hire drivers who have a valid license. It did not address the subject of police-issued badges.

India’s Transportation Minister criticized the New Delhi ban on Uber, suggesting it was an unfair response to the tragedy and that some of the blame lies with the Indian system.

“Tomorrow, if something happens on a bus we can’t ban that. It is the

M O N A C O ’ S R O Y A L T W I N S : O N LY O N E W I L L G E T T H E T H R O N E Albert said he doesn’t know the sex of the twins yet.

“It is one of the beautiful surprises that life offers us,” he told BFMTV. Only one woman has ever reigned over Monaco, Princess Louise-Hippolyte, but she died months after assuming the throne in 1731.

In 2002, with no heirs in sight, Monaco’s parliament quietly changed its constitution to allow royal power to pass from a reigning prince with no descendants to his siblings - potentially Albert’s two sisters.

That ensured the continuation of the Grimaldi dynasty, one of the oldest royal houses in Europe, even if Albert never produced an heir.

Prince Albert II of Monaco kisses his wife Princess Charlene on the balcony of the Monaco palace during the Monaco’s national day ceremony. Monaco is expecting a double dose of royal babies _ but only one twin will get to be the principality’s future ruler.

PARIS (AP) -- Monaco is expecting a double dose of royal babies this month - but only one twin will get to be the principality’s future ruler.

Her Serene Highness Princess Charlene, 36, is giving birth to twins but the doctor delivering them will have no more than a symbolic hand in deciding the destiny of the Grimaldi dynasty, authorities say.

Prince Albert II, the 56-year-old son of the late American actress Princess Grace, had some subjects worried by his long bachelorhood and his lack of an heir since his two previous children were born out of wedlock and are not eligible for the throne. Then prince married Charlene Wittstock, a Zimbabwe-born, South Africa-raised former Olympic swimmer, in 2011.

Now the tiny royal state on the Riviera has two reasons to rejoice.

“This is going to create an immense joy. Immense!” said Monaco resident Isabelle Roux. “They are awaited like the messiah ... Everyone is talking only about that.”

“Two babies for the price of one. I think it’s very good for the image,” said Adelaide de Clermont-Tonnerre, editor-in-chief of the celebrity weekly Point de Vue. “With twins, there’s always an extra interest.”

The babies will be the first twins in the royal household, which dates to the 13th century, but they will not share the throne. Albert says the first one out will be first in line, unless a boy and a girl emerge, in which case the boy becomes the royal heir, reflecting the male priority of Monaco’s laws of succession.

In principle, there’s no medical reason a doctor would have an active role in deciding which newborn is delivered first, even in the case of a cesarean section, an expert said.

“The obstetrician will always deliver first the twin that presents itself first when the uterus is opened at the time of cesarean section,” said Dr. Patrick O’Brien, spokesman for Britain’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. “We don’t decide in advance which twin to deliver first.”

N O PAY F O R A M A Z O N WAREHOUSE SECURITY CHECKS

Now the palace has decreed that 42 cannon shots will sound in December with the births, instead of the 21 that would boom for a single baby.

Other dynasties have produced royal twins. The crown prince and crown princess of Denmark became the parents of royal twins in 2011 - a boy and a girl. The boy, Prince Vincent, is fourth in the line of succession, ahead of sister Princess Josephine - but only because he emerged from the womb first.

D OC TOR S FA C E S T EE P MEDICAID CUTS AS FEE BOOST ENDS WASHINGTON (AP) -- Primary care doctors caring for low-income patients will face steep fee cuts next year as a temporary program in President Barack Obama’s health care law expires.

That could squeeze access just when millions of new patients are gaining Medicaid coverage.

A study Wednesday from the nonpartisan Urban Institute estimated fee reductions will average about 40 percent nationwide.

But they could reach 50 percent or more for primary care doctors in California, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois - big states that have all expanded Medicaid under the health law.

Meager pay for doctors has been a persistent problem for Medicaid, the safety-net health insurance program. Low-income people unable to find a family doctor instead flock to hospital emergency rooms, where treatment is more expensive and not usually focused on prevention.

To improve access for the poor, the health law increased Medicaid fees for frontline primary care doctors for two years, 2013 and 2014, with Washington paying the full cost. The goal was to bring rates up to what Medicare pays for similar services. But that boost expires Jan. 1, and efforts to secure even a temporary extension from Congress appear continued on page 8

An Amazon.com package is prepared for shipment by a United Parcel Service driver in Palo Alto, Calif. The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that warehouse workers who fill orders for retail giant Amazon don’t have to be paid for time spent waiting to pass through security checks at the end of their shifts.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that warehouse workers who fill orders for retail giant Amazon don’t have to be paid for time spent waiting to pass through security checks at the end of their shifts.

The unanimous decision is a victory for the growing number of retailers and other companies that routinely screen workers to prevent employee theft. The justices said federal law does not require companies to pay employees for the extra time because it is unrelated to their primary job duties.

Some workers at Amazon contractor Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc., claim they wait up to 25 minutes to clear security before they can go home. Amazon has disputed those claims.

The Supreme Court reversed a ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said the screenings should be compensated because they were performed for the employer’s benefit and were integral to the workers’ jobs.

The case was being watched closely by business groups worried that employers could be on the hook for billions of dollars in retroactive pay for workers seeking pay for time spent in security checks.

Writing for the court, Justice Clarence Thomas said the screenings are not the “principal activity” which the workers are employed to perform.

“Integrity Staffing did not employ its workers to undergo security screenings, but to retrieve products from warehouse shelves and package those products for shipment to Amazon customers,” Thomas said.

Thomas also said the security checks were not “integral and indispensable” to the employees’ duties as warehouse workers. He based his decision on a federal law called the Portal-to-Portal Act, which specifically exempts employers from paying for pre- and post-work activities such as waiting to pick up protective gear or waiting in line to punch the clock.

The case was brought by Jesse Busk and Laurie Castro, two former workers at a Nevada Amazon warehouse who were employed

by Integrity. Their lawyer argued that waiting in long security lines to go through metal detectors and empty their pockets each day was work because their employer required them to do it to keep merchandise from being stolen.

Amazon was not a party to the Supreme Court case. The company declined to comment on the decision, but it disputed claims of long wait times for security checks.

“Data shows that employees typically walk through security with little or no wait, and Amazon has a global process that ensures the time employees spend waiting in security is less than 90 seconds,” said company spokeswoman Kelly Cheeseman.

Josh Buck, an attorney representing Busk and Castro, called the court’s ruling disappointing.

“The well-known idiom `time is money’ obviously does not apply to working people,” Buck said.

Since the 9th Circuit’s ruling last year, at least four class-action lawsuits have been filed against Amazon.com seeking compensation for time that nearly 100,000 workers have spent in post-shift security screenings. Similar suits are pending against CVS Pharmacy and Apple Inc.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Weekly News Digest, Dec 8 thru Dec 15, 2014

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C A L I F O R N I A S U E S U B E R I N S TA RT U P ’ S L AT E S T L E G A L W O E

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- California prosecutors sued Uber over the ride-booking company’s driver background checks and other allegations, adding to the popular startup’s legal woes in the U.S. and around the world.

Uber also has endured negative attention about the actions of some of its drivers.

An Uber driver was arrested in San Francisco in September and charged with felony assault on suspicion of using a hammer to attack and seriously injure a passenger who complained about a route.

The lawsuits filed Tuesday in San Francisco Superior Court are the latest legal hurdles for the nascent ride-hailing industry. The industry in general - and Uber in particular - have been battling lawsuits and regulatory issues over whether the businesses are regulated taxi services or app-making technology companies.

In October, a Los Angeles woman reported that an Uber driver drove 20 miles out of her way and ignored her complaints before stopping the car in a deserted parking lot. She said the driver then locked the doors when she tried to leave. The woman reported that she escaped only after screaming. Uber refunded her fare.

“Uber continues to misrepresent and exaggerate background checks on drivers,” Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey said. “It’s not our goal to shut them down. What we’re saying is their advertising is false.”

Competitor Lyft, on the other hand, agreed to drop similar claims that its background checks are the “best available” and the “gold standard.”

It also agreed to pay $500,000 and change some of its business practices to settle its own lawsuit, San Francisco County District Attorney George Gascon said.

Among other concessions, Lyft agreed to submit its fare-setting app to state regulators to ensure it is fairly charging riders and it agreed not to do business at any airport unless it receives a permit.

Uber is fighting numerous legal and regulatory battles as it aggressively expands worldwide.

San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon, at podium, answers questions while standing with members of his staff and the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office during a news conference about the ridesharing companies Uber and Lyft Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014, in San Francisco. California prosecutors have filed a lawsuit against Uber over the ridesharing company’s background checks and other allegations, adding to the popular startup’s worldwide legal woes. Meanwhile, Gascon said Tuesday that Uber competitor Lyft has agreed to pay $500,000 and change some of its business practices to settle its own lawsuit.

fornia in a statement that did not address specific allegations.

Lacey and Gascon partnered to investigate the ride-app industry. A third company - Sidecar - is still under investigation and could face a lawsuit if it can’t reach an agreement with prosecutors, Gascon said.

“Uber is an integral, safe and established part of the transportation ecosystem in the Golden State,” Behrend said. “We will continue to engage in discussions with the district attorneys.”

The companies have popular smartphone apps that allow passengers to order rides in privately driven cars.

The company also is being sued for charging passengers an additional $4 for trips to and from San Francisco International Airport even through the company lacks a permit to do business at the airport and neither Uber nor its drivers pay the airport fee.

Uber uses information supplied electronically by its applicant drivers for background checks. But applicants can get around those checks by using stolen or false identifications, Gascon said.

Uber spokeswoman Eva Behrend defended the company’s role in Cali-

The lawsuit also accuses the company of failing to obtain approval from state regulators on how drivers calculate fares.

SECURITY STEPPED UP AFTER J E W I S H C E N T E R S T A B B I N G

Portland, Oregon, filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to halt Uber’s expansion there, arguing the company failed to obtain the proper permits.

A Nevada judge has temporarily barred Uber from operating in the state.

Overseas, a top official in India called for the service to be banned nationwide after one of its New Delhi drivers was arrested Sunday and accused of rape. Separately, Spain has barred the company’s operation.

Nonetheless, San Francisco-based Uber raised $1.2 billion in its latest round of funding from venture capitalists, a sign investors aren’t fazed by the legal woes.

The latest investment valued Uber at $40 billion.

SPANISH JUDGE O R D E R S T E M P O R A RY SHUTDOWN OF UBER

Some of the students appeared to be trying to defuse the situation, urging Peters to calm down and asking officers not to shoot him.

He eventually put the knife down at an officer’s urging and stepped away, but quickly picked it up again as the officer approached him, apparently to arrest him.

Officers yelled at him repeatedly to drop the weapon as Peters moved around, and a single gunshot could be heard. The shooting itself took place outside camera range.

Peters had lunged at the officer with knife, which had a 4 1/2-inch blade, police said.

A member of the Lubavitch community, center, leaves the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic headquarters guarded by members of the New York Police Department, left, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014, in New York. A knife-wielding man stabbed an Israeli student inside the Brooklyn synagogue before being fatally shot by police after he refused to drop the knife.

The student, Levi Rosenblatt, is in stable condition.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Authorities are stepping up security at the headquarters of an international Jewish organization in Brooklyn after a mentally ill man wandered inside the library and stabbed a student in the head before he was shot and killed by police.

Calvin Peters, 49, was seen on amateur video waving a knife in the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in Crown Heights at 1:40 a.m. Tuesday after the attack on Levi Rosenblat. The 22-year-old, wounded on the side of the head, was listed in stable condition.

New York City police said the stabbing was not believed to be connected to terrorism. But it shook the Jewish community, still reeling over an attack on a Jerusalem synagogue by two Palestinian cousins last month that left four worshippers and an officer dead.

Police Commissioner William Bratton said the department was already on heightened alert based on the incidents in Israel. His deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, John Miller, said there was an increased presence at religious locations.

“Given frankly the concern that the news of this story may bring to houses of worship around the city, our critical incident response vehicles which we normally post at sensitive locations depending on what the threat stream of the day is will focus on religious institutions in part,” Miller said.

New York state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, whose Brooklyn constituents are largely Orthodox Jews, said the entire Jewish community was impacted by the attack, and said synagogues may want to start taking stronger security precautions.

“Maybe it is time for synagogues ... to figure out, if someone walks in with a knife, how do you defend yourself?”

Chabad-Lubavitch officials said security was tightened, but didn’t elaborate, and wouldn’t say what measures were in place at the time of the attack.

Peters had wandered into the building earlier Monday and was ushered out, then returned after midnight and asked: “Do you have any books in English?” before he was escorted out again, police said. The building, which also contains a synagogue, is open 24 hours a day.

The jerky clip of the final confrontation posted online showed Peters in a waist-length jacket and hat with a knife in his right hand, surrounded by officers with drawn weapons and Jewish students wearing traditional plain Orthodox clothing.

At least one witness said he heard Peters repeatedly saying, “Kill the Jews!” according to Rabbi Chaim Landa, a Chabad-Lubavitch spokesman. Police quoted Peters as saying instead, “I’m going to kill all of you.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio praised the work of the police. “These officers handled the situation very admirably,” he said.

Chabad-Lubavitch is a large, worldwide Hasidic movement that runs schools, synagogues and other institutions and reaches out to nonobservant Jews to encourage them to embrace their heritage and religious traditions. It is active on college campuses and in cities around the globe.

Peters had a documented history of mental illness and had been arrested 19 times since 1982, most recently in 2006 for drugs, police said.

Attorney Jeffrey A. St. Clair, appearing at the Peters family’s front door in Valley Stream, on Long Island, described him as bipolar. St. Clair said the family had no warning of an outburst.

“Calvin Peters was a loving and devoted father,” he said. “And the family is quite frankly shocked and disappointed at what happened.”

Next-door neighbor Lorraine McCartney called Peters as “a very nice man” who had attended parties in her backyard. “I would never believe that of him. Never,” she said.

a demonstrator kicks a car, suspected to be a private taxi during a 24 hour taxi strike and protest in Madrid, Spain against unregulated competition from private companies, in particular, Uber. A judge has ordered the precautionary suspension of the ridesharing service Uber in Spain on Tuesday Dec. 9, 2014, saying it represents unfair competition.

The suspension had been sought by Madrid’s Taxi Association, which is planning a legal case against Uber which allows passengers to hail a ride from a mobile app. The company takes a cut from what the drivers charge. Taxi drivers say such services are unfair as the drivers do not have to fulfill the same requirements or pay tens of thousands of euros (dollars) for training and licences as taxi drivers do. The San Francisco-based company has met with opposition in other European Union countries.

MADRID (AP) -- A judge on Tuesday ordered the temporary suspension of ridesharing service Uber in Spain, saying it represents unfair competition.

The Madrid mercantile court judge said in a preliminary ruling that Uber drivers lacked proper permits to transport passengers in Spain - but the company responded that it wasn’t given an opportunity to argue its case.

The suspension was sought by Madrid’s Taxi Association, which is planning legal action against Uber.

Uber spokesman Benjamin Novick called the decision a “highly unusual court commercial proceeding and ruling,” adding that the company is considering its legal options and that Uber will obey Spain law.

Uber allows passengers to hail a ride from a mobile app. The company takes a cut from what the drivers charge.

Taxi drivers claim such services are unfair because drivers aren’t subject to the same taxi regulations and don’t pay tens of thousands of euros (dollars) for training and licenses.

The San Francisco-based company has been met with opposition in several European Union countries.

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The Weekly News Digest, Dec 8 thru Dec 15, 2014

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P A L E S T I N I A N O F F I C I A L D I E S A F T E R I S R A E L T R O O P C L A S H

TURMUS AYA, West Bank (AP) -- A Palestinian Cabinet member died Wednesday shortly after he and other protesters scuffled with Israeli troops near a West Bank village. The forces also fired tear gas close to the demonstrators, witnesses said.

Abu Ain told an Israeli officer that this was a peaceful protest, but was told the group could not move further, said Abu Sassaka.

During the scuffle, a member of Israel’s security forces held Ziad Abu Ain, 55, by the neck. Abu Ain later collapsed, received first aid and died en route to a hospital, witnesses said.

He said there was pushing and shoving between marchers and soldiers, and that soldiers fired tear gas toward the legs of the Palestinians.

What killed the Palestinian official remains unclear and his body will undergo an autopsy attended by Palestinian, Jordanian and Israeli pathologists, the Israeli army said. But death of Abu Ain, the first Palestinian Cabinet member to die immediately after a protest, likely will enflame simmering tensions that remain after U.S.-brokered peace talks fell apart earlier this year.

He said one soldier hit Abu Ain in the chest with his rifle butt. An Associated Press photographer and an Israeli reporter at the scene said they did not see Abu Ain being hit with a rifle butt.

Later Wednesday, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy was shot in the head and seriously wounded in a confrontation with Israeli soldiers in the nearby Jalazoun refugee camp, said Ahmed Bitawi, the head of Ramallah Hospital. The Israeli military said it was checking the report.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was to meet with senior officials from the Palestine Liberation Organization and his Fatah movement later Wednesday to discuss a possible response to Abu Ain’s death. In a statement, Abbas called the death a “barbaric act,” but added that he would wait for the results of the investigation before deciding on a response. He also called for three days of mourning in the Palestinian territories.

Some called for suspending Palestinian security coordination with Israel in the West Bank, but it was not clear if that option would be considered.

In Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini called for an independent investigation and said that “reports of excessive use of force by Israeli security forces are extremely

An Israeli soldier pushes Palestinian Cabinet member Ziad Abu Ain, left, during a protest in the village of Turmus Aya near the West Bank city of Ramallah, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2014. Abu Ain died shortly after the protest in which witnesses said Israeli troops fired tear gas at him and dozens of Palestinians marchers. Witnesses also said Abu Ain, was beaten by an Israeli soldier.

worrying.”

The U.N. envoy to the region, Robert Serry, appealed for calm and urged Israel to carry out an immediate, transparent investigation.

Wednesday’s events began with a march by several dozen Palestinians who headed to agricultural land near the West Bank village of Turmus Aya to plant olive tree saplings, participants said. The land is close to an unauthorized Israeli settlement outpost, Adei-Ad, one of dozens in the West Bank, and mostly off limits to the village’s farmers, protesters said.

As the marchers walked toward the land, Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and threw stun grenades at the Palestinians, said Kamal Abu Sassaka, an assistant to Abu Ain who said he was by the Cabinet member’s side the entire time.

MAN CLEARED OF HONEYMOON M U R D E R B A C K I N U K Shrien Dewani and Anni Dewani. The wedding pictures are striking. Already there were problems though. Shrien Dewani had been frequenting male prostitutes before the 2010 ceremony, and his bride _ in the days after their lavish wedding _ expressed misgivings about their union in text messages to her new husband.

LONDON (AP) -- The wedding pictures are striking. Without knowing what’s next, it’s natural to feel a touch of envy for the wealthy young couple, all decked out in fantastic Indian costumes, their smiles perfect, their eyes (and their jewels) sparkling.

And already there were problems.

Shrien Dewani had been frequenting male prostitutes before the 2010 ceremony, and his bride - in the days after their lavish wedding expressed misgivings about their union in text messages to her new husband.

A few weeks later, on Nov. 13, 2010, disaster struck. The newlyweds were kidnapped at gunpoint on the darkened streets of Gugulethu, a township near Cape Town. Dewani was released unhurt, but Anni Dewani’s crumpled body was found the next day in the back seat of the taxi in which they had traveled.

The beautiful bride, a Swedish national with Indian roots, was shot down on their honeymoon, and the husband was charged with her killing, accused of paying a taxi driver roughly $2,000 to blow her away.

The tragedy came to be known as the “honeymoon killing.” Prosecutors said Dewani - a successful British businessman also of Indian origin was so desperate to get out of an unwanted marriage that he recruited a cabbie to kill his wife during a staged carjacking.

The mystery unfolded in stages. Days after the killing, the taxi driver and two accomplices were arrested. The charges included murder, robbery and kidnapping. It seemed like just another crime against foreigners in a dangerous part of a dangerous country - until the driver, Zola Tongo, told investigators that Dewani had paid him to set up the hit.

Dewani did not testify, but he said in his court statement that his marriage was solid despite occasional quarrels. He admitted consorting with male prostitutes before the marriage and surfing gay websites, and characterized himself as bisexual. His sexual identity was seen as relevant to the prosecution’s claim that he wanted to get out of his marriage.

In his statement, Dewani described a jet-set lifestyle, complete with hiring a private jet to fly his fiancee to Paris and a no-holds-barred bachelor’s party in Las Vegas in addition to the wedding in India, where weddings often become fantastically expensive family showcases.

Dewani described the carjacking in South Africa as terrifying. He said he was ordered by the assailants to get out of the moving car as it sped away with his bride.

“The last thing I had said to Anni was to be quiet and not to say anything. I said this to her in Gujarati,” he said in the statement.

The case against him fell apart in part because the taxi driver, Tongo who had already been convicted for his role in Anni Dewani’s muder - was not a convincing witness. Without a clearly established link to Dewani, the prosecution theory proved porous, leading the judge to dismiss the case earlier this week, long after the Tongo and his two accomplices received lengthy prison terms. One of the hit men died earlier this year from brain cancer.

The judge’s dismissal opened the way for Dewani to fly home - just eight months after he was extradited to face trial.

He hasn’t spoken since his release, and he was whisked through London’s Gatwick Airport into a waiting car early Wednesday.

He has friends and family waiting for him in Bristol, and his business running care homes to return to, but the notoriety of the case will be difficult to shake.

“It’s going to be very tough for Anni’s family, but he’s been found innocent so you have to go by what the law states,” said company director Colin David, 51, of Bristol. “If he’s coming home, it’s the right and proper thing. I just hope that he can get over his mental issues and get on with life.”

Dewani was then arrested in Britain, but resisted extradition to South Africa to answer charges of suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder.

The Israeli military also said it proposed to Palestinian officials that they conduct a joint investigation into Abu Ain’s death.

Earlier Wednesday, the Israeli rights group Yesh Din filed a court appeal, demanding that the Israeli military enforce long-standing orders to dismantle the settlement outpost.

Yesh Din attorney Shlomy Zachary told Israel’s Channel 10 TV that the outpost was established in 2000 and now effectively controls large areas around it, including lands of Turmus Aya, because the military prevents access to villagers for fear of friction with the settlers.

Abu Ain headed a Palestinian Authority department dealing with Israeli settlements and the Israeli separation barrier, and had the rank of Cabinet member. Previously, he served as deputy minister for prisoner affairs.

Abu Ain was a member of Fatah and had spent several years in Israeli prisons. He was arrested in the United States in 1979 and extradited to Israel two years later. There, he was sentenced to life for being a member of a cell that planted a bomb that killed two Israelis. Abu Ain was released in a 1985 prisoner swap.

During the second Palestinian uprising in 2002, he spent a year in administrative detention without trial or charges.

MEDICAID

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CUTS

thwarted by the politically toxic debate over “Obamacare.”

Doctors probably won’t dump their current Medicaid patients, but they’ll take a hard look at accepting new ones, said Dr. Robert Wergin, a practitioner in rural Milford, Neb., and president of the American Academy of Family Physicians.

“You are going to be paid less, so you are going to have to look at your practice and find ways to eke it out,” Wergin said.

Medicaid covers more than 60 million people, making the federal-state program even larger than Medicare. The health care law has added about 9 million people to the Medicaid rolls, as 27 states have taken advantage of an option that extends coverage to many low-income adults.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell says expanding Medicaid in the remaining 23 states is one of her top priorities. But the fee cut could make that an even harder sell, since it may reinforce a perception that the federal government creates expensive new benefits only to pass the bill to states. In Pennsylvania, where the Medicaid expansion will take effect Jan. 1, doctors are facing a 52 percent fee reduction, according to the Urban Institute study.

The fee boost has cost federal taxpayers at least $5.6 billion so far, but Stephen Zuckerman, one of the study’s authors, said it’s not clear whether access actually improved.

Many doctors did not begin to see the higher payments until the second half of 2013 because of rollout problems. And about three-fourths of Medicaid beneficiaries are in managed-care plans, which may already pay doctors more for routine care and prevention.

Despite such questions, some states have recognized the importance of the fee increase. Fifteen are planning to use their own money to continue paying higher Medicaid fees through 2015, Zuckerman said. Among them are several Republican-led states that have resisted Obama’s broader Medicaid expansion, including Mississippi and South Carolina.

The prosecution failed, utterly, to prove its case and Dewani returned to Britain Wednesday a free man. No charges against him have been proved, but it was not a triumphant homecoming. Dewani has paid a heavy price during his four-year ordeal, and Anni’s family is threatening him with further legal action.

It has been a dramatic fall from grace for a man who seemed to have it all. His is a story of how a person can triumph in a legal sense but still lose almost everything, including his privacy and reputation.

The Israeli military said that about 200 “rioters” gathered in Turmus Aya and that troops prevented them from reaching Adei-Ad, using “riot dispersal means.” That typically means tear gas and stun grenades.

Still, Zuckerman said the fee increase was also passed through to doctors seeing patients through managed-care plans, and now they will feel the cuts. “The magnitude of the reduction will be somewhat smaller ... but there is no way to believe there won’t be a decrease,” he said.

That set in motion a long extradition battle - delayed by Dewani’s confinement to a psychiatric hospital in Britain - and a murder trial in South Africa that ended abruptly this week when the judge found him not guilty.

“We just want to know the truth,” Ashok Hindocha, Anni’s uncle, told The Associated Press from his home in Sweden, explaining why the family is looking at various legal options, including possible action against Dewani in Britain. He said their brief marriage was troubled from the start.

Abu Ain, his face pale, sat the ground after the clash, leaning against a rock and holding his chest. Abu Sassaka said an Israeli soldier administer first aid to Abu Ain before protesters carried him away. An ambulance later took Abu Ain to Ramallah Hospital and he died en route, Abu Sassaka said.

Another dozen or so states are undecided.

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“If you are cutting primary care fees, patients could end up in the emergency room for something that could be dealt with in a doctor’s office,” said Zuckerman. “That is not a good outcome.”

Doctors groups say they will try to revive the Medicaid fee boost next year, when lawmakers must act to prevent a big cut in Medicare physician payments. The health program for seniors has much stronger political support.

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A H A N D F U L CONTRIBUTES

The Bush administration, its War on Terror and the 2003 invasion of Iraq ignited fury across the region and left a legacy of deep mistrust among Arabs and Muslims. But in the years since President George W. Bush left office, the region has been convulsed by Arab Spring protests, a bloodbath in Syria and the rise of the Islamic State group, which has gleefully released photos and videos of massacres far bloodier than anything in the Senate report.

The Senate Intelligence Committee report’s revelations about the CIA’s post-9/11 detention and interrogation program shocked Americans and reopened debate over waterboarding and other practices widely seen as torture. In the region from which nearly all of the targets of such methods hailed, the U.S. has warned of demonstrations or attacks in response to the report’s findings - but nothing immediately materialized.

Egypt is today engaged in its own “War on Terror,” the slogan pro-government media have adopted to describe its fight against jihadi insurgents in the Sinai Peninsula and its sweeping crackdown on Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood. Syria has invoked similar language to describe its fight against rebels, and Iraq to describe its war on Sunni militants, including the Islamic State group. Gulf states have unveiled or expanded their own lists of groups banned for terrorism, which not only include al-Qaida and the IS group, but also the Muslim Brotherhood and more moderate Islamist organizations.

Here are a few reasons.

OLD NEWS

“Arabs were angry about U.S. torture in Iraq 10 years ago, so if anything this seems rather quaint, that the Americans are having a real public debate about this 10 years after the fact,” said Shadi Hamid, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy.

“This seems like run-of-the-mill stuff in the sense that this is what people expect of the U.S. They would be surprised if it wasn’t the case, and that’s a product of years of deep anti-American sentiment,” he said.

Abu Ghraib stoked outrage in part because the abuse there was captured in vivid images that were plastered across the covers of every major newspaper. The staid language of the Senate Report is less explosive, and the descriptions of prisoners being waterboarded or confined to stress positions seems less shocking in a region awash in horrific online images of beheadings and bombings in Syria and Iraq.

Over the long term, the report could feed into recruiting efforts by jihadi groups, which have long used abuses at Guantanamo Bay as a rallying cry.

The Islamic State group, for example, dressed its victims in Guantanamo-style orange jumpsuits when it beheaded a string of Western hostages in recent months. Already, the militant-monitoring SITE Intel Group reported several jihadi sympathizers tweeting calls for retaliation in reaction to the Senate report.

THOSE IN GLASS GUARD TOWERS Arab governments might have been expected to seize on the report, but their reaction too was muted. That’s in part because many U.S. allies in the region were directly complicit in the rendition and interrogation programs.

Also, nearly all Arab governments have long employed similar brutality against their own political prisoners.

“Clearly everyone’s disgusted by it, and I’m sure the extremists will leap on it as evidence of American perfidy,” said Theodore Karasik, a regional expert who serves as senior adviser to Dubai-based Risk Insurance Management. “But at the same time it’s serving as a moment of self-reflection in the region ... about how these kind of measures are used by particular states, which has been ongoing for decades.”

In Syria, where tens of thousands of people have disappeared into prisons where rights groups say torture is endemic, the Senate report made the front page of the ruling Baath party’s newspaper but was buried inside other dailies. In Egypt, which has jailed thousands of Islamists and other activists in the wake of last summer’s overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi, local press coverage was focused more on a recent closure of Western embassies than the findings of the report.

AFGHANISTAN OUTRAGE At least one leader, newly-elected Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, spoke out against the “shocking” violations documented in the report. “The Afghan government condemns in the strongest language the inhuman and unjustifiable practices detailed in the report,” he said in a press conference.

But his decision to speak out says as much about today’s Afghanistan as that of 13 years ago, when U.S. and allied forces snatched dozens of suspects, many of whom later wound up in the secret prisons described in the Senate report.

Ghani, who faces a virulent Taliban insurgency, has signed security agreements to keep U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan past the official conclusion of the 13-year combat mission on Dec. 31. His political survival depends on convincing his increasingly fractured country that the brutality described in the Senate report is a thing of the past.

MOVING ON

CALIFORNIA PROTESTERS MARCH F O R 4 T H S T R A I G H T N I G H T Berkeley has been the center of San Francisco Bay Area protests this week, and demonstrators have made claims that police used excessive force.

Mayor Tom Bates said some people have voiced support for police amid the criticism. He said in a statement Tuesday that 20 officers were injured Monday night and two went to the hospital during a violent protest when people threw fist-sized rocks, bricks and metal bars at officers who moved to disperse crowds that blocked an interstate and halted an Amtrak train.

Toppled merchandise rests on the floor of a Pak N Save supermarket looted by anti-police protesters on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014, in Emeryville, Calif. Several hundred demonstrators marched for the fourth consecutive day with some occupying a freeway and looting at least two stores.

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) -- Hundreds of protesters angered at the killing of unarmed black men by white police officers marched through downtown Berkeley streets for a fourth straight night, briefly blocking traffic on a highway and delaying metro and train services.

A demonstration was planned Wednesday, with organizers saying they expect hundreds of people to help shut down a federal building in Oakland.

“As white people, we are outraged by the constant and ongoing violations against black people’s lives from Ferguson to Oakland to San Francisco to Cleveland to Staten Island,” said Jason Wallach of Showing Up for Racial Justice.

Organizers said the “act of civil disobedience” will happen in at least 27 cities nationwide.

In Berkeley, authorities arrested at least 19 people Tuesday night. City police arrested five adults and one juvenile, and the California Highway Patrol apprehended an additional 13. The protests became sporadically destructive over several hours, the San Francisco Chronicle reported ( http://bit.ly/12MBzLq ).

Protesters have rallied for weeks following grand jury decisions not to indict a Ferguson, Missouri, officer in the killing of Michael Brown and a New York City officer captured on video applying a fatal chokehold on Eric Garner.

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O F C O U N T R I E S M O S T TO C L I M AT E

CAIRO (AP) -- This week’s revelations about the CIA’s harsh treatment of terror suspects in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks have been met with a collective shrug in the broader Middle East, where they merely reinforced a long-held view of American brutality rooted in decades of conflict.

For many in the Middle East, the report merely fleshed out the brutal images of America’s War on Terror from a decade earlier - the rows of orange-suited inmates at Guantanamo Bay and the naked detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, huddled before snarling dogs and stacked in crude human pyramids.

The Weekly News Digest, Dec 8 thru Dec 15, 2014

“I recognize that under great stress abuses can occur in even the best departments,” Bates said in the statement.

“I support a full review of our response to investigate any improper use of force and also to learn lessons we can apply in the future.”

He canceled a scheduled Berkeley City Council meeting Tuesday night after threats to disrupt it. Protesters still stopped at City Hall, where a city councilman addressed the crowd and said he will ask for an investigation into the police response to the protests.

The crowd, which was much smaller than the one Monday, briefly shut down Highway 24, which connects Berkeley to Oakland. Two Bay Area Rapid Transit stations were closed as a precaution.

The more than 230 people arrested Monday night would face bails of up to $50,000, and many remain in custody, said Ernie Sanchez, assistant chief of the CHP’s Golden Gate Division.

“The CHP respects the public’s right to gather and demonstrate, but it needs to be done in a safe manner,” Sanchez said. “At this point, they’ve made their statement, and we respect that. Now we’re asking them to stop.”

The United States for its part abandoned the practice of apprehending terror suspects and flying them around the world to secret prisons. Nowadays U.S. drones strike them from the air in places like Pakistan and Yemen, where such attacks have killed civilians and stoked far more discontent than the findings of the Senate probe.

THE MYSTERY OF WHERE EARTH’S WATER CAME FROM DEEPENS Shrien Dewani and Anni Dewani. The wedding pictures are striking. Already there were problems though.

Shrien Dewani had been frequenting male prostitutes before the 2010 ceremony, and his bride _ in the days after their lavish wedding _ expressed misgivings about their union in text messages to her new husband.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The mystery of where Earth’s water came from got murkier Wednesday when some astronomers essentially eliminated one of the chief suspects: comets.

Over the past few months, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta space probe closely examined the type of comet that some scientists theorized could have brought water to our planet 4 billion years ago. It found water, but the wrong kind.

It was too heavy. One of the first scientific studies from the Rosetta mission found that the comet’s water contains more of a hydrogen isotope called deuterium than water on Earth does.

“The question is who brought this water: Was it comets or was it something else?” asked Kathrin Altwegg of the University of Bern in Switzerland, lead author of a study published in the journal Science.

Something else, probably asteroids, Altwegg concluded. But others disagree.

Many scientists have long believed that Earth had water when it first formed, but that it boiled off, so that the water on the planet now had to have come from an outside source.

The findings from Rosetta’s mission to the duck-shaped comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko complicate not just the question of the origin of Earth’s water but our understanding of comets.

Until now, scientists pretty much sorted comets into two types: near and far. The near ones, sometimes called the Jupiter family, originally come from the Kuiper Belt outside Neptune and Pluto. The far ones hail from the Oort Cloud, which is much farther out.

In 1986, a spacecraft came within about 400 miles of Halley’s comet, an Oort Cloud comet, and analyzed its water. It proved to be heavier than Earth’s. But three years ago, scientists examined the water in a Kuiper Belt comet, Hartley 2, and it was a perfect match for Earth’s, so the comet theory was back, stronger than ever, Altwegg said.

The comet visited by Rosetta is a Kuiper Belt comet, but its water was even heavier than Halley’s, Altwegg said. That shows that Kuiper Belt comets aren’t as uniform as thought, and it once again complicates the issue of Earth’s water.

“That probably rules out Kuiper Belt comets from bringing water to Earth,” she said.

University of Maryland astronomer Michael A’Hearn, who wasn’t part of the research, called the results startling but said they don’t eliminate comets altogether. The water could have come from other types of Kuiper Belt comets, he said.

NASA Near Earth Object program manager Donald Yeomans, however, said the study does pretty much rule out comets.

While asteroids are a good suspect - they probably had more water on them 4 billion years ago than they do now - another possibility is that

10

The Weekly News Digest, Dec 8 thru Dec 15, 2014

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P O L I C E C A S E S C O N V E R G E T O S T I R N A T I O N A L D E B A T E But Pantaleo’s attorney, Stuart London, expressed confidence on Thursday that his client won’t face federal prosecution.

NEW YORK (AP) -- From the White House to the streets of some of America’s biggest cities, the New York chokehold case converged with the Ferguson shooting and investigations out of South Carolina and Cleveland to stir a national conversation Thursday about racial justice and police use of force.

“There’s very specific guidelines that are not met in this case,” London said. “This is a regular street encounter. It doesn’t fall into the parameters.”

A day after a grand jury cleared a white New York City officer in the death of a black man, civil rights leaders pinned their hopes on a promised federal investigation. Demonstrators protested for a second night in New York and turned out in such cities as Denver, Detroit and Minneapolis. And politicians and others talked about the need for better police training, body cameras and changes in the grand jury process to restore faith in the legal system.

“A whole generation of officers will be trained in a new way,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed he and his police commissioner outlined previously announced plans to teach officers how to communicate better with people on the street.

President Barack Obama weighed in, saying one of the chief issues at stake is “making sure that people have confidence that police and law enforcement and prosecutors are serving everybody equally.”

Even before the decision in the Eric Garner case came down, racial tensions were running high because of last week’s grand jury decision not to charge a white officer in the shooting death of black 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

Other cases were added to the mix on Thursday: - In the tiny South Carolina town of Eutawville, a white former police chief was charged with murder in the 2011 shooting of an unarmed black man. Richards Combs’ lawyer accused prosecutors of taking advantage of national outrage toward police to obtain the indictment more than three years after the killing.

- In Cleveland, the U.S. Justice Department and the city reached an agreement to overhaul the police department after federal investigators found that officers use excessive force far too often, causing deep mistrust, especially among blacks. The investigation was prompted chiefly by a 2012 car chase that ended in the deaths of two unarmed people in a hail of 137 bullets.

Just last week, protesters took to the streets of Cleveland after a white police officer shot and killed a black 12-year-old boy carrying what turned out to be pellet gun.

At a news conference in New York after a night of protests led to 83 arrests, the Rev. Al Sharpton called the state-level grand jury system

Acting at the Staten Island district attorney’s request, a judge released a few details Thursday from the grand jury proceedings - among other things, it watched four videos and heard from 50 witnesses, 22 of them civilians. District Attorney Daniel Donovan didn’t ask for testimony, transcripts or exhibits to be made public.

Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani speaks during a press conference at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2014. Ghani said, “The Afghan government condemns in the strongest language the inhuman and unjustifiable practices detailed in the report.”

“broken” when it comes to police brutality cases and urged federal authorities to fix it.

“The federal government must do in the 21st century what it did in the mid-20th century,” he said. “Federal intervention must come now and protect people from state grand juries.”

Still, federal civil rights cases against police officers are exceedingly rare.

In the past two decades, only a few such cases have reached trial in New York - most notably the one involving Abner Louima, who was sodomized with a broom handle in a police station in 1997.

Several other high-profile cases didn’t come together.

That’s largely because federal prosecutors must meet a high standard of proof in showing that police deliberately deprived victims of their civil rights through excessive force, said Alan Vinegrad, who as a federal prosecutor handled the Louima case.

But London offered some details on Thursday, saying the officer’s testimony focused on “his remorse and the fact that he never meant to harm Mr. Gardner that day.”

Pantaleo admitted he heard Garner say, “I can’t breathe,” but believed that once he got him down on the ground and put him on his side, he would be revived by paramedics, London said. The officer also testified that he “used a takedown move and any contact to the neck was incidental,” the lawyer added.

London said the grand jury also heard from other officers who described how Pantaleo had tried in vain to talk Garner into complying with them - something not seen on video.

“Let’s make this easy. You’ve been through this before,” the officer said he told Garner.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the state should consider better police training, body cameras and changes to the grand jury process to help restore public trust. Cuomo said the Garner case and others like it around the country have a “corrosive” effect and cause many to lose faith in the criminal justice system.

Federal intervention “doesn’t happen often and it shouldn’t happen often,” said James Jacobs, a constitutional law professor at New York University Law School. “They should only step in when the local prosecution was a sham.”

Activists have claimed that the grand jury investigation of Garner’s death was indeed a sham. An amateur video showed Officer Daniel Pantaleo putting Garner in an apparent chokehold, and the medical examiner said the maneuver contributed to the death.

GOVERNOR: DETROIT BANKRUPTCY O F F I C I A L LY O V E R Orr had extraordinary authority over Detroit government for 18 months before giving most of it back to Mayor Mike Duggan in September.

Snyder said Wednesday afternoon that the paperwork had been filed, and he expected it to be formally approved by the court later in the day.

“The financial emergency in the city of Detroit will be defined as wrapping up today,” Snyder said.

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Judge Steven Rhodes approved Orr’s reorganization plan in November. A hearing is scheduled for Monday to deal with loose ends.

Detroit Emergency Financial Manager Kevyn Orr, right, leaves U.S. District Court in Detroit. Orr, in a letter to Monday, Dec. 8 to Gov. Rick Snyder, says the city no longer will be in a financial emergency when it officially exits bankruptcy. That means Orr’s job will be done once the bankruptcy court approves the exit.

DETROIT (AP) -- Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder says Detroit’s bankruptcy is officially ending.

Snyder said during a news conference Wednesday that the nation’s largest municipal bankruptcy will end at midnight. He thanked the city’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, who implemented a two-year budget that eliminates $7 billion in the city’s debt.

Orr, the attorney who handled Chrysler’s bankruptcy, was hired

by Snyder last year to take over Detroit’s finances.

“We look forward, truly, to a better time for the city going forward,” Orr said. “More importantly it’s time for me now to step back and return the city to its regular order.”

Snyder and Orr took Detroit into bankruptcy in July 2013, as a last-ditch effort to overcome decades of population loss, a chronic loss of tax revenue and piles of debt that couldn’t be managed.

The final plan came after months of negotiations with banks, bond insurers, unions and groups representing thousands of retirees.

It’s bolstered by a unique promise of $800 million from foundations, major corporations and the state to soften pension cuts and prevent the sale of city-owned art.

Retirees who didn’t work for the police or fire departments will see a 4.5 percent pension cut by March and the elimination of annual cost-of-living payments.

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The Weekly News Digest, Dec 8 thru Dec 15, 2014

11

A C L I M A T E I D E A C O M E S O F A G E : Z E R O E M I S S I O N S

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- Pulling a worn, yellowed copy of the 1992 U.N. climate change convention from her handbag, Farhana Yamin points to the paragraph that states its goal: To stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations at a level that would prevent dangerous warming.

It was Yamin who urged that an emissions phase-out by mid-century be incorporated in the Paris deal, whose focus is on more near-term emissions cuts beginning in 2020.

“Yamin had the original idea,” said Niklas Hoehne, a German climate researcher inspired by her work.

It doesn’t provide any guidance on how to do that.

But Yamin does. And, in a historic first, dozens of governments now embrace her prescription. The global climate pact set for adoption in Paris next year should phase out greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, says the London-based environmental lawyer.

In May, she presented it at a symposium in Norway.

“In your lifetime, emissions have to go to zero. That’s a message people understand,” said the Pakistani-born Yamin, who has been instrumental in getting that ambitious, some say crucial, goal into drafts being discussed at U.N. talks in Lima this week.

Several world leaders, including Norway’s prime minister, expressed support for some form of phase-out goal during a September climate summit in New York.

Since she launched the idea in 2013, it has exploded. Papers have been written, seminars held. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, environmental groups and celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio have backed variations.

Critics call the idea unrealistic because it restricts us to two hard options.

Either we abandon fossil fuels, our main current source both of energy and greenhouse gas pollution, or we find ways to capture emissions from coal, oil and gas and bury them underground.

The first would require a tectonic shift to renewable energy. The second would mean rapid deployment of expensive technologies yet to be tested at scale.

This would need to happen within decades, even as the developing world’s energy needs grow rapidly.

“I do not think this is realistic when 2 billion people do not have access to energy,” said Saudi Arabia’s chief negotiator in Lima, Khalid Abuleif.

“That was when this idea started to get more attention,” said Aslak Brun, chief of Norway’s delegation in Lima.

Indian women participate in a march in “Defense of Mother Earth” in Lima, Peru, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2014. Thousands marched in support of Mother Earth as they chanted slogans against illegal mining, and logging operations, as well as oil drilling.

They asked that the exploitation of resources in their ancestral lands be stopped immediately.

“Concepts like zero emissions ... aren’t really helping the process.”

Yamin is a veteran of the U.N. climate talks - these are their 20th iteration. She has been “island hopping” throughout, advising a range of small island states that fear being swallowed by the rise in sea levels scientists attribute to global warming.

In Lima, she is an adviser for the Marshall Islands. She has also worked for the European Union.

While scientists have long said the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming need to be phased out, the overarching goal of U.N. climate negotiations is to stabilize those gases at a level that keeps warming below 2 degrees C (3.6 F), compared with pre-industrial times.

BRAZIL PANEL DELIVERS REPORT O N R E G I M E B R U T A L I T Y deaths and disappearances but only to cases it was possible to prove,” the report said, citing “obstacles encountered in the investigation - especially the lack of access to armed forces’ documentation, which is officially said to have been destroyed.”

The crowd listening to Rousseff’s address gave her a standing ovation when she paused briefly, overcome by emotion.

“Brazil deserves the truth. The new generations deserve the truth. And most of all, those who deserve the truth are those who lost family members, friends, companions and continue to suffer . as if they died again each and every day,” Rousseff said, halting midway through the sentence as she fought back tears.

Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff cries during a speech at the launching ceremony of the National Truth Commission Report, at the Planalto Presidential Palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2014. Brazil’s National Truth Commission delivered a damning report on the killings, disappearances and acts of torture committed by government agents during the country’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship. It called for those responsible to face prosecution.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) -- Brazil’s National Truth Commission on Wednesday delivered a damning report on the killings, disappearances and acts of torture committed by government agents during the country’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship. It called for those responsible to face prosecution.

The 2,000-page report was delivered to President Dilma Rousseff, a former Marxist guerrilla who endured harsh torture and a long imprisonment in the early 1970s. Known for her steely demeanor, Rousseff broke down in her speech at the report’s launch ceremony in the capital, Brasilia.

Investigators spent nearly three years combing through archives, hospital and morgue records and questioning victims, their families as well as alleged perpetrators. The document represents Brazil’s most sweeping attempt yet to come to terms with the human rights abuses committed under the country’s military regime.

“Under the military dictatorship, repression and the elimination of political opposition became the policy of the state, conceived and implemented based on decisions by the president of the republic and military ministers,” the report states.

The commission “therefore totally rejects the explanation offered up until today that the serious violations of human rights constituted a few isolated acts or excesses resulting from the zeal of a few soldiers.”

The seven-member commission, created by Congress and sworn in by Rousseff in 2011, has no prosecutorial powers, and a 1979 amnesty law passed by the military regime prevents those responsible from being tried and punished. The report calls for the repeal of the amnesty.

However, the Supreme Court in 2010 rejected a request by the Brazilian Bar Association to modify the amnesty law so that those who directly carried out killings and torture could be prosecuted.

The work exhaustively details the military’s “systematic practice” of arbitrary detentions and torture, as well as executions, forced disappearances and the hiding of bodies. It documents 191 killings and 210 disappearances committed by military authorities, as well as 33 cases of people who were disappeared and whose remains were later discovered.

“These numbers certainly don’t correspond to the total of

“We, who believe in the truth, hope that this report contributes to make it so that ghosts from a sad and painful past are no longer able to find shelter in silence,” Rousseff said.

Rosa Cardosa, a Rio de Janeiro criminal lawyer and a commission member, said that meticulously documenting the military regime’s crackdown on students, labor unionists, factory workers, indigenous tribes and others labeled as subversives is crucial to healing Brazilian society.

“I think the report helps us advance, helps us move forward, helps society to understand this problem and sheds light on it,” said Cardosa, who during the regime provided legal representation for political prisoners, including Rousseff.

DiCaprio also backed it, though he, like many green activists took it a step further and called for a phase-out of fossil fuels.

Yamin’s 20-year-old daughter, Aliya, the oldest of four children, helped her track the statements and put them in a spreadsheet, she said.

In Lima, Norway is now pushing for a “net zero emissions” goal by 2050, meaning no more carbon emissions than the world’s forests can absorb. Other options being discussed at the slow-going talks use different timelines and words like “carbon neutrality.”

“Some people don’t like `zero’ - it’s kind of harsh and scary,” Yamin said.

Chris Field, a scientist on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says the net zero emissions goal is consistent with staying below the 2-degree target.

Dozens of the most vulnerable countries, including small island states and some European countries, support a long-term emissions phase-out, but the biggest countries have not taken a clear stance.

U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern told reporters in Lima he could imagine a long-term goal in the Paris agreement “but I’m not sure what kind, whether it would be `net zero emissions’ or something else.”

China, the world’s top carbon polluter, hasn’t announced its position and didn’t immediately answer a request for comment by The Associated Press.

Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute said many businesses welcome the idea of a long-term emissions goal “because they want clarity and predictability” to guide their investments.

Oil companies aren’t thrilled about the zero emissions idea, though, because it could encourage thinking that investments in fossil fuels are a bad idea.

ExxonMobil on Tuesday predicted that oil will remain the world’s largest fuel source in 2040.

In a speech earlier this year, Shell CEO Ben van Beurden said expectations of a zero-carbon future need to be tempered with the “understanding that there are significant technological and economic obstacles.”

Yamin said she was optimistic that the phase-out goal would survive in the Paris agreement, once people “get over the shock of the idea.”

But if it does, don’t expect her to take credit.

“It’s a great idea. But if it survives it will because thousands of people worked on it,” she said. “I’m just a nerd and a mother.”

The document “gives voice to the victims, to the survivors and the families who were able to tell the story of those atrocities,” she said.

Brazil’s neighbors Argentina, Chile and Uruguay have been investigating crimes committed by military regimes in the same era, and top officials have been convicted and handed harsh prison sentences.

Many observers doubt the government’s political will to push for any such changes.

“There cannot be amnesty for torturers, and for them to be held accountable for their crimes the amnesty law must be rewritten or abrogated altogether,” said Elizabeth Silveira e Silva, who heads the Torture Never Again group.

Rousseff has maintained a low profile on issues related to the dictatorship. She rarely speaks about the abuses she suffered in detention, where she was bound and hung upside down, pummeled in the face and given electric shocks.

Political opponents have branded Rousseff as a “terrorist” bent on taking Brazil in a far-left political direction.

Her past, coupled with a massive kickback corruption scandal allegedly involving Rousseff’s Workers’ Party unfolding at staterun oil company Petrobras, has led many to predict that she’s unlikely to champion any change in the amnesty law.

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

www.directrelief.org

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The Weekly News Digest, Dec 8 thru Dec 15, 2014

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HUMPBACK WHALES INCREASING I N WAT E R S N E A R N Y C

NEW YORK (AP) -- Maybe they want to sing on Broadway.

“One would like to think that some of this has been triggered by an improved environmental ethic,” Rosenbaum said. “We have the clean air and clean water acts, the Marine Mammal Protection Act and associated state laws. It’s hard to make the link for sure but there’s certainly been a behavioral change toward the natural environment.”

Humpback whales, the gigantic, endangered mammals known for their haunting underwater songs, have been approaching New York City in greater numbers than even old salts can remember.

Naturalists aboard whale-watching boats have seen humpbacks in the Atlantic Ocean within a mile of the Rockaway peninsula, part of New York’s borough of Queens, within sight of Manhattan’s skyscrapers.

Sieswerda agreed that various factors are in play but said, “I think it all begins with cleaner water,” including the improved Hudson River.

“It is truly remarkable, within miles of the Empire State Building, to have one of the largest and most charismatic species ever to be on this planet,” said Howard Rosenbaum, director of the Ocean Giants program at the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Whatever the cause, humpback populations worldwide are increasing.

Counting whales is difficult, but the International Whaling Commission says its latest estimates put the worldwide population at about 150,000.

About 11,600 of those are in the Western North Atlantic, which includes the New York Bight off New York City. There might have been just hundreds before whale protection laws were passed.

Humpbacks were spotted 87 times from the boats this year, and by cataloging the whales’ markings, at least 19 different humpbacks have been identified in the waters off the city.

Paul Sieswerda, founder of Gotham Whale, which documents the marine mammal population around New York, said reports of humpbacks in the New York Bight, where the city’s harbor meets the Atlantic, began to pick up around 2010 from surprised fishermen and other veterans on the water. Gotham Whale then partnered with the American Princess whale-watching boat, providing naturalists who could document the sightings.

The naturalists also do an educational presentation on the boat and answer customers’ questions, said Tom Paladino, the boat’s captain.

“It was pretty slim pickings at first, actually,” Sieswerda said. “We went on many cruises and had three sightings totaling five whales in 2011.”

But in 2012, there were 15 sightings; in 2013, 33; and this year there were 87 sightings totaling 106 humpbacks.

Many whales were sighted more than once. But by comparing flukes - the distinctive shapes and markings of their tails - 19 different humpbacks have been documented near the city so far. Customers on the whale-watching tours are asked to share any photos they get of such

R H I N O U N L E S S

In this June 2014 photo provided by Gotham Whale, a humpback whale breaks through the surface of the Atlantic Ocean just off a beach on the Rockaway peninsula near New York City. Humpbacks have been approaching the city in greater numbers than in many years; there were 87 sightings in nearby waters from a whale-watching boat in 2014.

markings for the “New York City Humpback Whale Catalog.”

“This is the way they’ve been doing it in Maine and Massachusetts, the recognized way to keep track of these whales, study their behavior,” Sieswerda said.

It’s not crystal clear why humpbacks, which can be 50 feet long and weigh 40 tons, are returning to New York’s shores, where they were abundant before they and other whale species were nearly destroyed by whaling.

Rosenbaum said the humpbacks’ reappearance could be simply a shift in their habits rather than a spike in population. A greater abundance of menhaden, one of the humpbacks’ favorite foods, could have attracted them from farther out in the ocean.

New Yorkers shouldn’t expect to see humpbacks frolicking around the Statue of Liberty. Except for the occasional disoriented calf, the whales generally stay well outside the harbor, beyond the “gate” formed by the Rockaway peninsula in New York and Sandy Hook in New Jersey.

Rosenbaum worries that more whales could mean problems in the busy shipping lanes out of New York. And he hopes they’ll be taken into consideration when offshore wind-power projects are suggested.

But he says, “Having them here is truly remarkable and encouraging. I think it will help people in New York embrace the natural world and the marine environment and these iconic species.”

FEDS: DON’T BLAME CALIFORNIA DROUGHT ON WA R M I N G

That might be because the water is cleaner.

S P E C I E S T O D I E S C I E N C E C A N H E L P One of the two male rhinos transferred to Ol Pejeta died of an unknown cause earlier this year. Veterinarians that examined the remaining three last month determined that the male’s sperm count is very low and that the two females either cannot get pregnant or not carry a pregnancy to term.

In this photo taken Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2014, keeper Mohamed Doyo walks with female northern white rhino Fatu as she is let out of her pen to graze, at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. The keepers of three of the last six northern white rhinos on Earth said Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2014 that it is highly unlikely the three will ever reproduce naturally, with recent medical examinations of them showing the species is doomed to extinction, unless science can help

OL PEJETA, Kenya (AP) -- The task was never going to be easy: Fly four highly endangered rhinos from a Czech Republic zoo to East Africa, drive them to the savannah grasses of Mount Kenya and hope that the natural environment helps produce a calf, staving off extinction.

The experiment has all but failed.

The keepers of three northern white rhinos in Kenya - half of the world’s remaining rhinos of that species - have begun saying publicly for the first time that their one male and two female rhinos will certainly not reproduce naturally.

The silver lining, though, is science. Efforts will now be made to keep the species alive through in vitro fertilization, and possibly by working with the rhinos’ genetic material in a budding field known as de-extinction.

“We always knew from the very beginning that the chances of this working were small even if they bred,” said Richard Vigne, chief executive of the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, where the rhinos have lived since December 2009.

The conservancy said in a statement Wednesday that artificial reproductive techniques “could provide the last chance of survival for the world’s most endangered mammal.”

That echoed the phrase written on the wooden crates the rhinos were transported in from Nairobi to Ol Pejeta: “Last Chance to Survive.”

Some animal experts at the time said the effort was too little, too late, and that the experiment’s budget could have been better spent on other conservation projects. But the bulk of the more than $100,000 effort came from a donor - Alastair Lucas, then the vice chairman of Goldman Sachs in Australia - who wanted to see the project carried out.

Vigne said the project was not done in vain.

“They’ve been returned to Africa from a zoo, and they’ve thrived in that environment. In that way it’s been a success,” he said.

“The fact they haven’t bred is clearly a massive disappointment, but there are new technologies being invented all the time to rescue technically extinct species.”

The loss of the last six northern white rhinos does not signal the end of the rhino. Southern white and black rhinos still exist in bigger numbers. But southern white rhinos cannot live in central Africa.

a dock sits high and dry at the end of a boat ramp yards away from the edge of Folsom Lake near Folsom, Calif. Don’t blame man-made global warming for the devastating California drought, a new federal report says. A report issued Monday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said natural variations _ mostly a La Nina weather oscillation _ were the primary drivers behind the drought that has now stretched to three years.

The in vitro fertilization experiment could take place with a southern white surrogate mother. And Vigne said scientists are working with old genetic material to see if they can resurrect the passenger pigeon or dodo bird. By contrast, he noted that the genetic material from northern whites is still alive.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Don’t blame man-made global warming for the devastating California drought, a new federal report says.

Ol Pejeta sits on a high-elevation plain in view of Mount Kenya’s slow and ominous rise. The conservancy has 104 black rhinos and 26 whites - mostly of the southern variety. Because of increasing demand for rhino horn in Vietnam - a phenomenon that has resulted in more than 3,000 rhinos killed by poachers in South Africa since 2010 - the animals must be closely guarded.

Mohamed Doyo is one of the rhinos’ main keepers. He rubs their back and hind legs when they are inside their smaller wooden pens. And he helps shoo them outside into the much bigger penned area where they can roam. He points out how Najin, the 25-year-old female rhino, has a pronounced limp, one of the reasons she likely cannot bear a calf. He blames it on her time in her concrete zoo pen.

The northern white rhino is a major mammalian species that is “probably or potentially” going to become extinct in the coming years, Vigne said, notwithstanding new reproductive technology.

“And to me that’s a real indictment of the human race,” he said.

“We’re all responsible for it, and to stand by and watch it happen ... I think would have been horribly wrong.”

N A S A : R E C E N T LY SPOTTED ASTEROID NO RISK FOR EARTH WASHINGTON (AP) -- NASA says a newly spotted 1,300-foot wide asteroid is not a threat to hit Earth, despite recent media reports.

NASA’s Near Earth Object program manager Donald Yeomans said the asteroid, discovered in October by Russian scientists, won’t even get that close to Earth in the next 150 years. And it isn’t a threat to any other planet, either.

Calculations by NASA and Harvard say the closest asteroid 2014 UR116, will get to Earth is about 2.7 million miles in April 2047. Yeomans said that is so far away that it doesn’t make NASA’s running list of risky near-Earth objects.

Yeomans said in-depth analysis confirmed that that the space rock would not near Earth soon.

A report issued Monday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said natural variations - mostly a La Nina weather oscillation - were the primary drivers behind the drought that has now stretched to three years.

Study lead author Richard Seager of Columbia University said the paper has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. He and NOAA’s Martin Hoerling said 160 runs of computer models show heat-trapping gases should slightly increase winter rain in parts of California, not decrease.

“The conditions of the last three winters are not the conditions that climate change models say would happen,” Hoerling said. But he said the La Nina, which is the cooler flip side of the warming of central Pacific ocean, can only be blamed for about one-third of the drought. The rest of the causes can be from just random variation, he said.

Some outside climate scientists criticized the report, saying it didn’t take into effect how record warmth worsened the drought. California is having its hottest year on record, based on the first 11 months of the year and is 4.1 degrees warmer than 20th-century average, according to the National Climatic Data Center.

“This study completely fails to consider what climate change is doing to water in California,” wrote Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He said the work “completely misses” how hotter air increases drying by evaporating more it from the ground.

In droughts, extra heat from global warming enhances the drying in a feedback effect, Trenberth and others said. But Hoerling said that is less of a factor in California because it is so near the ocean and its rain comes in storms coming off the Pacific.

Peer-reviewed studies are divided on whether the drought can be blamed on climate change. Others published earlier this year point more directly to changes in pressure of the Pacific that blocked rain from coming into California, but Hoerling and Seager dismissed them as not adequate.

Hoerling, who specializes in the complicated field of studying the cause of climate extremes, in the past has downplayed other scientists’ claims that regional droughts are caused by man-made warming. However, Hoerling acknowledges that climate change is happening, will worsen weather in the future and has produced past studies attributing strange weather - such as more frequent Mediterranean droughts - to heat-trapping gases from the burning of fossil fuels.

Scientists can’t even agree on how bad the drought is. Hoerling said the drought isn’t even in the top five worst for California. But a new peer-reviewed study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters by researchers at the University of Minnesota and Woods Hole Oceanographic calls this “the most severe drought in the last 1,200 years.”

Deke Arndt, climate monitoring chief for NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, said by some drought measures, the current California drought “is slightly more intense than, but still comparable to, the late 1970s episode.

I’d put them at 1a and 1b on the list of historical multi-year drought episodes affecting California in modern times.”