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FOSSIL SOARING BIRD H AD HU G E W ING SPAN NEW YORK (AP) -- A seven-time champion and the two-time women’s winner will defend their titles at the annual hot dog-eating contest on Coney Island. Seventeen men and 13 women will compete Friday in front of a crowd of about 30,000 spectators and a TV audience of about one million in the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest, now in its 99th year. Joey Chestnut, who tips the scale at 205 pounds, hopes to put away his competition by downing a record 70 hot dogs in 10 minutes in the raucous event held just steps from beach. Last year, Chestnut won with 69 franks and buns. Matt Stonie, who was second in 2013 with 51 dogs, returns for another run at the top spot. He weighs in at 130 pounds. Two-time defending women’s champ Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas will try to eat more than 45 hot dogs. At 100 pounds, she’ll try to defend her title against 115-pound Miki Sudo. The top four competitors weighed in Thursday at a pre-contest event presided over by Mayor Bill de Blasio. Each of the competitors said Thursday they were fasting, but Irish contestant Colin Shirlow grabbed a free hot dog during the weigh-in to get a first taste of the Nathan’s Famous dogs they’ll be gobbling down.

P R O S T I T U T E G AV E G O O G L E E X E C FATA L H E R O I N H I T This image provided by the Santa Cruz Police Department shows Alix Catherine Tichelman after she was booked into county jail in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Friday, July 4, 2014. Tichelman was arrested on manslaughter and heroin charges after injecting heroin into a Google executive on his yacht in Santa Cruz and leaving him to die when he overdosed, according to police and a newspaper.

a deadly hit of heroin.

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) -- A Silicon Valley success story turned sordid this week with the arrest of an upscale prostitute who allegedly left a Google executive dying on his yacht after shooting him up with

Volume 003 Issue 27

Established 2012

OBAMA SEEKS $3.7 BILLION TO DEAL WITH BORDER KIDS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Tackling what he has called a humanitarian crisis, President Barack Obama on Tuesday asked Congress for $3.7 billion to cope with a tide of minors from Central America who are illegally crossing the U.S. border, straining immigration resources and causing a political firestorm in Washington.

Surveillance footage from the yacht shows everything, police said, from when she came aboard until after Hayes collapsed. That’s when Tichelman picked up her clothes, the heroin and needles, casually stepping over Hayes as he lay dying. She swallowed the last of a glass of wine, lowered a blind and walked back on the dock to shore, police said. Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Steve Clark told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Hayes had hired Tichelman before, and that their Nov. 23 encounter “was a mutually consensual encounter including the introduction of the heroin.” Clark said it appears this might not have been the first time she left someone in trouble without calling 911 or trying to help. Without elaborating, he said his agency is cooperating with police in a different state on a similar case. “There’s a pattern of behavior here where she doesn’t seek help when someone is in trouble,” he said. News vans gathered outside Hayes hilltop estate overlooking the continued on page 2

More than 50,000 children have arrived since October, in many cases fleeing violence at home but also drawn by rumors that they can stay in the U.S. Obama plans to discuss the crisis with faith and local leaders during a political fundraising visit to Texas Wednesday, but he is resisting calls to visit the border for a firsthand look. The White House invited Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who is among those urging Obama to get to the border while he’s in the state, to Wednesday’s meeting in Dallas.

The White House said the money would help increase the detention, Immigrant families and children’s advocates rally in response to President care and transportation of unac- Barack Obama’s statement on the crisis of unaccompanied children and illegally entering the United States, outside the Los Angeles Federcompanied children, help speed the families al building Monday, July 7, 2014. A top Obama administration official says removal of adults with children by no one, not even children trying to escape violent countries, can illegally increasing the capacity of immigra- enter the United States without eventually facing deportation proceedings. tion courts and increase prosecution of smuggling networks. The money would also increase surveillance at the U.S. border Perry’s spokeswoman Lucy Nashed confirmed that the governor and help Central American countries repatriate border-crossers and Obama would meet. Perry “is pleased that President Obama sent back from the United States. has accepted his invitation to discuss the humanitarian and national security crisis along our southern border,” Nashed said. Obama requested the money in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner. The request did not include proposals for legislative House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, a Rechanges that the White House wants. But Obama said he still publican, called the situation on the border “extremely dire.” will seek such changes, including providing the secretary of homeland security additional authority to speed up the removal “It is clear that additional funding will be needed to ensure the of children who have arrived from countries such as Guatemala, proper care of these unaccompanied children, to enforce the law, Honduras and El Salvador. Obama said he also wants increased and to further secure our border so that these problems can be penalties for individuals who smuggle vulnerable migrants, such mitigated in the short term,” he said in a statement. “Our comas children. mittee will focus on providing what is necessary to meet these ongoing needs.” The developments all come as Obama has declared comprehensive immigration legislation dead in Congress and announced The White House request would: plans to proceed on his own by executive action to make whatever fixes he can to the nation’s dysfunctional immigration sys- -Seek $1.1 billion for the Department of Homeland Security tem. to help deter border-crossers and increase enforcement. That would include $879 million to pay for detention and removal That could put Obama in the seemingly contradictory position of adults traveling with children, to provide additional detention of weighing proposals to shield millions of people from depor- space for those individuals, and to speed up the prosecution of tation while at the same time trying to hurry deportations for the adults who cross the border unlawfully with children. unaccompanied children. -Seek $433 for Customs and Border Protection to cover overCongressional Republicans blame Obama policies for the con- time costs and for additional facilities to detain unaccompanied fusion; Obama administration officials dispute that. children while they are in Border Patrol custody. It also includes continued on page 3

D I F F E R E N T AT TA C K E R S I N BENGHAZI?

has been lost in the debate: that the attacks were two distinct events over two days on two different buildings, perhaps by unrelated groups. The U.S. government still has not fully characterized the first attack in which, according to Ham and eight other military officers, men who seemed familiar with the lightly protected diplomatic compound breached it and set it on fire, killing Stevens and communications specialist Sean Smith. A disorganized mob of looters then overran the facility.

Forrest Hayes, 51, was found dead by the captain of his 50-foot yacht Escape last November. At the time, a simple obituary described him as a beloved husband and father of five who enjoyed spending time with his family and on his boat. On Wednesday, that got a lot more complicated as Alix Tichelman, 26, of Folsom, stood handcuffed and mumbling in red jail scrubs facing manslaughter charges for her role in Hayes’ death, as well as drug and prostitution charges. She is being held on $1.5 million bail.

July 7 thru 14, 2014

Libyan military guards check one of the U.S. consulate’s burned buildings after a deadly attack on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012 in Benghazi. Newly revealed testimony from top military commanders involved in the U.S. response to the Benghazi attacks suggests that the perpetrators of a second, dawn attack on a CIA complex probably were different from those who penetrated the U.S. diplomatic mission the evening before and set it ablaze, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and another American. The second attack, which killed two security contractors, showed clear military training, retired Gen. Carter Ham told Congress in closed-door testimony.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Newly revealed testimony from top military commanders involved in the U.S. response to the Benghazi attacks suggests that the perpetrators of a second, dawn attack on a CIA complex probably were different from those who penetrated the U.S. diplomatic mission the evening before and set it ablaze, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and another American. The second attack, which killed two security contractors, showed clear military training, retired Gen. Carter Ham told Congress in closed-door testimony released late Wednesday. The assault probably was the work of a new team of militants, seizing on reports of violence at the diplomatic mission the night before and hitting the Americans while they were most vulnerable. The testimony, which The Associated Press was able to read ahead of its release, could clarify for the first time the events of Sept. 11, 2012, that have stirred bitter recriminations in the U.S., including Republican-led congressional investigations and campaign-season denunciations of the Obama administration, which made inaccurate statements about the Libyan attacks. The testimony underscores a key detail that sometimes

In testimony to two House panels earlier this year, the officers said that commanders didn’t have the information they needed to understand the nature of the attack, that they were unaware of the extent of the U.S. presence in Benghazi at the time and they were convinced erroneously for a time that they were facing a hostage crisis without the ability to move military assets into place that would be of any use. The testimony reveals how little information the military had on which to base an urgent response. Two House panels - Armed Services and Oversight and Government Reform - conducted interviews with the nine officers on separate days from January to April. Four Americans died in Benghazi, including Stevens. To this day, despite the investigations, it’s not clear if the violence resulted from a well-planned, multiphase military-type assault or from a loosely connected, escalating chain of events. In their testimony, military officials expressed some uncertainty about the first attack, describing protests and looting in an assault that lasted about 45 minutes. The military attache to the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli told Congress the first attack showed some advance planning. The Libyan police officer guarding the diplomatic compound fled as it began. The defense attache, whose name wasn’t released, suggested the attackers “had something on the shelf” - an outline of a plan based on previously obtained information about the compound and its security measures, so they were ready to strike when the opportunity arose. continued on page 7

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FOR OBAMA, ‘HOPE’ BECOMES FIGHT AGAINST CYNICISM

WASHINGTON (AP) -- To hear President Barack Obama describe it, there’s a creeping case of cynicism setting in across the country, leading Americans to suspect that not only is Washington broken, it’s beyond fixing.

If that line of thinking continues, it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy with dire longterm ramifications, Obama says. If compromise-minded Americans get so frustrated they just tune out, lawmakers will feel even less pressure to work together for the good of the country.

President Barack Obama speaks about the economy at Lake Harriet Band Shell in Minneapolis, Minn. “It’s easy to be cynical. In fact, these days it’s kind of trendy,” Obama told a crowd of thousands in Minneapolis. With a mix of alarm and dismay, Obama has started musing about the dangers of cynicism in nearly every major public appearance. The cautionary note has showed up in speeches to students and civil rights groups, at Democratic fundraisers, even in his meeting with Pope Francis

With a mix of alarm and dismay, Obama has started musing about the dangers of cynicism in nearly every major public appearance. The cautionary note has showed up in speeches to students and civil rights groups, at Democratic fundraisers - even in his meeting with Pope Francis. It’s a sharp change in tone from the days when then-candidate Obama rallied millions to his side with ambitious aspirations about hope and change. “It’s easy to be cynical. In fact, these days it’s kind of trendy,” Obama told a crowd of thousands recently in Minneapolis. Cynicism may masquerade as wisdom, he said, but it can’t liberate a continent, invent the Internet or send a man to the moon. “Cynicism is a choice, and hope is a better choice.” But in Obama’s stagnant second term, those inclined to cynicism haven’t had to look far. With Washington at a near-standstill politically, both parties have essentially written off prospects for any major legislation for the remainder of Obama’s presidency. Obama’ attempts to circumvent Congress to get things done have drawn rebukes from the Supreme Court and a threatened lawsuit from the House, casting a bright light on the state of Washington dysfunction.

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“There were at least times in 2011, 2012 when we had big battles over things, but they usually wound up with something getting done,” Obama’s senior adviser, Dan Pfeiffer, said in an interview. Not anymore, he said. He blamed the poisonous atmosphere on six years of a concerted GOP strategy to breed cynicism for political advantage. Obama’s aides say he has always worried that Americans were tuning out their dysfunctional government. In his 2006 book, “The Audacity of Hope,” Obama said Americans have no choice but to transcend the “dead zone” that American politics had become. And in a speech to the Democratic National Committee the next year, Obama implored voters “to stop settling for what the cynics say we have to accept.” But Erick Erickson, a conservative radio host and Obama critic, said Obama has failed to pull the country out of that mindset even where other presidents of both parties have succeeded. He said Americans have seen how Wall Street has blossomed under Obama while average Americans have suffered and have given up on Obama’s ability to govern effectively. “This is an Obama phenomenon,” Erickson said. “As much as Republicans may be recalcitrant and refusing to work with the White House, the White House doesn’t seem very willing to work with them either.” Obama isn’t the only president to cast his own challenges through the broader lens of American malaise. When

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President Jimmy Carter felt beset by pessimism amid the energy crisis in 1979, he gave a startling speech warning that a “crisis of confidence” posed a fundamental threat to U.S. democracy. And in the run-up to the 1994 election when Democrats lost both chambers of Congress, President Bill Clinton offered a similar if more subdued warning. He blamed conservative talk radio for a “constant, unremitting drumbeat of negativism and cynicism.”

This time, there’s plenty of blame to go around. Americans’ confidence in all three branches of government is falling and has hit the lowest level of Obama’s presidency, according to a Gallup poll last week. While Congress usually earns low scores, less than one-third of Americans now have confidence in the presidency or the Supreme Court, erasing the gains both enjoyed at the start of Obama’s presidency. “If you’re fed a steady diet of cynicism that says nobody is trustworthy and nothing works, and there’s no way we can actually address these problems, then the temptation is to just go it alone, to look after yourself and not participate in the larger project of achieving our best vision of America,” Obama told college students at a graduation ceremony last month in Irvine, California. “Don’t buy into it,” he added. Jon Favreau, Obama’s chief speechwriter for his first four years in office, said the president’s comments reflect a return to the type of aspirational rhetoric that characterized his first campaign. He said Obama sees using the bully pulpit to keep Americans engaged as part of his responsibility as president. “What the president’s trying to say is, `I know we’re in stasis right now and there’s been gridlock for a while, but there are two responses to that,’” Favreau said. “`One is to stay out of the public debate and give up hope. That’s cynicism. The other is to say even with how bad it is, I’m still going to try to get stuff done.’

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glittering Monterey Bay on Tuesday. The five-bedroom home is on the market for $4.2 million. The yacht has been sailed out of the harbor to the Bay Area. Hayes’ widow has not spoken publicly and a blog created in his memory was deleted Tuesday. On the website, friends and co-workers were seemingly unaware of how he died. They fondly described their time together, Christmas parties on his boat, engineering teams at Sun Microsystems, traveling to China for Apple and most recently at Google, where they said he was involved in the Glass eyewear projects. “He had life wired, he really liked his job, was spending a lot more time with his family, cruising around in his boat. I am really grateful that Forrest’s last moments were happy ones,” wrote a friend in December. Clark said it’s not clear if Hayes was a frequent drug user, and that in the video, it appears he needed Tichelman to help him shoot up. Clark described Tichelman as a high-end prostitute, who lived three hours away and charged $1,000. He said she had other clients from Silicon Valley, home to about 50 billionaires and tens of thousands of millionaires, where the case continued on page 7

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The Weekly News Digest, July 1 thru 7, 2014

L U X U R Y R O L L S - R O Y C E C A R S A L E S S O A R W O R L D W I D E The British-made cars, updated to reflect the technical know-how and marketing might of parent company BMW, have become must-haves for the new global elite. That group is growing in number even as much of the world struggles to get by in an era of low growth, low expectations and high unemployment. The company said 1,968 cars were sold in the first half of this year compared to 1,475 in the same period last year.

Rolls-Royce Canton Glory at the company’s booth during Guangzhou 2013 Auto Show in China’s southern city of Guangzhou. Britain-based Rolls-Royce on Tuesday, July 8, 2014 said that global sales in the first half of the year were up 33 percent compared with the same period in 2013.

LONDON (AP) -- They are rolling symbols of wealth and excess, starting at $263,000 a pop, with most buyers choosing custom options that can easily double the price. And they are more popular than ever before. Rolls-Royce reported a startling rise in demand for their distinctive cars Tuesday.

The 33 percent rise in sales for the first six months of 2014 compared to the same period last year is explained not just by the cars’ plush leather seats and gleaming paintwork those are old standbys for the brand, which used to focus on the British aristocracy - but also by the rising number of billionaires worldwide. A Forbes survey says there are 1,645 billionaires in the world, 219 more than a year ago. “If you look at the number of ultra-high net worth individuals around the world, that number is clearly growing,” said company spokesman Andrew Ball. “The luxury market is growing at the high end and we are delighted to be part of

WASHINGTON POT SHOP CUSTOMERS CHEER 1ST LEGAL SALE It’s been a bumpy ride in Washington, with product shortages expected as growers and sellers scrambled to prepare. Pot prices were expected to be higher than what people pay at the state’s unregulated medical marijuana dispensaries. That was largely due to the short supply of legally produced pot in the state. Although more than 2,600 people applied to become licensed growers, fewer than 100 have been approved - and only about a dozen were ready to harvest by early this month.

Cale Holdsworth, of Abeline, Kan., holds up his purchase after being the first in line to buy legal recreational marijuana at Top Shelf Cannabis, Tuesday, July 8, 2014, in Bellingham, Wash. Holdsworth had been in line since 4:00 a.m.

BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) -- Cale Holdsworth strode to the register at Top Shelf Cannabis after inspecting and sniffing a glass jar filled with marijuana and said: “I’ll take two grams.” Holdsworth paid $26.50 and held up the brown bag containing his pot as other customers applauded the store’s first transaction as Washington on Tuesday became the second state to allow people to buy marijuana legally in the U.S. without a doctor’s note. “This is a great moment,” said the 29-year-old from Abilene, Kansas, as a swarm of reporters and television cameras recorded the moment. State law allows both Washington residents and people from out of state to purchase a limited amount of pot. People began buying marijuana at 8 a.m. at Top Shelf Cannabis, one of two Bellingham stores that started selling the drug as soon as it was allowed under state regulations. Before it opened, several dozen people lined up outside the shop in this liberal college town of about 80,000 north of Seattle. Holdsworth, wearing salmon-colored shorts and a brown sweatshirt jacket over a tie-dyed T-shirt, was first in line, along with his girlfriend, Sarah Gorton, and her younger brother. They showed up at 4 a.m. Gorton said the trio was in Bellingham for her grandfather’s 84th birthday. “It’s just a happy coincidence and an opportunity we’re not going to have for a long time,” said Gorton, a 24-year-old with dreadlocks and homemade jewelry. “I’m really thrilled to be a part of something that I never thought would happen.” The start of legal pot sales in Washington marks a major step that’s been 20 months in the making. Washington and Colorado stunned much of the world by voting in November 2012 to legalize marijuana for adults over 21, and to create state-licensed systems for growing, selling and taxing the pot. Sales began in Colorado on Jan. 1. Washington issued its first 24 retail licenses Monday. An Associated Press survey of the licensees showed only about six planned to open Tuesday: two in Bellingham, one in Seattle, one in Spokane, one in Prosser and one in Kelso. Some were set to open later this week or next, while others said it could be a month or more before they could acquire marijuana to sell.

Colorado already had a regulated medical marijuana system, making for a smoother transition when it allowed those dispensaries to start selling to recreational pot shops Jan. 1. Washington’s medical system is unregulated, so officials here were starting from scratch as they immersed themselves in the pot world and tried to come up with regulations that made sense for the industry and the public. The rules include protocols for testing marijuana and requirements for child-resistant packaging. Officials also had to determine things like how much criminal history was too much to get a license, and what types of security systems pot shops and growers should have. Washington law allows the sale of up to an ounce of dried marijuana, 16 ounces of pot-infused solids, 72 ounces of pot-infused liquids or 7 grams of concentrated marijuana, like hashish, to adults over 21. Brian Kost, a 45-year-old Bellingham man, was among the first in line at Top Shelf Cannabis, in an industrial area off Interstate 5. He said he hadn’t smoked marijuana in 17 years because he didn’t like the hassle of trying to find it on the illegal market. “With the chance to buy it legally, I just couldn’t pass it up,” Kost said. “I never thought I’d see the day.” Gorton said she, her brother and boyfriend planned to head back to their relatives’ house and sample their purchase. “We’re probably going to break open a bottle of wine, sit on the porch and enjoy this,” she said.

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nearly $40 million to increase air surveillance, such as drone flights along the border. - Provide $64 million to the Department of Justice, with much of the money spend on hiring 40 additional teams of immigration judges. The White House says that together with a previous request for 35 additional teams, the system would be able to process an additional 55,000 to 75,000 cases annually. -Provide $1.8 billion to the Department of Health and Human Services for the care of unaccompanied children, including shelter and medical care. As lawmakers return to Washington this week from a weeklong recess, Obama’s spending request is set to be a focus, with the Senate Appropriations Committee scheduling a hearing to examine it.

that.” The phenomenon helps to explain the strong sales of mega-yachts, rare jewelry and complicated, handmade Swiss watches. There are more people with more money looking for ways to stand out from the crowd - and in this context, a Rolls becomes a very noticeable statement. Ball said 70 percent of Rolls buyers are new to the brand, and roughly half choose to customize their cars by adding expensive personal touches. The cost of making a Rolls “bespoke” - the British term for custom-made suits - rather than “off the rack” can dwarf many household budgets. “It can be simple, like having your initials stitched into the headrest or the veneer,” said Ball. “Customers enjoy this. It’s an emotional process.” It’s also a level of consumerism that soars as high as London’s famous Shard skyscraper: A refrigerator inside the automobile can be custom built to accommodate the shape and size of the owner’s favorite beverage - at a cost rivalling a year in a U.S. college. The company is opening its first showroom in Cambodia. But it remains an essentially British product, enjoyed by Queen Elizabeth II and evoking the opulence of the Downton Abbey era. At Rolls-Royce Motor Cars London, the showroom in a particularly posh section of Mayfair, visitors are drawn to a sparkling black Phantom (starting at $600,000) and the Wraith, a bargain at $400,000 unless you want some options. The back of the dealership resembles a home furnishings store, with samples of different woods and hides. Gone are the days when Rolls-Royce traditionalists sneered at Beatle John Lennon for adding a psychedelic paint job to his Phantom V. When a man walked into the Mayfair showroom carrying his wife’s favorite pink lipstick and asking for a Rolls in the same shade, the company was happy to provide one, said salesman Stephen Foulds. He said the customer base was growing younger, with one Chinese man in his 20s recently ordering his second Rolls in an unusual all-white color scheme. Another traded in his Lamborghini when he was starting a family because he needed a backseat. Octane Magazine deputy editor Mark Dixon said Rolls Royce has also managed to shed its image of producing fuddy-duddy machines. He loved the quirky touches that make a Rolls unique, like the starlight roof headlining that comes as an option with the Phantom coupe. “There are hundreds of little LEDs set into the roof lining, it seems like the night sky when you’re driving at night,” he said. “There was disquiet about this great British brand being bought by the Germans, but most people agree now it was a good move.” He said BMW has introduced state-of-the-art features to Rolls - like the satellite-assisted gearbox technology that can see a hairpin curve before the driver does and adjust the gearbox accordingly - and given new models real zip. “You could describe the Ghost as a hot rod, it really is a fast car,” he said. “It has a twin turbo V-12 which goes like a scalded cat. It actually handles much better than you would expect.”

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ALASKA MAN I N C O A S T

The Weekly News Digest, July 1 thru 7, 2014

GETS 4 LIFE TERMS G U A R D D E A T H S

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- An Alaska man was sentenced Tuesday to four consecutive life terms in the 2012 shooting deaths of two co-workers at a Coast Guard communications station that mystified an island community for nearly a year before an arrest was made.

Federal public defender Rich Curtner said Wells suffered from chronic diarrhea following gall bladder surgery and was delayed the morning of the murders because he spent 20 minutes in a bathroom of a commuter airline.

Prosecutors had contended that James Wells resented the growing influence of the two victims at the rigger shop where he was a nationally recognized antenna expert. They said Wells meticulously planned an alibi, sneaked onto the station and gunned the men down.

Wells made no mention of using an airport bathroom to the FBI. Curtner and defense attorney Peter Offenbecher of Seattle contended authorities immediately focused on Wells and ignored other possible suspects. They said prosecutors had no eyewitnesses, no confession, no murder weapon and no physical evidence linking Wells to the homicides.

A federal jury found the 63-year-old Wells guilty in April after a 19day trial. On Tuesday, he maintained that he had nothing to do with the shootings on Alaska’s Kodiak Island.

Curtner declined to comment after the sentencing.

“A tragedy occurred, and we all suffered for it,” Wells said in U.S. District Court in Anchorage on Tuesday. “And I know I’m innocent of this crime.”

Wells served eight years in the Navy and 13 with the Coast Guard. Upon discharge in 1990, he was hired as a civilian employee.

Wells, sporting a long white beard and thinning gray hair, made his comments after the widows of the victims spoke. Both women said Wells had destroyed their lives and the lives of their families. “May you rot in prison, James Michael Wells,” said Nicola Belisle. “And I hope you rot in hell.” Kodiak Island, about 250 miles south of Anchorage, is home to the largest Coast Guard Air Station in the Pacific. The killings of Coast Guardsmen Petty Officer 1st Class James Hopkins and retired Chief Petty Officer Richard Belisle took place 3 miles away at the base’s communications station, where personnel monitor radio traffic from ships and planes. The victims were found on April 12, 2012 in the station’s rigger shop, where antennas are built and repaired. Few details were released in the weeks after the deaths, although authorities said shortly after the murders that there was no credible evidence that the community was in danger. Wells’ arrest 10 months after the killings came after an extensive investigation led by the FBI and the Coast Guard Investigative Service, with support from the Alaska State Troopers. Hopkins, 41, was an electronics technician from Vergennes, Vermont. Belisle, 51, was a former chief petty officer who continued service to the Coast Guard as a civilian employee. According to the government’s theory, after the shootings, Wells made it home and called Hopkins’ work phone, leaving a message saying he

In the circumstantial case, it took a jury only one day to find him guilty of two counts each of first-degree murder, murder of an officer or employee of the United States, and possession of a firearm in a crime of violence. U.S. Coast Guard shows, from left, Jim Wells, retired Chief Petty Officer Richard Belisle, Coast Guardsmen Petty Officer 1st Class James Hopkins and Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Cody Beauford as they help erect a communications antenna on Shemya Island, Alaska. Sentencing is scheduled for Wells, who was convicted of murder in the 2012 shooting deaths of co-workers Belisle and Hopkins at a Coast Guard communications station on Alaska’s Kodiak Island

would be late for work because of a flat tire. Prosecutors said the flat tire was a ruse to give Wells a cover story for committing the murders. According to authorities, Wells told the FBI he started driving to work, detected a soft tire, stopped at a hotel near the Kodiak airport entrance, checked the tire and returned home to change it. Unbeknownst to Wells, a security camera at the nearby Coast Guard main gate recorded his truck heading for the communication station shortly before 7 a.m. and driving in the opposite direction toward his home 34 minutes later. Wells’ wife was out of town the day of the shooting, and her blue SUV was parked at the Kodiak airport not far from the communications station. Investigators believe a blue vehicle seen in blurry security footage belonged to Wells’ wife and concluded he switched cars, waited for Hopkins to drive by, followed him to the communications station and shot him and Belisle.

ISRAEL HITS KEY HAMAS TARGETS IN GAZA OFFENSIVE “Despite the fact it will be hard, complicated and costly, we will have to take over Gaza temporarily, for a few weeks, to cut off the strengthening of this terror army,” Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s intelligence minister, told Israel Radio. “If you ask my humble opinion, a significant operation like this is approaching.” The government has authorized the army to activate up to 40,000 reservists for a ground operation. An Israeli government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was discussing Israeli tactical strategy, said the reservists would be sent to the West Bank to allow active duty troops to amass near the Gaza border.

Smoke and debris rise after an Israeli strike on the Gaza Strip seen from the Israeli side of the Israel Gaza Border, Wednesday, July 9, 2014. Since the Gaza offensive began Tuesday, Israel has attacked more than 400 sites in Gaza, killing at least 32 people in a military operation it says is aimed at quenching rocket fire against Israel. Only four rockets were fired from Gaza toward Israel overnight, the army said

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel stepped up its offensive on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip on Wednesday, pummeling scores of targets and killing at least 22 people as Israeli leaders signaled a weekslong ground invasion could be quickly approaching. The military said it struck about 200 Hamas targets on the second day of its offensive, which it says is needed to end incessant rocket attacks out of Gaza. Militants, however, continued to fire rocket salvos deep into Israeli territory, and Israel mobilized thousands of forces along the Gaza border ahead of a possible ground operation. “The army is ready for all possibilities,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after holding a meeting of his Security Cabinet. “Hamas will pay a heavy price for firing toward Israeli citizens. The security of Israel’s citizens comes first. The operation will expand and continue until the fire toward our towns stops and quiet returns.” The fighting stepped up as Egypt, which often serves as a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, said it was in contact with both sides to end the violence. It was the first indication since the offensive was launched on Tuesday that cease-fire efforts might be under way. The offensive has set off the heaviest fighting between Israel and the Islamic militant group Hamas since an eight-day battle in November 2012. As the death toll continued to rise, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of committing “genocide.” Israeli leaders warned a ground invasion could be imminent.

Despite the tough threats, Israeli security officials are still hesitant about ordering a ground invasion due to the many risks. Entering Gaza could lead to heavy civilian casualties on the Palestinian side while putting Israeli ground forces in danger. It remains unclear whether the international community would support such an operation, or how Israel would end it. Officials have little desire to retake control of Gaza, a densely populated territory of 1.8 million people from which Israel withdrew in 2005. Since the offensive began Tuesday, Israel has attacked at least 560 sites in Gaza, the military said. Militants have fired more than 160 rockets at Israel, reaching further north than ever before. Palestinian medics say a total of 49 people have been killed in Gaza, including 22 on Wednesday. Of the total dead, medical officials have confirmed at least 15 are civilians and 10 militants, with the remainder uncertain. The rocket fire from Gaza has not caused any serious Israeli casualties.

Two of the consecutive life sentences imposed by U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline on Tuesday were for each man’s murder and the other two were for the firearm violence. The judge also imposed life sentences for the officer murder charges, to run concurrently with the murder sentences. Federal prosecutors earlier said they would not seek the death penalty if Wells was convicted. “Hopefully the families can go forward having received justice today,” U.S. Attorney for Alaska Karen Loeffler said at a news conference after the sentencing.

life across a wide swath of southern and central Israel, where people have been forced to remain close to home and kindergartens and summer camps have been forced to close. Besides firing toward Israel’s two largest population centers in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Hamas also fired one rocket that reached the northern Israeli city of Hadera for the first time, effectively putting the entire country under rocket range from the north and south. The city is more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Gaza and was struck in 2006 by missiles from Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. “We got it from both directions,” said Maayan From, a 25-yearold Hadera resident. “Our enemies have developed and it is getting scary. We have to put an end to this.” On Wednesday, Hamas rockets reached even further north than Hadera. “It’s still hard to digest that we are within their range. It changed the way you think,” said Ina Marchovsky, 43. “We are full of hope that was the first and last rocket we will see. But I don’t know.” Israel and Hamas are bitter enemies and have fought numerous times over the years. But until recently they had been observing a truce that ended the previous hostilities in 2012. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi spoke to the Palestinian president, Abbas, on Tuesday evening to review the latest developments, according to el-Sissi’s office. Abbas, who has minimal influence in Gaza, has appealed to Israel to halt its offensive. “Egypt has made extensive contacts with all active and concerned parties to spare the Palestinian people the scourge of Israeli military operations,” el-Sissi’s office said. It was not clear whether the contacts included formal efforts to reach a cease-fire, or whether Egypt was speaking to Hamas. The new Egyptian government has poor relations with Hamas. In Ramallah, Abbas condemned the Israeli offensive, accusing Israel of committing “genocide” due to the mounting civilian death toll and said it raised questions about Israel’s commitment to peace. “Do these actions indicate that we should live with two states?” he said. Tensions have been rising since the kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank on June 12. Israel accused Hamas of being behind the abductions, although it provided no proof. Israel then launched a crackdown on the group’s members in the West Bank and arrested hundreds of people. Hamas, which controls Gaza, responded by stepping up rocket fire.

The Israeli onslaught has caused panic in Gaza. A number of airstrikes aimed at wanted militants have also killed family members and bystanders. Many residents have huddled indoors or moved from hard-hit areas to relatives in areas that are believed to be safer.

The situation deteriorated last week after the bodies of the three were found, followed a day later by the abduction of Palestinian teenager in Jerusalem - who was later found burned to death in what Palestinians believe was a revenge attack. Six Jewish Israelis were arrested in the killing.

Gaza health official Ashraf al-Qidra said that an 80-year-old woman was among those killed Wednesday.

Hamas is far weaker than the last round of fighting with Israel in 2012.

Hamas official Musheer al-Masri said Israel had “crossed all the red lines” and warned that Hamas would strike back fiercely. “What the resistance showed today is only part of what it is capable of,” he said.

At the time, Egypt was governed by the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’ close ally. Following its ouster in 2013, Egypt’s new government became hostile to Hamas and closed a network of smuggling tunnels used by the group as an economic lifeline, and as a way to smuggle in rockets.

The increasing range of the rockets from Gaza has disrupted

The Weekly News Digest, July 1 thru 7, 2014 ___________________________________________________________________

W H Y N U K E S K E E P F I N D I N G T R O U B L E : T H E Y ’ R E R E A L LY O L D

MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. (AP) -- The Air Force asserts with pride that the nation’s nuclear missile system, more than 40 years old and designed during the Cold War to counter the now-defunct Soviet Union, is safe and secure. None has ever been used in combat or launched accidentally.

“I honestly don’t think it’s much more complicated than that,” he said. “When that happened, people lost sight of how incredibly rigorous you’ve got to be to ensure quality control when nuclear weapons are involved.” That may be changing. Air Force leaders are making a fresh push to fix things.

But it also admits to fraying at the edges: time-worn command posts, corroded launch silos, failing support equipment and an emergency-response helicopter fleet so antiquated that a replacement was deemed “critical” years ago. The Minuteman is no ordinary weapon. The business end of the missile can deliver mass destruction across the globe as quickly as you could have a pizza delivered to your doorstep. But even as the Minuteman has been updated over the years and remains ready for launch on short notice, the items that support it have grown old. That partly explains why missile corps morale has sagged and discipline has sometimes faltered, as revealed in a series of Associated Press reports documenting leadership, training, disciplinary and other problems in the ICBM force that has prompted worry at the highest levels of the Pentagon.

When Deborah Lee James became Air Force secretary, its top civilian official, in December, she quickly made her way to each of the three ICBM bases and came away with a conviction that rhetoric was not matched by resources. This photo taken June 24, 2014 shows an ICBM launch site located among fields in the countryside outside Minot, N.D. on the Minot Air Force Base. The nuclear missiles hidden in plain view across the prairies of northwest North Dakota reveal one reason why trouble keeps finding the nuclear Air Force. The “Big Stick,” as some call the 60-foot-tall Minuteman 3 missile, is just plain old.

Spencer’s study found that Air Force leaders were “cynical about the nuclear mission, its future and its true - versus publicly stated - priority to the Air Force.” Several key leadership posts have since changed hands, and while Spencer says she sees important improvements, she’s worried about the Air Force’s commitment to getting the nuclear forces what they need.

The airmen who operate, maintain and guard the Minuteman force at bases in North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming came to recognize a gap between the Air Force’s claim that the nuclear mission is “Job 1” and its willingness to invest in it.

This is no surprise to those responsible for nuclear weapons policy. An independent advisory group, in a report to the Pentagon last year, minced no words. It said the Air Force must show a “believable commitment” to modernizing the force.

“One of the reasons for the low morale is that the nuclear forces feel unimportant, and they are often treated as such, very openly,” says Michelle Spencer, a defense consultant in Alabama who led a nuclear forces study for the Air Force published in 2012. She said in an interview the airmen - they’re called Missileers - became disillusioned by an obvious but unacknowledged lack of interest in nuclear priorities among the most senior Air Force leaders.

“If the practice continues to be to demand that the troops compensate for manpower and skill shortfalls, operate in inferior facilities and perform with failing support equipment, there is high risk of failure” to meet the demands of the mission, it said.

FA C T C H E C K : I T ’ S ‘MEDISCARE’ TIME I N K E N T U C K Y

Robert Goldich, a former defense analyst at the Congressional Research Service, said the ICBM force for years got “the short end of the stick” on personnel and resources. for beneficiaries. But elderly people such as Disney - already retired or approaching retirement - would see no changes. “Current Medicare benefits are preserved for those in and near retirement,” stated the bill, which failed in the Senate. Moreover, Ryan’s plan at the time would have kept traditional Medicare as an option for people aging into the system over the next decade. Had the bill become law, Disney and beneficiaries like him could have stay parked in the usual plan, not forced into private plans as future retirees might have been.

The reality wasn’t that simple, never mind that Grimes, a private attorney who became Kentucky secretary of state in 2012, wasn’t in a position to raid any federal program. It’s true that the health care overhaul provided for cuts of more than $700 billion over 10 years in the Medicare program. But the cuts are from payments to Medicare service providers, such as hospitals, not from benefits directly. And some of the savings are going to improved preventive care and other benefits under Medicare, while the bulk is for expanding health care coverage for the general population. Those nuances were not reflected in McConnell’s new ad, either, which states the health care law “cuts $700 billion from seniors’ Medicare” and “Obama and Grimes will pay for Obamacare on the backs of Kentucky seniors.”

If coal is king in the Kentucky race, Medicare is a potentially powerful issue, too, and Grimes touches both bases in the 30-second statewide TV ad, staged in front of a fire truck for good measure.

The bill he supported in 2011, on which the ad’s claim is based, proposed moving ahead on a plan in the House by GOP Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to privatize Medicare over time. Some analysts said that could eventually raise costs

“I happen to think the top thing that really drives an airman is feeling like they’re making a difference ... protecting America,” she said earlier in June. Missileers ought to feel that way, she said, but she is not convinced they do. “And so, over time, we’ve got to change that around.” James said the Air Force will find $50 million in this year’s budget to make urgent fixes, and will invest an additional $350 million in improvements over the coming five years. Even that, she said, is unlikely to be enough and more funds will be sought. Her words are resonating with some, including Maj. Steve Gorman, a maintenance operations squadron commander at Minot. He already is seeing signs of change. He points to a recent decision to add 13 new maintenance positions here.

Since its initial deployment in 1970, the Minuteman 3 missile itself has been upgraded in all its main components. But much of the rest of the system that keeps the weapon viable and secure has fallen on hard times. One example is the Huey helicopter fleet, which escorts road convoys that move Minuteman missiles, warheads and other key components. It also moves armed security forces into the missile fields in an emergency, even though it’s too slow, too small, too vulnerable to attack and cannot fly sufficient distances. It’s also old - Vietnam War old. The seven Hueys flown daily at Minot were built in 1969. The yearly cost of keeping them running has more than doubled over the past four years, according to Air Force statistics - from $12.9 million in 2010 to $27.8 million last year. “Obviously we need a new helicopter, based on the mission,” said Maj. Gen. Jack Weinstein, who as commander of 20th Air Force is responsible for the operation, maintenance and security of the full fleet of Minuteman missiles. That’s what the Air Force has been saying since at least 2006. A 2008 Air Force study cited a “critical need” to replace the Hueys “to mitigate missile field security vulnerabilities” and said this need had been identified two years earlier. In an Associated Press interview June 25 while visiting Minot, Weinstein said he was trying to persuade his superiors to buy a new fleet of more capable helicopters, but he said it was unclear whether that would happen before 2020. Weinstein is more optimistic about other opportunities to fix his missile corps. He is implementing a “force improvement program” that was developed from hundreds of recommendations by rank-and-file ICBM force members. It is intended to begin erasing the perception that the nuclear mission is not a top priority, and to give the nuclear missile corps more people, money, equipment, training, educational opportunities and financial incentives. Lt. Col. Brian Young, deputy commander of the 91st Maintenance Group at Minot, said he senses a turning point as top brass reach out to enlisted airmen and non-commissioned officers to solicit ideas about how to fix the force.

In it, Grimes sits with a man identified as retired coal miner, Don Disney of Cloverlick, Kentucky, who looks straight into the camera and poses this question as if speaking to McConnell: “I want to know how you could’ve voted to raise my Medicare costs by $6,000. How are my wife and I supposed to afford that?” Then Disney and Grimes pretend to wait for an answer. McConnell cast no such vote.

James says the fixes will require money - and a lot more. They will take more people and a major attitude adjustment.

“That’s a huge thing for us,” Gorman said.

Overblown rhetoric on Ryan’s plan became a cottage industry for Democrats in 2012 when he was GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s running mate, despite being repeatedly called on the deception.

Kentucky Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes speaking in Louisville, Ky. Grimes has released her first attack ad, mischaracterizing Sen. Mitch McConnell’s voting record on overhauling Medicare. In the ad, a retired coal miner asks how he and his wife are supposed to afford the extra $6,000 in Medicare costs that McConnell voted for.

“One thing I discovered is we didn’t always put our money where our mouth is when it comes to saying this is the No. 1 mission,” James told reporters June 30 during a return visit to F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming.

“This feels completely different than any initiative I’ve been associated with in my 22 years” in the Air Force, he said.

Children Incorporated 4205 Dover Road

www.childrenincorporated.

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The Weekly News Digest, July 1 thru 7, 2014

FORGOTTEN VIALS OF SMALLPOX F O U N D I N S T O R A G E R O O M

ATLANTA (AP) -- A government scientist cleaning out an old storage room at a research center near Washington made a startling discovery last week - decades-old vials of smallpox packed away and forgotten in a cardboard box.

Electronmicrograph from the Centers for Disease Control shows the smallpox virus. Government officials say workers cleaning a storage room at the National Institute of Health’s campus in Maryland made a startling discovery last week _ decades-old vials of smallpox forgotten in a cardboard box.

The six glass vials were intact and sealed, and scientists have yet to establish whether the virus is dead or alive, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday. Still, the find was disturbing because for decades after smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980, world health authorities said the only known samples left were safely stored in super-secure laboratories in Atlanta and in Russia. Officials said this is the first time in the U.S. that unaccounted-for smallpox has been discovered. But at least one leading scientist raised the possibility that there are more such vials out there around the world. The CDC and the FBI are investigating. It was the second recent incident in which a U.S. government health agency appeared to have mishandled a highly dangerous germ. Last month, scores of CDC employees in Atlanta were feared exposed to anthrax because of a laboratory safety lapse. The CDC began giving them antibiotics as a precaution. The freeze-dried smallpox samples were found in a building at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, that has been used by the Food and Drug Administration since 1972, according to the CDC. The scientist was cleaning out a cold room between two laboratories on July 1 when he made the discovery, FDA officials said. Officials said labeling indicated the smallpox had been put in the vials in the 1950s. But they said it’s not clear how long the vials had been in the building, which did not open until the 1960s. No one has been infected, and no smallpox contamination was found in the building.

Smallpox can be deadly even after it is freeze-dried, but the virus usually has to be kept cold to remain alive and dangerous. In an interview Tuesday, a CDC official said he believed the vials were stored for many years at room temperature, which would suggest the samples are dead. But FDA officials said later in the day that the smallpox was in cold storage for decades. “We don’t yet know if it’s live and infectious,” said Stephan Monroe, deputy director of the CDC center that handles highly dangerous infectious agents. The samples were rushed under FBI protection to the CDC in Atlanta for testing, after which they will be destroyed. Peter Marks, deputy director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Research and Evaluation, said the discovery was unexpected but not a total shock. He added, however, that “no one’s denying we should have done a better job cleaning out what was there.” In at least one other such episode, vials of smallpox were found at the bottom of a freezer in an Eastern European country in the 1990s, according to Dr. David Heymann, a former World Health Organization official who is now a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

said. Dr. Donald “D.A.” Henderson, who led the WHO smallpox-eradication effort and is now a professor at the Center for Health Security at the University of Pittsburgh, said it is highly unlikely more such stashes will be discovered. But he conceded “things were pretty casual” in the 1950s. Decades ago, he recalled, “I came back from many a trip carrying specimens, and I just put them in the refrigerator until I could get them to a laboratory. My wife didn’t appreciate that.” Smallpox was one of the most lethal diseases in history. For centuries, it killed about one-third of the people it infected, and left most survivors with deep scars on their faces from the pusfilled lesions. The last known case was in Britain in 1978, when a university photographer who worked above a lab handling smallpox died after being accidentally exposed to it through the ventilation system. Global vaccination campaigns finally brought smallpox under control. After it was declared eradicated, all known remaining samples of live virus were stored at a CDC lab in Atlanta and at a Russian lab in Novosibirsk, Siberia. The labs take extreme precautions. Scientists must undergo fingerprint or retinal scans to get inside, they wear full-body suits including gloves and goggles, and they shower with strong disinfectant before leaving the labs. There has long been debate over whether to destroy the stockpile.

Heymann said that when smallpox samples were gathered up for destruction decades ago, requests went out to ministers of health to collect all vials.

Many scientists argue that any remaining samples pose a threat and that the deadly virus should be wiped off the planet altogether. Others contend the samples are needed for research on better treatments and vaccines.

“As far as I know, there was never a confirmation they had checked in with all groups who could have had the virus,” he

At its recent annual meeting in May, WHO put off a decision again.

W H O ’ S N E X T ? P O T C H A N G E S W O N ’ T S T O P W I T H W A S H I N G T O N ize small-scale marijuana possession in 1973 - a step that’s been taken in more than a dozen other states. Marijuana use remains illegal, but possession of a small amount of the drug is punished with a citation and fine rather than a criminal charge. Oregon was also among the first states to approve medical marijuana. Unlike Oregon’s 2012 effort, the team behind the current initiative has strong backing from many of the groups and individuals who helped bankroll the successful campaigns in Colorado and Washington. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (legalization)

Krystal Klacsan prepares artwork to be hung, Monday, July 7, 2014 behind a case displaying glass bongs at the recreational marijuana store Cannabis City in Seattle. When legal sales begin on Tuesday, July 8, 2014, the store will be the first and only store in Seattle to initially sell recreational marijuana.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) -- Advocates seeking more lenient marijuana laws have no intention of stopping with Colorado and Washington. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have allowed marijuana for medicinal purposes, and more could follow. Here’s a look at five of the states that may be welcoming more permissive marijuana laws in the near future: ALASKA (legalization) Alaska may seem like an unlikely place to follow the lead of liberals in Colorado and Washington, but the state’s libertarian electorate may provide a good look at how a different breed of voters will respond to marijuana legalization. It’s early, but proponents have a big head start on fundraising and organization, led by the Marijuana Policy Project based in Washington, D.C. Marijuana legalization failed in Alaska in 2000 and 2004, but advocates say the landscape has changed markedly since then. If the measure is approved, adults could use marijuana legally and purchase it at state-licensed stores, but use in public would still be illegal. OREGON (legalization) Oregonians rejected legalization just two years ago but are all but certain to have a chance to reconsider this November. State elections officials haven’t yet validated the signatures turned in last week, but advocates submitted far more than they needed. Oregon has long been on the leading edge of the decades-long push to loosen marijuana laws. It was the first state to decriminal-

The D.C. Cannabis Campaign says the group submitted 55,000 signatures for a legalization initiative on Monday - twice the number required to put the issue before voters. The measure would allow possession of up to two ounces of marijuana in the nation’s capital. But the effort could be frustrated by Congress, which reviews all new laws in the District and has moved to block its other recent efforts to ease up on marijuana laws. Last month, the Republican-controlled House took a big step toward blocking a decriminalization bill passed by city lawmakers. That measure would make marijuana possession a civil offense subject to a $25 fine, one of the lowest in the nation. Congress used a similar amendment to block the District from implementing its medical marijuana program for 10 years. FLORIDA (medical) The push for more liberal marijuana laws is not limited to full legalization of the drug. Florida voters will be deciding whether to allow the drug for medicinal use. A poll by Quinnipiac University in May found overwhelming support for medical marijuana in Florida, where it will require support from 60 percent of voters to pass in November. Nearly 9 out of 10 voters said they support allowing adults to use the drug for medical purposes. Support was over 80 percent for all age groups. State lawmakers voted this year to legalize a strain of low-potency marijuana to treat epilepsy and cancer patients. NEW YORK (medical) New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill over the weekend making his state the 23rd to allow medical marijuana, though his state will have one of the most restrictive programs in the country.

The drug isn’t expected to be available for at least 19 months while the state works out regulations. Patients with one of 10 diseases will be allowed to use the drug, but it must be ingested or vaporized; smoking it will remain illegal. Some advocates argued it is too restrictive but called it an important step.

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was making waves Wednesday. “There’s no question that Silicon Valley feels different than it felt 28 years ago when I moved here,” said Russell Hancock, president of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, an organization focused on the local economy and quality of life. “Something has happened. We used to be a Valley full of techies living middle class lives, and now we’re a Valley of the uber-rich carrying toy poodles around with them.” Tichelman’s father has ties to the tech industry. Folsom software firm SynapSense announced hiring her father, Bart Tichelman in 2012. Neither the firm nor her father responded to immediate requests for comment. Santa Cruz Superior Court Judge Timothy Volkmann approved a request Wednesday from Tichelman’s court appointed attorney, Diana August, to continue the arraignment until July 16. August did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Assistant District Attorney Rafael Vazquez said authorities are still investigating and may file more serious charges. Tichelman was arrested on July 4 after police said a detective lured her back to the Santa Cruz area by posing as a potential client at an upscale resort. Clark said they didn’t just arrest her because they didn’t know exactly where she lived, and they were concerned she would flee. Police said Tichelman boasted she had more than 200 clients and met them through the website, SeekingArrangement.com, which purports to connect wealthy men and women with attractive companions. Her clients included other Silicon Valley executives, Clark said. Santa Clara University Finance professor Robert Hendershott said financial windfalls like those seen in the Silicon Valley often bring problems as people have trouble managing their newfound wealth. But he said there’s no obvious hedonistic culture in the Silicon Valley. “There’s no Great Gatsby type of parties famous in the Silicon Valley,” he said.

The Weekly News Digest, July 1 thru 7, 2014

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G O V E R N M E N T M A D E $ 1 0 0 B I N I M P R O P E R P A Y M E N T S WASHINGTON (AP) -- By its own estimate, the government made about $100 billion in payments last year to people who may not have been entitled to receive them - tax credits to families that didn’t qualify, unemployment benefits to people who had jobs and medical payments for treatments that might not have been necessary. Congressional investigators say the figure could be even higher. The Obama administration has reduced the amount of improper payments since they peaked in 2010. Still, estimates from federal agencies show that some are wasting big money at a time when Congress is squeezing agency budgets and looking to save more. “Nobody knows exactly how much taxpayer money is wasted through improper payments, but the federal government’s own astounding estimate is more than half a trillion dollars over the past five years,” said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla. “The fact is, improper payments are staggeringly high in programs designed to help those most in need - children, seniors and low-income families.” Mica chairs the House Oversight subcommittee on government operations. The subcommittee is holding a hearing on improper payments Wednesday afternoon. Each year, federal agencies are required to estimate the amount of improper payments they issue. They include overpayments, underpayments, payments to the wrong recipient and payments that were made without proper documentation. Some improper payments are the result of fraud, while others are unintentional, caused by clerical errors or mistakes in awarding benefits without proper verification. In 2013, federal agencies made $97 billion in overpayments, according to agency estimates. Underpayments totaled $9 billion. The amount of improper payments has steadily dropped since 2010, when it peaked at $121 billion. The Obama administration has stepped up efforts to measure improper payments, identify the cause and develop plans to reduce them, said Beth Cobert, deputy director of the White House budget office. Agencies recovered more than $22 billion in overpayments last year. “We have strengthened accountability and transparency, saving the American people money while improving the fiscal responsibility of federal programs,” Cobert said in a statement ahead

of Wednesday’s hearing. “We are pleased with this progress, but know that we have more work to do in this area.” However, a new report by the Government Accountability Office questions the accuracy of agency estimates, suggesting that the real tally could be higher. The GAO is the investigative arm of Congress. “The federal government is unable to determine the full extent to which improper payments occur and reasonably assure that appropriate actions are taken to reduce them,” Beryl H. Davis, director of financial management at the GAO, said in prepared testimony for Wednesday’s hearing. Davis said some agencies don’t develop estimates for programs that could be susceptible to improper payments. For example, the Health and Human Services Department says it cannot force states to help it develop estimates for the cash welfare program known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The program is administered by the states. The largest sources of improper payments are government health care programs, according to agency estimates. Medicare’s various health insurance programs for older Americans accounted for $50 billion in improper payments in the 2013 budget year, far exceeding any other program. Most of the payments were deemed improper because they were issued without proper documentation, said Shantanu Agrawal, a deputy administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. In some cases, the paperwork didn’t verify that services were medically necessary. “Payments deemed `improper’ under these circumstances tend to be the result of documentation and coding errors made by the provider as opposed to payments made for inappropriate claims,” Agrawal said in prepared testimony for Wednesday’s hearing. Among other programs with large amounts of improper payments:

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

nearly four hundred relatives and friends of the 70 people who died in the crash of a TWA Super-Constellation over the Grand Canyon June 30, 1956 attend a mass funeral service in Flagstaff, Ariz. Sixty-seven caskets, three of the identified dead having been returned at relatives request to their homes, will be lowered into a common grave. On Tuesday, July 8, 2014, the Grand Canyon National Park will mark the designation of the crash site as a National Historic Landmark in a ceremony overlooking the gorge where the wreckage was scattered over 1.5 square miles.

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. (AP) -- The National Park Service created a national landmark Tuesday to commemorate a 1956 collision between two airliners over the Grand Canyon, a disaster that helped lead to major changes in aviation safety and creation of what is now the Federal Aviation Administration. The crash killed all 128 people aboard the two planes in the deadliest aviation disaster in U.S. history at the time. A nation already struggling with increasingly busy skies pressured Congress for major changes to improve air traffic control and radar systems in response to the tragedy. About 200 people gathered Tuesday for a ceremony overlooking the gorge where the wreckage was scattered over 1.5 square miles. Park rangers set up binoculars so people could get a closer look at the buttes where the planes came crashing down. Some of the wreckage still remains in the canyon but is not visible from the overlook. Mike Nelson, a nephew of one of the passengers, hoped the landmark would help bring new awareness about the crash to the tens of thousands of Grand Canyon visitors. He said most people he meets have never heard of the disaster. “We are here to care about the victims again, to picture them walk-

-The earned income tax credit, which provides payments to the working poor in the form of tax refunds. Last year, improper payments totaled $14.5 billion. That’s 24 percent of all payments under the program. The EITC is one of the largest anti-poverty programs in the U.S., providing $60.3 billion in payments last year. Eligibility depends on income and family size, making it complicated to apply for the credit - and difficult to enforce, said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. “EITC eligibility depends on items that the IRS cannot readily verify through third-party information reporting, including marital status and the relationship and residency of children,” Koskinen told a House committee in May. “In addition, the eligible population for the EITC shifts by approximately one-third each year, making it difficult for the IRS to use prior-year data to assist in validating compliance.” - Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor. Last year, improper payments totaled $14.4 billion. Medicaid, which is run jointly by the federal government and the states, has seen a steady decline in improper payments since 2010, when they peaked at $23 billion. The program is expanding under President Barack Obama’s health law. -Unemployment insurance, a joint federal-state program that provides temporary benefits to laid-off workers. Amount of improper payments last year: $6.2 billion, or 9 percent of all payments. The Labor Department said most overpayments went to people who continued to get benefits after returning to work, or who didn’t meet state requirements to look for work while they were unemployed. Others were ineligible for benefits because they voluntarily quit their jobs or were fired. -Supplemental Security Income, a disability program for the poor run by the Social Security Administration. Amount of improper payments: $4.3 billion, or 8 percent of all payments. Social Security’s much larger retirement and disability programs issued $2.4 billion in improper payments, according to agency estimates. Those programs provided more than $770 billion in benefits, so improper payments accounted for less than 1 percent. night awaiting word on what happened. The next morning, dozens of reporters were staked out in front of their Detroit home, said Cook’s son Ray, then 12.

ing the ground and to tell them how sorry we are,” Nelson said.

The TWA wreckage was found first. More than a mile away and several days later, the United wreckage was discovered.

The park also unveiled a small marker at the overlook that reads: “This tragic site represents a watershed moment in the modernization of America’s airways, leading to the establishment of the Federal Aviation Administration and national standards for aviation safety.”

Ray Cook said the crash destroyed his family. His mother died 14 years later when she drove drunk off an embankment, and his brother committed suicide at 37. Cook, who broke free from heavy drinking after 25 years, couldn’t come to terms with the death for several years.

Some of the victim’s remains never were identified, and most of those that were have been buried together en masse at cemeteries at the Grand Canyon and the northern Arizona city of Flagstaff.

“I used to think every night that my father would walk out of the Grand Canyon, sunburned and scraggly, saying, `They screwed up, I’m fine, here I am,’” he said.

The United Airlines Douglas DC-7 and a TWA Lockheed Super Constellation both left California on June 30, 1956, eventually cruising at the same altitude - 21,000 feet - after the TWA pilot requested to fly above the clouds. Shortly before 10 a.m., both pilots reported to different communications stations that they would be crossing over the canyon at the same position at 10:31 a.m.

The recovery operation was one of the most extensive and dangerous in the history of the National Park Service. Rescuers had to contend with harsh terrain, swirling winds and the remoteness of the crash sites where the wreckage was twisted, broken and melted. United brought in a Swiss mountain rescue group and the Colorado Mountain Club to help.

The Salt Lake City controller who had that information was not obligated to tell either of the pilots they could be on a crash course. It was the sole responsibility of the pilots to avoid other aircraft in uncontrolled airspace.

Former Associated Press writer Frank Wetzel wrote of military personnel silently lifting olive-drab body bags into aircraft.

The investigative agency, the Civil Aeronautics Board, determined simply that the pilots did not see one another. The agency speculated that the pilots were treating passengers to views of the Grand Canyon while flying through scattered cloud buildup. Meanwhile, pressure mounted on Congress to move faster to make air travel safer. In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Airways Modernization Act, and airliners were required to have flight data recorders. What’s now known as the FAA began operating late that year. “It really did underscore for the general public, for the first time, that much of the air space in America was uncontrolled at that time,” said Peter Goelz, former managing director for the National Transportation Safety Board. “Once you got up to 20,000 feet and beyond the terminal radars, it was see and be seen.” The investigators on the Grand Canyon crash pieced together what happened based on the wreckage. No one saw the planes collide. The family of Leon David Cook Jr., a passenger on the United flight destined for Chicago, was huddled around the television that

“It was my first look at Grand Canyon,” the 88-year-old said in an interview. “I hadn’t any concept of its grandeur. At the time, the wreckage was spread out because the impact must have been terrible.” The crash sites near the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers now are closed off to the public and being preserved for their place in history. Grand Canyon National Park archaeologist Ian Hough said the sites can serve as a learning tool for understanding the significance of the disaster and its impact on families, some of whom shared their stories recently with park officials as part of an oral history project.

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I S R A E L I M I L I T A R Y S T E P S U P G A Z A O F F E N S I V E wing, accused Israel of violating a cease-fire that ended a 2012 round of fighting. “In the face of this aggression, we affirm the Zionist enemy should not dream of calm and stability,” it said.

JERUSALEM (AP) -- The Israeli military launched a major offensive Tuesday in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, striking more than 100 sites and mobilizing troops for a possible ground invasion in what Israel called an operation aimed at stopping a heavy salvo of rocket attacks from the Palestinian territory.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged Israel to halt the airstrikes immediately and appealed for calm.

At least 19 Palestinians, including three children, were killed in the air and sea attacks, Palestinian medical officials said.

“The Palestinian leadership is conducting intensive and urgent contacts with regional and international parties to stop the escalation,” he said.

The military said the open-ended operation aims to strike a blow against the Islamic militant group and end the rocket fire that has reached deeper into Israel in recent days. “It won’t end in a day and it won’t end in two days. It will take time,” Yitzhak Aharonovitch, the country’s Cabinet minister for internal security, told Channel 2 TV, during a visit to the rocket-scarred southern city of Ashkelon. “If we need to go inside in a ground operation, then we will do it. These things are on the table. These options exist. We will not stop anything until the rocket firing ends,” he added. Asked whether there were any efforts to reach a cease-fire, Aharonovitch said, “Not now.” Israeli officials said the government had authorized the army to mobilize an additional 40,000 troops, if needed, for the operation. By nightfall, the army said it had mobilized half of the forces, in addition to 1,500 reservists earlier activated. The rocket attacks and Israeli counterstrikes have intensified in recent weeks as tensions have soared over the killing of three Israeli teenagers and the apparent revenge killing of a Palestinian teenager by three Jewish suspects. Following the kidnappings of the Israeli teens June 12, Israel launched a massive crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank, leading to the surge in rocket fire from Gaza. Tuesday’s fighting was the heaviest since a similar Israeli offensive in November 2012. Israel’s military said 130 rockets were fired into Israel. Late Tuesday, two separate rocket attacks targeted Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial capital. Both were intercepted by Israel’s “Iron Dome” rocket defense system. Another salvo set off air-raid sirens in Jerusalem. Two distant booms could be heard in downtown Jerusalem. There was no word on where the rockets landed or were intercepted. Israeli Channel 10 TV said one rocket hit a house near Jerusalem, but there were no injuries. Both cities are nearly 50 miles, or 80 kilometers, north of Gaza, the deepest strike yet. The siren set off panic in Tel Aviv, the country’s commercial capital, as people scurried for cover in nearby buildings.

Smoke rises following an Israeli strike on Gaza, as seen from the Israel-Gaza Border, Tuesday, July 8, 2014. The Israeli military launched a major offensive in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Tuesday, striking more than 100 sites and mobilizing troops for a possible ground invasion in what Israel says is an operation aimed at stopping a heavy barrage of rocket attacks from the Palestinian territory.

Israel’s military said it targeted the homes of several Hamas operatives allegedly involved in rocket fire, militant compounds and concealed rocket launchers. Later, it also took out what it said was a Hamas command center embedded within a civilian building.

U.S. District Judge Helen Berrigan handed down the sentence Wednesday morning. Nagin was convicted Feb. 12 of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from businessmen who wanted work from the city or Nagin’s support for various projects. The bribes came in the form of money, free vacations and truckloads of free granite for his family business. The 58-year-old Democrat had defiantly denied any wrongdoing after his 2013 indictment and during his February trial. Moments before sentencing, a subdued Nagin made a brief statement, thanking the judge for her professionalism. He made no apologies. “I trust that God’s going to work all this out,” he said. After the sentencing Nagin smiled and hugged supporters as he walked out of the courtroom with his wife, Seletha, and other family members and friends. Nagin is to report to the federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana, in September. Berrigan noted the serious nature of the crimes but cited several other factors in her decision to depart from sentencing

The military says Hamas has amassed about 10,000 rockets, including longer-range rockets that can reach central Israel. The military ordered hundreds of thousands of Israelis within a 40-kilometer (25-mile) radius of the Gaza Strip, including Israelis in the major southern city of Beersheba, to stay indoors and near shelters.

Palestinian medical official Ashraf al-Qidra reported at least 15 people dead, including at least five civilians.

The renewed rocket fire from Gaza comes as Hamas is increasingly isolated and under pressure from Egypt, where the new regime ousted its former patron the Muslim Brotherhood.

Among the dead were six people, including two children, who were killed in an airstrike that flattened the concrete home of a Hamas leader in the southern town of Khan Younis, Hamas officials said. The blast set off a scene of panic as crowds of people, some of them bloodied, fled the smoldering remains. Screaming Palestinians took away motionless bodies, including what appeared to be the two children.

Israel is also cracking down on the organization’s West Bank operation following last month’s kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. Israel blames Hamas for the teens’ abduction and is conducting a manhunt for two Hamas-affiliated Palestinians in the West Bank it believes carried out the kidnapping and killing.

A separate airstrike on a motorcyclist killed two people, including a young boy who was passing by, al-Qidra said.

Tensions have been high since the three Israeli teens were kidnapped June 12 in the West Bank and were later found dead. That was followed by last week’s slaying of the Palestinian youth. Six Jewish suspects have been arrested.

Late Tuesday, Israeli troops shot and killed four militants who tried to infiltrate a military base in southern Israel by sea. Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman, said the attackers made it ashore and attacked the base with grenades and assault rifles. An Israeli soldier was slightly wounded. Lerner said Israeli forces were searching the area for other attackers. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. Israeli troops continued to move toward the border in anticipation of a possible ground invasion, most likely in the coming days. “We will not tolerate rocket fire on Israel cities, and we are preparing to expand the operation with everything at our disposal to strike Hamas,” said Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, who announced a special state of emergency in southern Israel. In Gaza, Abu Obeida, a masked spokesman for Hamas’ military

1 0 - Y E A R S E N T E N C E F O R E X - N E W O R L E A N S M A Y O R NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison for bribery, money laundering and other corruption that spanned his two terms as mayor - including the chaotic years after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005.

Abbas, however, has little influence over the Gaza Strip. Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, and despite a recent unity deal that ostensibly handed control back to Abbas, the militant group remains the dominant power there. Smaller and more radical forces than Hamas are also involved in rocket fire from Gaza.

guidelines that could have put Nagin in prison for as many as 20 years. She said Nagin should not be cast as the leader of the scheme in which participants got millions of dollars in city work. “Mr. Nagin claimed a much, much smaller share of the profits in this conspiracy,” Berrigan.

munity and white voters, Nagin won re-election in 2006 with a campaign that sometimes played on fears among black voters that they were being left out of the city’s spotty recovery. He was limited by law to two consecutive terms but a third term would have been unlikely, giving plunging approval ratings and the stricken city’s continued recovery struggles. He was succeeded in 2010 by Mitch Landrieu. Most government pre-sentence reports and recommendations were not made public but a filing by Jenkins ahead of the sentencing hearing indicated prosecutors were pushing for a sentence of 20 years or more under federal sentencing guidelines. Defense attorney Robert Jenkins said that would amount to a virtual life sentence for the former mayor. Jenkins said Nagin’s family needs him, there is no danger of Nagin committing more crimes and that the crimes for which Nagin was convicted constituted an aberration from an otherwise model life. Prosecutors said the schemes that led to Nagin’s conviction included two family members: His two grown sons were never charged with a crime but they were part of the family business that received free granite from a contractor. They also said that what Jenkins calls an “aberration” was behavior that spanned six years and involved multiple contractors.

Nagin was alleged to have received roughly a half million dollars. She noted character references showing him to be a devoted son, husband and father. And she said, despite his crimes, Nagin displayed “a genuine if all too infrequent” desire to help New Orleans and its residents after the 2005 catastrophe. Nagin was a political newcomer when he won election as New Orleans’ mayor, succeeding Marc Morial in 2002. He cast himself as a reformer and announced crackdowns on corruption in the city’s automobile-inspection and taxi-permit programs. But federal prosecutors say his own corrupt acts began during his first term, continued through the Katrina catastrophe and flourished in his second term. Until his indictment in 2013, he was perhaps best known for a widely heard radio interview in which he angrily, and sometimes profanely, asked for stepped-up federal response in the days after levee breaches flooded most of the city during Katrina. He also drew notoriety for impolitic remarks, such as the racially charged “New Orleans will be chocolate again” and his comment that a growing violent crime problem “keeps the New Orleans brand out there.” Elected in 2002 with strong support from the business com-

Children Incorporated 4205 Dover Road

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5 0 B O D I E S F O U N D I N I R A Q , R A I S I N G S E C TA R I A N W O R R I E S ing the city of Kirkuk, a major oil center - and move closer to a long-held dream of their own state.

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Iraqi officials discovered 50 bodies, many of them blindfolded and with their hands bound, in an agricultural area outside a city south of Baghdad on Wednesday, raising concerns over a possible sectarian killing amid the battle against a Sunni insurgency.

Kurdish fighters, known as peshmerga, say they only want to protect the areas from the Sunni militants. Many of the areas have significant Kurdish populations that the Kurds have demanded for years be incorporated into their territory, making them unlikely to give them up. Last week, the president of the Kurdish self-rule area urged the region’s lawmakers to “hurry up” and lay the groundwork for a referendum on independence.

The lightning sweep by the militants over much of northern and western Iraq the past month has dramatically hiked tensions between the country’s Shiite majority and Sunni minority. At the same time, splits have grown between the Shiite-led government in Baghdad and the Kurdish autonomous region in the north. In an address on Wednesday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused the Kurdish zone of being a haven for the Islamic extremists and other Sunni insurgents. He did not provide any evidence, and the claims are likely to only further strain Baghdad’s ties which the Kurds, whose fighters have been battling the militant advance in the north. The bodies, all of them with gunshot wounds, were found in the predominantly Shiite village of Khamissiya outside the city of Hillah, located some 95 kilometers (60 miles) south of Baghdad, said military spokesman Brig. Gen. Saad Maan Ibrahim. He said an investigation was underway to determine the identities of the dead as well as the circumstances of the killings. The dead were all men between the ages of 25 and 40, and it appeared they had been killed a few days earlier and then dumped in the remote area, said a local police officer and a medical official. Most of the bodies had bullet wounds in either the head or the chest, they said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media. While the motives remain unclear, such grisly killings harken back to the worst days of Iraq’s sectarian bloodletting in 2006 and 2007. At that time, with a Sunni insurgency raging, Shiite militias and Sunni militant groups were notorious for slayings of members of the other sect, and bodies were frequently dumped along roadsides, in empty lots, ditches and canals. As the levels of

These moves have infuriated al-Maliki, who is under pressure from opponents as well as former allies to step down.

Iraqi men check in at the main army recruiting center as they volunteer for military services in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, July 9, 2014, after authorities urged Iraqis to help battle insurgents.

violence dropped over time, such discoveries became rare. But sectarian tensions have soared once more, and authorities have once again begun to find unidentified bodies since the Sunni insurgent blitz began last month. The area south of Hillah is predominantly Shiite, but there is a belt of Sunni-majority towns north of the city. On Wednesday, two car bombs exploded in a commercial area in the predominantly Shiite town of Mahaweel near Hillah, killing two people and wounding seven, police and hospital officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media. The militant surge is led by the Islamic State extremist group, but other Sunni insurgents have joined, feeding off the anger in their minority community against the Shiite-led government. On the other side, Shiite militias have rallied around al-Maliki’s government to fight back against the militant advance. In the far north, meanwhile, Iraq’s Kurds have taken advantage of the mayhem in the country to seize disputed territory - includ-

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Moreover, Ryan’s plan at the time would have kept traditional Medicare as an option for people aging into the system over the next decade. Had the bill become law, Disney and beneficiaries like him could have stay parked in the usual plan, not forced into private plans as future retirees might have been. Overblown rhetoric on Ryan’s plan became a cottage industry for Democrats in 2012 when he was GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s running mate, despite being repeatedly called on the deception.

A black flag used by the al-Qaida inspired lslamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) waves from a damaged police station in the northern city of Mosul, Iraq, Tuesday, July 1, 2014. The militant extremist group’s unilateral declaration of an Islamic state is threatening to undermine its already-tenuous alliance with other Sunnis who helped it overrun much of northern and western Iraq.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- Shaky claims about Medicare were common in the 2012 campaign, from President Barack Obama on down. Now they’ve surfaced in this year’s midterm elections, in one of the hottest Senate races in the country. Alison Lundergan Grimes, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell’s Democratic opponent, released her first attack ad Tuesday, accusing McConnell of voting to raise a retired coal miner’s Medicare costs by $6,000. He didn’t. McConnell responded Wednesday with an ad giving a dire spin to Medicare cuts set in motion by Obama’s health care law, a familiar claim from the 2012 GOP playbook. If coal is king in the Kentucky race, Medicare is a potentially powerful issue, too, and Grimes touches both bases in the 30-second statewide TV ad, staged in front of a fire truck for good measure. In it, Grimes sits with a man identified as retired coal miner, Don Disney of Cloverlick, Kentucky, who looks straight into the camera and poses this question as if speaking to McConnell: “I want to know how you could’ve voted to raise my Medicare costs by $6,000. How are my wife and I supposed to afford that?” Then Disney and Grimes pretend to wait for an answer. McConnell cast no such vote. The bill he supported in 2011, on which the ad’s claim is based, proposed moving ahead on a plan in the House by GOP Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to privatize Medicare over time. Some analysts said that could eventually raise costs for beneficiaries. But elderly people such as Disney - already retired or approaching retirement - would see no changes. “Current Medicare benefits are preserved for those in and near retirement,” stated the bill, which failed in the Senate.

Republicans misrepresented Medicare facts, too, with variations of a claim that have surfaced anew in the 2014 campaign. McConnell spokeswoman Allison Moore said in a statement: “The simple reality is that Sen. McConnell has fought to protect Medicare, while Alison Lundergan Grimes and her political benefactors have raided it by $700 billion to pay for Obamacare.” The reality wasn’t that simple, never mind that Grimes, a private attorney who became Kentucky secretary of state in 2012, wasn’t in a position to raid any federal program. It’s true that the health care overhaul provided for cuts of more than $700 billion over 10 years in the Medicare program. But the cuts are from payments to Medicare service providers, such as hospitals, not from benefits directly. And some of the savings are going to improved preventive care and other benefits under Medicare, while the bulk is for expanding health care coverage for the general population. Those nuances were not reflected in McConnell’s new ad, either, which states the health care law “cuts $700 billion from seniors’ Medicare” and “Obama and Grimes will pay for Obamacare on the backs of Kentucky seniors.”

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“They came in, and they had a sense of purpose, and I think it sometimes gets confused because you had looters and everyone else coming in,” he said. “It was less than kind of full, thought-out, methodical.” Ham testified that the second attack, which killed security officers Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty at the annex a mile from the diplomatic compound where the assault began the night before, showed clear military training. It was probably the work of a new team of militants, taking advantage after reports of violence at the first site and American vulnerability. “Given the precision of the attack, it was a well-trained mortar crew, and in my estimation they probably had a well-trained observer,” said Ham, who headed the U.S. command in Africa. The second attack showed “a degree of sophistication and military training that is relatively unusual and certainly, I think, indicates that this was not a pickup team. This was not a couple of guys who just found a mortar someplace.”

Al-Maliki lashed out at the Kurds in his weekly televised statement Wednesday, saying “everything that has been changed on the ground must be returned” - a clear reference to the disputed territory that fighters loyal to the Kurdish regional government, which is based in the city of Irbil, have taken. He even went a step farther, saying: “We can’t stay silent over Irbil being a headquarters for Daesh, Baath, al-Qaida and the terrorists.” Daesh is the acronym in Arabic for the Islamic State group, often used as a pejorative by its opponents, while the Baath was the party of former dictator Saddam Hussein. But al-Maliki provided no evidence to back up his claims, which are sure to be rejected by Kurdish leaders in Irbil. Evidence on the ground also contradicts al-Maliki’s allegations. Kurdish peshmerga forces have clashed repeatedly with the Sunni militants led by the Islamic State extremist group in recent weeks. Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have fled to the Kurdish-controlled areas to escape the militant onslaught. Kurdish officials reached by telephone declined to comment on al-Maliki’s remarks. Shiite-dominated Iran, a close ally of al-Maliki, has also been helping Iraq’s military - help that is believed to include military advisers. This week, an Iranian military adviser who was helping coordinate among Shiite militias was killed by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad, two Shiite militia commanders said Wednesday. The officer was killed Sunday in Salahuddin province while helping organize Shiite militias in the defense of a revered Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra, 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad. The militia commanders spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief the media. Previously, only one Iranian had been confirmed killed in Iraq’s recent crisis - a pilot who Iran’s state news agency said died defending holy sites in Samarra. It was not clear how he was killed, or in what capacity in was fighting in Iraq. Ham said the nearly eight-hour time lapse between the two attacks also seemed significant. “If the team (that launched the second attack) was already there, then why didn’t they shoot sooner?” he asked. “I think it’s reasonable that a team came from outside of Benghazi,” he said of the second attack in testimony on April 9. Violent extremists saw an opportunity “and said, `Let’s get somebody there.’” He also acknowledged that the absence of American security personnel on the ground soon enough after the first attack “allowed sufficient time for the second attack to be organized and conducted,” he said. Stevens had gone to Benghazi from the embassy in Tripoli to open a cultural center, State Department officials said. The attacks came as President Barack Obama was in a close re-election battle, campaigning in part on the contention that al-Qaida no longer posed a significant threat to the United States and that, blending the economy and the fight against terrorism, General Motors was alive but “Osama bin Laden is dead.” A terror attack on American assets could have damaged that argument. Five days after the attack, after feverish email exchanges about her “talking points” among national security staff members and their spokesmen, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice linked the Benghazi attacks to protests in Tunisia and Cairo over an anti-Islam video. Weeks later, U.S. officials retracted that account but never fully articulated a new one. Republicans seized on the inaccuracies, contending that the Obama administration was covering up a terror attack for political gain. Several congressional and independent investigations have faulted the State Department for inadequate security, but they have not provided a full reading of who was involved in the violence, what the motives were and how they could pull off such a seemingly complicated, multipronged assault. People on both sides of the debate tend to link the two incidents as one attack. The congressional testimony that distinguishes the attacks came from military officials in Tripoli or, like Ham, coordinating the response in Washington. Most have never given a public account. But they agreed that confusion reigned from the outset. continued on page 11

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P O S T - I T A R T : S E A R C H L I N K S

BRUSSELS (AP) -- Google’s removal of search results in Europe is drawing accusations of press censorship, as stories from some of the continent’s most prominent news outlets begin vanishing. The U.S. internet giant said Thursday it is getting 1,000 requests a day to scrub results.

The company said it had received more than 70,000 removal requests by the end of June. Each application on average seeks the removal of almost four links, meaning its experts have to individually evaluate more than a quarter-million pages. Google does not explain the decision to remove a link or say who requested it. The company is not disclosing how many appear to fall into areas the court specified as potentially objectionable: results that are “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant.”

The U.S. firm must comply with a May ruling from the European Union’s top court that enables citizens to ask for the removal of embarrassing personal information that pops up on a search of their names. Among links to vanish were stories on a soccer referee who resigned after a scandal in 2010, French office workers making post-it art, a couple having sex on a train and a lawyer facing a fraud trial. At least three British media outlets, including the Guardian newspaper and public broadcaster BBC, said Google notified them search results in Europe would not contain some links to their publications. “It is the equivalent of going into libraries and burning books you don’t like,” Daily Mail Online publisher Martin Clarke said. BBC Economics Editor Robert Peston said the removal of his 2007 blog post, which was critical of Merrill Lynch’s then-CEO Stan O’Neal, means “to all intents and purposes the article has been removed from the public record, given that Google is the route to information and stories for most people.” The company is only starting to implement the ruling on the “right to be forgotten” and so far the numbers are small: The Guardian cited six articles, the BBC said one critical blog entry was removed, while the Mail Online saw four articles hit.

exhibitors of the Google company work on laptop computers in front of an illuminated sign of the Google logo at the industrial fair Hannover Messe in Hanover, Germany. Google’s removal of search results in Europe is drawing accusations of press censorship, as stories from some of the continent’s most prominent news outlets begin vanishing. The U.S. Internet giant said Thursday it is getting 1,000 requests a day to scrub results. The U.S. firm must comply with a May ruling from the European Union’s top court that enables citizens to ask for the removal of embarrassing personal information that pops up on a search of their names. Among links to vanish were stories on a soccer referee who resigned after a scandal in 2010, French office workers making post-it art, a couple having sex on a train and a lawyer facing a fraud trial. At least three British media, including the Guardian newspaper and public broadcaster BBC, said Google notified them search results in Europe would not contain some links to their publications.

Several German media contacted Thursday said they had not yet received notifications from Google. “It’s not yet really clear what the magnitude of this is,” cautioned Joel Reidenberg of Fordham University, currently a visiting professor at Princeton University. “Google may be choosing to go overboard to essentially create a debate about censorship.”

3 2 , 0 0 0 M O R M O N M I S S I O N A R I E S T O G E T I P A D M I N I S use for missionaries, allowing them to send emails to friends, priesthood leaders and new converts. Previously, missionaries could only email immediate family members. Some have worried that giving youngsters more access to the Internet could lead to distractions and wasted time. Speaking to that, Evans said the “only really effective filter for lifelong technology use is the individual heart and mind of the individual young person.” Missionaries who come from developed countries will cover the $400 cost of the iPad mini, which will remain theirs after the mission, Evans said. The church will work to help missionaries from other countries who can’t afford the cost, Evans said.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- The Mormon church is moving forward with its plan to arm missionaries with iPad minis and broaden their proselytizing to social media. A test program that began last fall with 6,500 missionaries serving in the United States and Japan went well, prompting the initiative’s expansion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said in a news release this week. Church leaders expect to have the specially configured mobile devices in the hands of more than 32,000 missionaries by early 2015. Using the iPad minis has proved an effective tool for missionaries to communicate with church leaders and keep in touch with people who have expressed interest in joining the Mormon church, said David F. Evans, director of the church’s missionary department, in a video posted on Mormonnewsroom.org. “We know in many parts of the world, the traditional forms of proselyting work very, very well,” Evans said. “In some other places where technology and urban life has developed in such a way that missionaries have a harder time contacting people, we hope that these tools become even more valuable in those places.” Scholars say this is the latest example of the LDS church’s gradual embrace of the digital age and its recognition that doorto-door proselytizing is not the most effective way to expand church membership. The program will expand to all missions in United States, Canada, Japan and western Europe. The iPad minis are outfitted with several apps that help men and women in their missionary work, including a gospel app that includes scriptures, manuals, magazines and other teaching materials. Missionaries are encouraged to use Facebook to find new members.

Missionaries already pay about $400 a month to serve a mission, which lasts two years for men and 18 months for women. Some buy their own bicycles, too. The church has more missionaries around the globe than at any time in history, spurred by an unprecedented influx after the church in October 2012 lowered the minimum age for missionaries from 21 to 19 for women and from 19 to 18 for men. There are now 86,000 missionaries, up from 58,000 in October 2012. That total is expected to peak at 88,000 later this year before settling in at around 77,000 next year, Evans said.

A T T A C K E R S continued from page 10

“We’re under attack,” was the first report the military received from Benghazi. That message came from Stevens’ entourage to Tripoli in the late afternoon of Sept. 11. Word was relayed to the defense attache, who reported up the chain of command. That report gave no indication about the size or intensity of the attack. The defense attache testified that the assault on the diplomatic mission was followed by a mob that complicated and confused the situation. He said of the original attackers, “I don’t think they were on the objective, so to speak, longer than 45 minutes. They kind of got on, did their business, and left.” For hours after that, he said, there were looters and “people throwing stuff and you see the graffiti and things like that.” Once the first attack ended around 10 p.m., the military moved to evacuate Americans from Benghazi, while preparing for what it erroneously believed might have been an emerging hostage situation involving Stevens. In fact, Stevens died of smoke inhalation after the diplomatic post was set on fire in the first attack. Seven-and-a-half hours later, at dawn, mortars crashed on a CIA compound that had been unknown to top military commanders. The military worked up a response on numerous fronts.

“You think about what you’ve seen missionaries try to carry in their backpacks over the years, and all of that fits into a very nice, small, compact device that they can take with them and utilize in their teaching and their proselytizing,” Evans said.

At one point, fewer than 10 U.S. military personnel in Libya were grappling with the mortar and rocket-propelled grenade attack on Americans who had taken cover at the CIA facility and, some 600 miles away, the evacuation of about three dozen people from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli by a convoy of armored vehicles.

In April 2013, the church also loosened its rules on Internet

An unarmed Predator drone conducting an operation nearby in eastern

The purge of search results applies to Google’s local search pages covering the EU’s 28 member nations and four other European countries, encompassing more than 500 million people. The company has a 90 percent market share for searches in Europe. Those who switch to the firm’s American domain, Google.com, will find unaltered search results. The Mountain View, California, company finds itself in an uncomfortable position. It has no choice but to comply with the ruling by the EU top court, which cannot be appealed, but many decisions to remove search results are likely to draw criticism. “This is a new and evolving process for us,” Google spokesman Al Verney said Thursday. “We’ll continue to listen to feedback and will also work with data protection authorities and others as we comply with the ruling.” Princeton’s Reidenberg said while the court gave Google little practical guidance on how to implement its decision, it effectively gave the search engine a responsibility similar to those traditional publishers always had - judging whether an information is in the public interest, whether it will withstand legal challenges and whether an individual complaint against it is warranted. “Google algorithms are already making value judgments all the time as to which information is relevant,” he added. Proponents of the court decision say it gives individuals the possibility to restore their reputation by deleting references to old debts, past arrests and other unflattering episodes. They also note that the court specified Google should not remove links to information when the public’s right to know about it outweighs an individual’s right to privacy - for example when a politician or public figure seeks to clean online records. “The ruling has created a stopwatch on free expression - our journalism can be found only until someone asks for it to be hidden,” author James Ball wrote on the Guardian’s website. Libya had been repositioned over Benghazi, yet offered limited assistance during the nighttime and with no intelligence to guide it. A standby force training in Croatia was ordered to Sicily, while another farther afield was mobilized. Neither was nearly ready in time to intervene during the first 45-minute attack and couldn’t predict the quick mortar attack the next morning. An anti-terrorism support team in Spain was deployed, though it, too, was hours away. American reinforcements of a six-man security team, including two military personnel, were held up at the Benghazi airport for hours by Libyan authorities. Drone images and intelligence hadn’t provided indications of a new attack, but word eventually came from two special forces troops who had made it to the annex and reported casualties from the dawn attack up the chain of command. In Tripoli, military and embassy officials were evacuating the embassy there and destroying computer hardware and sensitive information. The administration last month apprehended its first suspect, Ahmed Abu Khattala, and brought him to the United States to stand trial on terrorism charges. The Justice Department maintains in court documents that Abu Khattala was involved in both attacks, and it describes the first breach on the diplomatic post as equally sophisticated. The government said a group of about 20 men, armed with AK-47- rifles, handguns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, stormed the diplomatic facility in the first attack. Abu Khattala supervised the looting after Americans fled, the government says, and then returned to the camp of the Islamist militant group Ansar al-Sharia, where the Justice Department says a large force began assembling for the second attack. The Justice Department provided no supporting documentation for those conclusions. They also reflect the divisions among current and former government officials about the two attacks. In her book “Hard Choices,” former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote that there were scores of attackers with different motives. “It is inaccurate to state that every single one of them was influenced by this hateful video. It is equally inaccurate to state that none of them were. Both assertions defy not only the evidence but logic as well.” Abu Khattala’s lawyer says the government has failed to show that he was connected to either attack. Ham, who happened to be in Washington that week, briefed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey. They informed the president. Many of the military officials said they didn’t even know about the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, let alone the CIA’s clandestine installation nearby. Few knew of Stevens visiting the city that day. Given all of the confusion, Ham said there was one thing he clea

The Weekly News Digest, July 1 thru 7, 2014 ________________________________________________________________

W A T E R L E V E L S A T N E VA D A ’ S L A K E M E A D D R O P T O N E W L O W

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Drought in the southwestern U.S. will deplete the vast Lake Mead this week to levels not seen since Hoover Dam was completed and the reservoir on the Colorado River was filled in the 1930s, federal water managers said Tuesday.

Davis said the 1,075-foot trigger point is not expected this year or next. But last year, after back-to-back driest years in a century, federal water managers gave Arizona and Nevada a 50-50 chance of having water deliveries cut in 2016. California, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming wouldn’t see direct cuts in their share of river water, but officials have acknowledged there would be ripple effects.

The projected lake level of about 1,080 feet above sea level will be below the level of about 1,082 feet recorded in November 2010 and the 1,083-foot mark measured in April 1956 during another sustained drought. But U.S. Bureau of Reclamation regional chief Terry Fulp said water obligations will be met at least through next year without a key shortage declaration. The result will be full deliveries to cities, states, farms and Indian tribes in an area that’s home to some 40 million people and the cities of Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles. “We continue to closely monitor the projections of declining lake levels and are working with stakeholders throughout the Lower Basin to keep as much water in Lake Mead as we can through various storage and conservation efforts,” Fulp said in a statement. The lake on Tuesday was just under 1,082 feet above sea level, and the reservoir was about 39 percent full, said Rose Davis, a bureau spokeswoman in Boulder City, Nevada. The dropping level since the reservoir was last full in 1998, at just under 1,296 feet above sea level, has left as much as 130 feet of distinctive white mineral “bathtub ring” on hard rock surfaces surrounding the lake. Davis said the bureau expects a slight increase in water level to about 1,083 feet by Jan. 1, 2015. Lake Mead National Recreation Area, 30 miles east of Las Vegas, is among the federal government’s top tourist attractions. It drew some 6.3 million visitors in 2013, about the same number as the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Boaters and swimmers have largely ignored the dropping water levels in a place where splashing in cold fresh water on 100-plus-degree summer days is a treat. But they’ve also dealt with marina closures in recent years. Visitors who used to feed scraps to carp from restaurant deck tables may now need to trek hundreds of yards with sandwiches and beach blankets to enjoy a waterside lunch.

Photo, shows low water levels in Boulder Harbor in Lake Mead, Ariz. Drought in the southwestern U.S. is depleting the vast Lake Mead on the Colorado River to levels not seen since Hoover Dam was completed and the reservoir was filled in the 1930s.

“We projected this was coming,” Davis said. “We are basically where we expected to be, given the dry winters in 2012 and 2013.” Lake Mead today stores about 10.2 million acre-feet of water and is managed in conjunction with Lake Powell, the reservoir farther up the Colorado River near the Utah-Arizona state line. Davis said Lake Powell was at 52 percent capacity, holding about 12.7 million acre-feet of water. Water officials say an acre-foot is about enough water to supply an average Nevada household for a year. Fulp compares controlled management of the two largest reservoirs on the Colorado River to pouring tea from one cup to another.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A group of San Francisco Bay Area cities, counties and water agencies has joined forces for what is being billed as one of the largest single government purchases of all-electric vehicles in the country.

Seven southwestern U.S. states reap the result under a 1928 allocation agreement that also provides shares of Colorado River water to Native American tribes and Mexico.

The six cities, two counties and two water agencies have gone in together to buy 90 electric vehicles with the help of a $2.8 million grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, a regional transportation agency, officials with the Bay Area Climate Collaborative said on Tuesday. Some of the vehicles will be on display at a news conference on Tuesday.

Las Vegas, with more than 2 million residents and about 40 million tourists a year, is almost completely dependent on Lake Mead for drinking water. Federal and state water officials have negotiated plans for a shortage declaration triggering delivery cuts to Nevada and Arizona if annual projections for the Lake Mead water level drop below a 1,075 foot elevation. That projection is based on data being compiled by the Bureau of Reclamation.

V I R G I N G A L A C T I C P A R T N E R S W I T H N E W M E X I C O H O T E L Early on in spaceport’s development, there was talk of building an ultra-luxury hotel in the area. And about four years ago, when Branson announced he was creating a Virgin hotel brand, he told a hotel conference one of the first ones might be built near spaceport. But that never came to fruition. Spaceport America is about 60 miles from Las Cruces, near the town of Truth or Consequences, and about 182 miles from Albuquerque. But even the state’s largest city lacks a five-star hotel.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- Virgin Galactic appears to be getting closer to reaching its long-delayed goal of launching tourists into space. The company said Monday it has selected Hotel Encanto de Las Cruces as the preferred hotel for its elite roster of passengers, who will pay $200,000 a person to make the flights from Spaceport America. Virgin Galactic also announced a contract with World Class Gourmet of Las Cruces to provide catering for travelers during their training at Spaceport and said it is relocating more of its staff to New Mexico and will be hiring locally in the next few months. The company is the anchor tenant in the $209 million futuristic Spaceport America that the state built for Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson to launch his flights from. But the project and Virgin have been plagued by delays. Originally, Branson had said he hoped to launch the flights by the end of 2010. The company is now hoping to begin operations by the end of this year, although its public relations agency said in a statement that the schedule “will ultimately be dictated by safety and readiness - as has always been the case.” The partnership with the hotel, however, addresses concerns about where celebrities and others who can afford the pricey flights will stay while they go through pre-space flight training.

BAY AREA GOVERNMENT MAKE BIG ELETRICV E H I C L E B U Y

As part of its partnership with Spaceport, Hotel de Encanto will spend several million dollars on upgrades, which will include the creation of “Executive Suite VIP Wings” with concierge service, private VIP areas, customized room service menus, and upgraded rooms and suites. The hotel is also working on other upgrades that should boost its AAA rating from three to four diamonds. New Mexico has no Five Diamond hotels, the top ranking. “By partnering with Hotel Encanto de Las Cruces and World Class Gourmet, we further our vision of investing in the local New Mexico community while we define the Virgin Galactic astronaut experience,” said Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides. “Future astronauts will come from around the world to New Mexico, so it’s important that they experience the outstanding local offerings and character as part of their experience.”

The vehicles will save more than $500,000 in fuel costs and about 2 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions over five years, Bay Area Climate Collaborative Executive Director Rafael Reyes said. The collaborative - a public-private partnership started by three Bay Area mayors - developed the proposal for funding that was submitted to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. “The Bay Area is clearly in a leadership role here,” Reyes said. The vehicles include the Ford Focus and the Nissan Leaf. The total cost was $5 million, with the rest of the money coming from funds set aside by the governments and agencies to buy new vehicles. The 10 governments and agencies are: San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Santa Rosa, Fremont, Concord, the Sonoma County Water Agency, Marin Municipal Water District and Alameda and Sonoma counties. San Jose and three other Bay Area cities bought 50 all-electric vehicles last year, Reyes said. The all-electric vehicles are a small part of the cities, counties and water agencies’ overall fleets. But Reyes said the purchases shows what can be done. “We’re just scratching the surface,” he said.

M E X I C O M AYA N SITE GETS DOUBLE H E R I TA G E S TAT U S

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- The southern Mexico Mayan ruins of Calakmul have become the country’s first site to receive the “mixed” World Heritage designation from the United Nations. The designation cites both the pyramids of the ancient city-state and hundreds of thousands of acres of well-preserved tropical forest that surrounds them. But authorities say the heritage designation for another Mexican site, the “floating gardens” of Xochimilco, could be in danger.

POTECTING SPEICIES

www.worldwildlife.org

The man-made islands created by the Aztecs have been hit by pollution and urban sprawl, endangering the endemic salamanders known as axolotls. The director of the country’s National Institute of Anthropology and History says there is a plan to rescue Xochimilco. But Teresa Franco said Wednesday that it could be at risk “if quick and efficient action isn’t taken.”