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THE WEEGEE GUIDE TO NEW YORK’ SHOWS MID-20TH CENTURY CITY This combination shows the Aug. 10, 1945 photo “Celebration in the Garment District on Japanese offer to surrender” by Weegee, provided by the International Center of Photography in New York, and the same vantage point on Wednesday, March 18, 2015.
NEW YORK (AP) -- A new book of photos by legendary photographer Weegee shows what industrialized, pre-gentrified New York looked like in the mid-20th century, before the city was crammed with towers and billboards. Weegee, whose real name was Arthur Fellig, was famous for sensational but artfully composed black-and-white pictures of crime scenes, fires and other urban mayhem. “The Weegee Guide to New York” includes a few of those tabloid-worthy photos of bodies sprawled on the pavement. But most of the book’s images are of ordinary neighborhoods and streetscapes with low-rise buildings, bulky cars, empty skies and remarkably uncluttered public spaces.
Volume 004 Issue 09
Established 2012
GOP-CONTROLLED HOUSE PASSES BUDGET TO ERASE DEFICITS
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Normally quarrelsome House Republicans came together Wednesday night and passed a boldly conservative budget that relies on nearly $5 trillion in cuts to eliminate deficits over the next decade, calls for repealing the health care law and envisions transformations of the tax code and Medicare.
The House plan calls for $5.4 trillion in deficit reduction over a decade, including about $2 trillion from repeal of the law known as Obamacare. Nearly $1 trillion would be saved from from Medicaid and CHIP, health care programs for the low-income, and $1 billion from other unspecified benefit programs. Another $500 billion would come from general government programs that already have been squeezed in recent years by deficit-reduction agreements between Congress and the White House.
Final passage, 228-199, came shortly after Republicans bumped up recommended defense spending to levels proposed by President Barack Obama. Much of the budget’s savings would come from Medicaid, food stamps and welfare, programs that aid the low-income, although details were sketchy.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., center, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 25, 2015, to discuss the budget. From left are, Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin of Ill., Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., ranking member on the House Budget Committee, Sanders, Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif.
A 1940 photo of Lower Manhattan, shot at night from across the river near the Brooklyn Bridge, is dominated by a mere three skyscrapers, a shocking contrast to the forest of towers now surrounding 1 World Trade.
Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., chairman of the House Budget Committee, called the plan a “balanced budget for a stronger America” - and one that would “get this economy rolling again.”
A 1946 image shows a fire in a loft building at Fulton and Greenwich
Democrats rebutted that the GOP numbers didn’t add up and called their policies wrong-headed.
continued on page 7
D I S T R A C T I FA C TO R IN 10 TEEN DR CRASHE
O N A 6 IN IVER S
“People who are running in place today are not going to be moving forward under the Republican budget, they’re going to be falling back,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. The Republican-controlled Senate is likely to approve its version of a budget by week’s end. The plans themselves are non-binding and do not require a presidential signature. Instead, once the House and Senate agree on a common approach, lawmakers will have to draft legislation to carry out the program that Republicans have vowed to follow in the wake of campaign victories last fall that gave them control of both houses of Congress. Still, House passage of a budget marked a significant victory for Speaker John Boehner and the leadership, which has struggled mightily to overcome differences within a fractious rank and file. An equally notable second triumph appeared on the horizon. Legislation to stabilize the system of payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients is expected to clear the House on Thursday, and President Barak Obama’s declaration of support enhanced its chances in the Senate.
In this frame grab from a video provided by The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, a teen driver loses control of her vehicle after she was driving distracted. Distractions, especially talking with passengers and using cellphones, play a far greater role in car crashes involving teen drivers than has been previously understood, according to compelling new evidence cited by safety researchers who analyzed nearly 1,700 videos that capture the actions of teen drivers in the moments before a crash.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Distractions - especially talking with passengers and using cellphones - play a far greater role in car crashes involving teen drivers than has been previously understood, according to compelling new evidence cited by safety researchers.
It includes a requirement for upper-income Medicare beneficiaries to pay more for their coverage, a provision that Republicans hailed as a triumph in their drive to curtail the growth of benefit programs. There was nothing bipartisan about the budget debate, though.
In another video, a driver on a lonely two-lane road at night is shown looking down at an electronic device, apparently texting. While his eyes are off the road, the car crosses the opposite lane, leaves the road and appears about to strike a mailbox. One teen driver is captured braking hard at the last moment to avoid slamming
continued on page 2
The prospect of sending Obama legislation to repeal the health care law contributed to the unusual degree of unity among House conservatives. Without a budget in place, they noted, the repeal measure would not have special protection against a Senate filibuster - and would not reach the White House. As they have in recent years, House Republicans call for the transformation of Medicare into a voucher-like program. Senate Republicans, already worried about defending their majority in 2016, omitted that from their plan. Both the House and Senate plans call for an overhaul of the tax code. Defense spending caused a few anxious moments for Boehner and the leadership as the budget moved through the House Budget Committee and across the floor. As drafted by the panel, it called for $610 billion for the Pentagon for the coming budget year. Of that, $87 billion would come from an account that supports overseas military operations, and $21.5 billion would be dependent on offsetting spending cuts elsewhere. On a vote of 219-208, Republicans raised the overall level to $612 billion, none of it contingent on offsetting savings. Obama’s budget called for $612 billion in defense spending. Republicans are eager to exceed his recommendation, and may decide to raise their level further in House-Senate compromise talks.
The exchange set off a debate over whether the U.S. should have released the five Taliban members. Little is known about what the five have been doing in Qatar, where they are being monitored by the government. Some lawmakers have predicted that the five would return to the battlefield. Wednesday’s announcement brought further criticism of the exchange from some lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas and the chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security. “President Obama endangered our national security and broke the law when he chose to negotiate with terrorists and release hardened enemy combatants from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for Sgt. Bergdahl - who many believed at the time was a deserter,” McCaul said in a statement.
The foundation got the videos from Lytx Inc., which offers programs that use video to coach drivers in improving their behavior and reducing collisions. Crashes or hard-braking events were captured in 1,691 of the videos.
In one video released by AAA, a teenage boy is seen trying to navigate a turn on a rain-slicked road with one hand on the wheel and a cellphone held to his ear in the other hand. The car crosses a lane of traffic and runs off the road, stopping just short of railroad tracks that run parallel to the road.
The president has also vowed to defend the health care law that stands as his signature domestic achievement. The House has already voted more than 60 times to repeal it in part or whole, but for the first time since the law passed, House members have a willing partner in the Senate.
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The study is unusual because researchers rarely have access to crash videos that clearly show what drivers were doing in the seconds before impact as well as what was happening on the road. AAA was able to examine more than 6,842 videos from cameras mounted in vehicles, showing both the driver and the simultaneous view out the windshield.
Other forms of distraction observed in the videos included drivers looking away from the road at something inside the vehicle, 10 percent; looking at something outside the vehicle other than the road ahead, 9 percent; singing or moving to music, 8 percent; grooming, 6 percent; and reaching for an object, 6 percent.
showdown with Obama.
The budget outline itself provides few if any details of the cuts envisioned, although once they appear in legislation they are highly likely to spark a veto
M I L I T A R Y: B E R G D A H L M AY F A C E LIFE IN PRISON IF CONVICTED
The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety analyzed nearly 1,700 videos that capture the actions of teen drivers in the moments before a crash. It found that distractions were a factor in nearly 6 of 10 moderate to severe crashes. That’s four times the rate in many previous official estimates that were based on police reports.
They show driver distraction was a factor in 58 percent of crashes, especially accidents in which vehicles ran off the road or had rear-end collisions. The most common forms of distraction were talking or otherwise engaging with passengers and using a cellphone, including talking, texting and reviewing messages.
March 30 thru April 6, 2015
The Obama administration appeared to stand by the swap. image taken from video obtained from Voice Of Jihad Website, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, sits in a vehicle guarded by the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan. The U.S. military says it will make an announcement Wednesday on the case against Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the soldier who left his post in Afghanistan and was held by the Taliban for five years before being released in a prisoner exchange.
FORT BRAGG, N.C. (AP) -- Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who abandoned his post in Afghanistan and was held captive for five years by the Taliban, was charged Wednesday by the U.S. military with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy and could get life in prison if convicted. The charges are the latest development in a long and bitter debate over Bergdahl’s case. They also underscore the military and political ramifications of his decision on June 30, 2009, to leave his post after expressing misgivings about the U.S. military’s role, as well as his own, in the Afghanistan war.
“Was it worth it? Absolutely. We have a commitment to our men and women serving overseas, or in our military, defending our national security every day, that we will do everything we can to bring them home, and that’s what we did in this case,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in an interview on Fox News. The misbehavior charge could land Bergdahl in prison for life, though some legal experts said a lengthy sentence was unlikely. He also could be dishonorably discharged and forfeit all his pay if convicted on either charge. Next, an Article 32 hearing - similar to a civilian grand jury proceeding - will be held at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, where Bergdahl has been performing administrative duties. A date was not announced. From there, it could be referred to a court-martial and go to trial. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bergdahl, 28, was captured by the Taliban and held by members of the Haqqani network, an insurgent group tied to the Taliban that operates both in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
After a lengthy investigation that included interviewing unit members and commanders and meetings with Bergdahl and his attorney, the case was re-
Last May 31, Bergdahl was handed over to U.S. special forces in Afghanistan as part of an exchange for five Taliban commanders who were imprisoned at
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HJ HEINZ BUYS KRAFT TO BUILD $28 BILLION FOOD GIANT NEW YORK (AP) -- Some of the most familiar names in ketchup, pickles, cheese and hot dogs are set to come under the same roof after H.J. Heinz Co. announced plans Wednesday to buy Kraft and create one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies.
If the agreement goes through, Kraft is expected to undergo cost-cutting under the management of 3G Capital, which is known for running tight ships. The president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which says it represents 3,250 Kraft and Heinz workers in North America, said the union will work with the companies to make sure they “do what is right and responsible” and don’t let cost-cutting measures hurt workers.
The deal would bring together an array of longtime staples in American kitchens, including Oscar Mayer lunchmeats, Jell-O desserts, Miracle Whip spreads, Ore-Ida potatoes and Smart Ones diet foods.
The combination of the two companies - each more than a century old - was photo, shows containers of Heinz ketchup on the shelf of a market, in Barre, engineered by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Vt. H.J. Heinz Co. is buying Kraft Foods Group Inc., creating what the compa- John Cahill, who took over as CEO of nies say will be the third-largest food and beverage company in North Ameri- Kraft late last year, noted that the new Hathaway and Brazilian investment firm ca, the companies announced Wednesday, March 25, 2015. 3G Capital, which teamed up just two management would drive a “much years ago to buy Heinz. While shoppers leaner organization,” as was the case are not expected to see any major changwhen 3G took over Heinz. He said 3G es, the creation of The Kraft Heinz Co. reflects the pressures facing some can “make this happen deeper and faster.” of the biggest packaged food makers in the U.S. “What we have not been thrilled about is some of our execution,” Cahill As consumers increasingly migrate away from popular packaged foods said. in favor of options they consider less processed, companies including Campbell Soup, General Mills and Kellogg have been slashing costs or The two companies also see potential in pushing their products more striking deals to update their products offerings. The Heinz-Kraft deal is aggressively overseas. Since splitting from Mondelez in 2012, Kraft’s in many ways just the latest example of that, although Buffett noted that business has been primarily concentrated in North America. But executhe two companies still have a strong base of customers. tives noted that Kraft’s brands are well known in major markets around the world, including the United Kingdom, Mexico, China and Brazil. “I think the tastes Kraft and Heinz appeal to are pretty enduring,” he said in a telephone call to the business news channel CNBC. Already, Heinz gets 61 percent of sales from outside North America, said Bernardo Hees, the CEO of Heinz and a partner at 3G Capital who will Still, the early plans outlined by Kraft and Heinz executives in a conbecome head of the newly created company. ference call Wednesday focused largely on the savings that would be achieved through the deal, rather than the potential for sales growth in The deal came together rapidly, Buffett said, having been in the works North America. They said they expect to save $1.5 billion through moves for only about four weeks. The new company will be co-headquartered in such as combining manufacturing and distribution networks. Pittsburgh, where Heinz is based, and the Chicago area, home of Kraft, and will have annual revenue of about $28 billion. James Angel, an associate professor of finance at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, said that will probably result in job Eight of its brands have annual sales of $1 billion or more and five others losses. log sales between $500 million and $1 billon every year. “Even though it is painful for the people involved, those resources will be freed up for other, potentially more productive, uses,” he said. The boards of both companies unanimously approved the deal, which still needs a nod from federal regulators and shareholders of Kraft Foods Group Inc. The companies say they expect the deal to close in the second half of the year.
D I S T R A C T I O N continued from page 1
into the back of an SUV stopped or slowed in traffic ahead. Just a moment before, the girl had turned her attention to another girl in the front passenger seat in an animated conversation. The camera shows the shock on the girls’ faces as they suddenly realize a crash is imminent.
Children Incorporated 4205 Dover Road Richmond, VA 23221-3267
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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has previously estimated that distraction of all kinds is a factor in only 14 percent of all teen driver crashes. The videos provide “indisputable evidence that teen drivers are distracted in a much greater percentage of crashes than we previously realized,” said Peter Kissinger, the foundation’s president and CEO. Past research has shown that teens with multiple passengers in the car are more likely to have accidents. The opposite is the case for adults - for older drivers, having a passenger with an extra set of eyes on the road can make driving safer. Teen drivers using cellphones had their eyes off the road for an average of 4.1 seconds out of the final 6 seconds leading up to a crash, the AAA study found. Researchers also measured reaction times in rear-end crashes and found that teen drivers using cellphones failed to react more than half of the time before the impact, meaning they crashed without braking or steering away.
POTECTING SPEICIES worldwildlife.org
AAA and other traffic safety groups who previewed the findings said the study shows states should review their licensing requirements to restrict the number of passengers in cars driven by teens and change their laws to prohibit cellphone use by teen drivers. “The findings of the AAA Report confirm what safety groups have suspected for a long time - distraction is more severe and more common in teen driver crashes than previously found in government data,” said Jackie Gillan, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. AAA said it also recommends that parents teach teens about the dangers of cellphone use and restrict passengers during the learning-to-drive process. Teen drivers have the highest crash rate of any age group. About 963,000 drivers age 16 to 19 were involved in police-reported crashes in the U.S. in 2013,
www.redcross.org
Shares of Kraft jumped 36 percent Wednesday to close at $83.17. The total value of the deal is difficult to gauge because Heinz is privately held. But Kraft shareholders will receive stock in the combined company and a special cash dividend of approximately $10 billion, or $16.50 per share. Each share of Kraft will be converted into one share of Kraft Heinz. Current Heinz shareholders will own 51 percent of the combined company, with Kraft shareholders owning a 49 percent stake. The Kraft Heinz board will include six directors from the current Heinz board. Those six directors will include three members from Berkshire Hathaway and three members from 3G Capital. The current Kraft board will appoint five directors to the combined company’s board. Kraft Heinz plans to keep Kraft’s current dividend once the transa
ERASE DEFICITS continued from page 1
House Republicans said their budget would yield a surplus of $13 billion in 2024 and $33 billion in 2025. Democrats scoffed at the claim. They pointed out such an outcome would rely in part on allowing $900 billion in popular tax breaks to expire as scheduled, and also assumed that tax hikes would be retained from the health care law that Republicans want to repeal. By contrast, Obama’s budget would fail to eliminate deficits, despite the presence of nearly $2 trillion in higher taxes. In a years-old ritual, much of the day was consumed by debate and rejection of alternatives. House Democrats, progressives and the Congressional Black Caucus all advanced no-balance budgets that called for more domestic spending and higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations. The Democratic alternative drew more votes than the others, but failed 264160. The conservative Republican Study Committee proposed far deeper spending cuts than the Budget Committee recommended, a delay in Medicare eligibility to age 67 for younger workers, and a balanced budget in six years. Republicans voted for it 132-112, but all 182 Democrats opposed it, and it went down to defeat.
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I N V E S T I G A T I O N : I S T H E F I S H Y O U B U Y C A U G H T B Y S L A V E S ? drinking water. Almost all said they were kicked, beaten or whipped with toxic stingray tails if they complained or tried to rest. They were paid little or nothing.
BENJINA, Indonesia (AP) -- The Burmese slaves sat on the floor and stared through the rusty bars of their locked cage, hidden on a tiny tropical island thousands of miles from home.
Runaway Hlaing Min said many died at sea.
Just a few yards away, other workers loaded cargo ships with slave-caught seafood that clouds the supply networks of major supermarkets, restaurants and even pet stores in the United States.
“If Americans and Europeans are eating this fish, they should remember us. There must be a mountain of bones under the sea,” he said. “The bones of the people could be an island, it’s that many.”
Here, in the Indonesian island village of Benjina and the surrounding waters, hundreds of trapped men represent one of the most desperate links criss-crossing between companies and countries in the seafood industry. This intricate web of connections separates the fish we eat from the men who catch it, and obscures a brutal truth: Your seafood may come from slaves. EDITOR’S NOTE: The Associated Press notified the International Organization for Migration about men in this story, who were then moved out of Benjina by police for their safety. Hundreds of slaves remain on the island, and five other men were in the cage this week. The men The Associated Press spoke to on Benjina were mostly from Myanmar, also known as Burma, one of the poorest countries in the world. They were brought to Indonesia through Thailand and forced to fish. Their catch was shipped back to Thailand, and then entered the global commerce stream. Tainted fish can wind up in the supply chains of some of America’s major grocery stores, such as Kroger, Albertsons and Safeway; the nation’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart; and the biggest food distributor, Sysco. It can find its way into the supply chains of some of the most popular brands of canned pet food, including Fancy Feast, Meow Mix and Iams. It can turn up as calamari at fine dining restaurants, as imitation crab in a California sushi roll or as packages of frozen snapper relabeled with store brands that land on our dinner tables. In a year-long investigation, the AP interviewed more than 40 current and former slaves in Benjina. The AP documented the journey of a single large shipment of slave-caught seafood from the Indonesian village, including squid, snapper, grouper and shrimp, and tracked it by satellite to a gritty Thai harbor. Upon its arrival, AP journalists followed trucks that loaded and drove the seafood over four nights to dozens of factories, cold storage plants and the country’s biggest fish market. Some fishermen, risking their lives, begged the reporters for help.
The small harbor in the village is occupied by Pusaka Benjina Resources, whose five-story office compound includes the cage with the slaves. The company is the only fishing operation on Benjina officially registered in Indonesia, and is listed as the owner of more than 90 trawlers. However, the captains are Thai, and the Indonesian government is reviewing to see if the boats are really Thaiowned. Pusaka Benjina did not respond to phone calls and a letter, and did not speak to a reporter who waited for two hours in the company’s Jakarta office. Workers from Myanmar load fish onto a Thai-flagged cargo ship in Benjina, Indonesia. An intricate web of connections separates the fish we eat from the men who catch it, and obscures a brutal truth: Your seafood may come from slaves.
“I want to go home. We all do,” one Burmese slave called out over the side of his boat, a cry repeated by many men. “Our parents haven’t heard from us for a long time, I’m sure they think we are dead.” Their catch mixes in with other fish at numerous sites in Thailand, including processing plants. U.S. Customs records show that several of those Thai factories ship to America. They also ship to Europe and Asia, but the AP traced shipments to the U.S., where trade records are public. The major corporations identified by AP declined interviews but issued statements that strongly condemned labor abuses; many described their work with human rights groups to hold subcontractors accountable. National Fisheries Institute spokesman Gavin Gibbons, speaking on behalf of 300 U.S. seafood firms that make up 75 percent of the industry, said his members are troubled by the findings. “It’s not only disturbing, it’s disheartening because our companies have zero tolerance for labor abuses,” he said. “These type of things flourish in the shadows.” The slaves interviewed by the AP described 20- to 22-hour shifts and unclean
FLORIDA CITY TOPS LIST OF FA S T E S T- G R O W I N G A R E A S between July 2013 and 2014, followed by Maricopa County, Arizona, with 74,000 and Los Angeles County with 63,000. The Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land metro area was also the top in metro area numerical increase with 156,371 people added between 2013 and 2014, followed by the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington area with a 131,217-person increase and the New York-Newark-Jersey City-Pennsylvania area with a 90,797-person increase. By percentage, Williams County, North Dakota, remained the nation’s fastest-growing county with a population of more than 10,000 people. It increased by 8.7 percent from 2013 to 2014, followed by Stark County, North Dakota, at 7 percent; Sumter County, Florida, at 5.4 percent; Pickens County, Alabama, at 5.1 percent; and Hays County, Texas, at 4.8 percent. The Census Bureau also said: photo shows vacationers enjoying the beach in Myrtle Beach, S.C. The U.S. Census Bureau announced on Thursday, March 26, 2015 that the Myrtle Beach metropolitan area was the second-fastest growing metropolitan area in the nation from July of 2013 to July, 2014. The Villages, Florida, ranked as the nation’s fastest-growing metro area last year.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The beautiful weather in Florida seems to be drawing more and more Americans, with the Sunshine State climbing the ranks of most populous states and fastest-growing cities. New data released from the U.S. Census Bureau showed that The Villages, Florida, ranked as the nation’s fastest-growing metro area last year, with the city west of Orlando boasting a 5.4 percent increase in population between July 1, 2013, and July 1, 2014. This comes as Florida became the nation’s third most-populous state in December, taking over the spot once held by New York. But it’s not just The Villages, which grew to a population of about 114,000, the Census Bureau said. The growth is driven by increases in the state’s metroplexes in areas such as central and southern Florida, Census Bureau Director John H. Thompson said. Six Florida metro areas were among the 20 fastest-growing: The Villages, Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island, Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton and Panama City. Florida has been long known for retirees, beaches and vacationers. The influx of new residents was enough to offset the fact that there were more deaths than births in about half of the state’s counties, the Census Bureau said. Florida averaged 803 new residents each day between July 1, 2013, and July 1, 2014, growing by 293,000 to reach 19.9 million during that time period, census data released in December showed. New York went up by 51,000 to 19.7 million during that same period. A few more beach towns and western cities make up most of the top five fastest-growing cities by percent growth: Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach metroplex in South Carolina and North Carolina at 3.2 percent; the Austin-Round Rock area in Texas at 3 percent; Odessa, Texas, at 2.9 percent; and St. George, Utah, at 2.9 percent. Texas snagged the top spots in both numerical increase by person for counties and metro areas. Harris County, Texas, leads the nation in population growth by person, with the county surrounding Houston adding 89,000 people
-California was the nation’s most populous state in 2014, with 38.8 million residents. Texas came in second at 27 million. -Los Angeles County had the nation’s largest population with more than 10.1 million people. -New York was the nation’s largest metro area, with about 20.1 million people. -Detroit was still losing people. Wayne County, Michigan, has the nation’s largest numerical decline at just less than 11,000. The next closest county? Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which includes Cleveland, lost slightly more than 4,000 people.
At the Benjina port, the AP interviewed slaves from a dozen fishing vessels offloading their catch into a large refrigerated cargo ship, the Silver Sea Line. The ship belonged to the Silver Sea Reefer Co., which is registered in Thailand and has at least nine refrigerated cargo boats. The company said it is not involved with the fishermen. “We only carry the shipment and we are hired in general by clients,” said company owner Panya Luangsomboon. “We’re separated from the fishing boats.” The AP followed that ship, using satellite tracking over 15 days to Samut Sakhon, Thailand, and journalists watched as workers packed the seafood over four nights onto more than 150 trucks, following deliveries to factories around the city. Inside those plants, representatives told AP journalists that they sold seafood to other Thai processors and distributors. U.S. Customs bills of lading identify specific shipments from those plants to American firms, including well-known brand names. For example, one truck bore the name and bird logo of Kingfisher Holdings Ltd., which supplies frozen and canned seafood around the world. Another truck went to Mahachai Marine Foods Co., a cold storage business that also supplies Kingfisher, according to Kawin Ngernanek, whose family runs it. “Yes, yes, yes, yes,” said Kawin, who also serves as spokesman for the Thai Overseas Fisheries Association. “Kingfisher buys several types of products.” When later asked about abusive labor practices, Kawin was not available. Instead, Mahachai Marine Foods manager Narongdet Prasertsri responded: “I have no idea about it at all.” Kingfisher did not answer repeated requests for comment. Every month, Kingfisher and its subsidiary KF Foods Ltd. sends about 100 metric tons of seafood from Thailand to America, according to U.S. Customs records. These shipments have gone to Stavis Seafoods, a Boston-based Sysco supplier, and other distributors. “The truth is, these are the kind of things that keep you up at night,” said CEO Richard Stavis, who grandfather started the company. He said his business visits international processors, requires notarized certification of legal practices and uses third-party audits. “There are companies like ours that care and are working as hard as they can,” he said. A similar pattern repeats itself with other companies and shipments. The AP followed another truck to Niwat Co., where part owner Prasert Luangsomboon said the company sells to Thai Union Manufacturing. Weeks later, when confronted about forced labor in their supply chain, Niwat referred several requests for comment to Luangsomboon, who could not be reached for further comment. Thai Union Manufacturing Co. is a subsidiary of Thai Union Frozen Products PCL, Thailand’s largest seafood corporation, with $3.5 billion in annual sales. This parent company, known simply as Thai Union, owns Chicken of the Sea and is buying Bumble Bee, although the AP did not observe any tuna fisheries. Thai Union says its direct clients include Wal-Mart, and ships thousands of cans of cat food to the U.S. every month, including household brands like Fancy Feast, Meow Mix and Iams. These end up on shelves of major grocery chains, such as Kroger, Safeway and Albertsons, as well as pet stores. Again, however, it’s impossible to tell if a particular can of cat food might have slave-caught seafood. After the AP’s story was released Wednesday, the company issued a statement saying it had immediately terminated business ties with a supplier after determining it might be involved with forced labor and other abuses. It did not say which supplier. “Thai Union embraces AP’s finding. It is utterly unacceptable,” it said. “This is to prove that Thai Union takes the issue of human rights violation extremely seriously.”
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Indonesian Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti, who has been cracking down on illegal foreign vessels, including those from Thailand, vowed to take swift action. She tweeted the AP’s report and distributed copies of it in a meeting to a wide range of high-ranking government officials, including police, a high court judge, a prosecutor, the Navy and customs. “I’m not going to tolerate such a thing to continue happening in our waters,” she said in an interview. She added that campaigns to save wildlife get far more attention than abuse involving humans at sea. Illegal fishing is “killing people and nobody knows or cares about this for so long,” she said. The enslaved fishermen on Benjina had no idea where the fish they caught was sold, only that it was too valuable for them to eat. Their desperation was palpable. A crude cemetery holds more than 60 graves strangled by tall grasses and jungle vines. The small wooden markers are neatly labeled, some with the falsified names of slaves and boats. Only their friends remember where they were laid to rest. In the past, former slave Hla Phyo said, supervisors on ships simply tossed bodies into the sea to be devoured by sharks. But after authorities and companies started demanding that every man be accounted for on the roster upon return, captains began stowing corpses alongside the fish in ship freezers until they arrived back in Benjina. “I’m starting to feel like I will be in Indonesia forever,” said Phyo, wiping a tear away. “I remember thinking when I was digging, the only thing that awaits us here is death.”
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M I C H I G A N C R A S H S TAT I S T I C S MICHIGAN STATE POLICE CRIMINAL JUSTICE INFORMATION CENTER CRASH STATISTICS
Police: Alcohol A Factor In Rollover Crash On I-94 That Killed Warren Man
Authorities say a Warren man was killed in a rollover crash on I-94 in Macomb County that might have been fueled by alcohol.
70-Year-Old Man Charged In Fiery Crash That Killed Pregnant Woman
The Beverly Hills man is facing carless driving charges in connection with a fiery freeway crash that killed a 23-year-old pregnant woman and her unborn son.
Fundraisers To Be Held For Family Of Father, Son Killed In Crash
Support continues to pour in for the family of a New Hudson man and his 9-year-old son who were both killed last week in an early morning accident along Pontiac Trail.
3 Killed, 1 Injured In Ambulance Crash Near Hospital A vehicle apparently ran a red light while the oncoming ambulance had its emergency lights and siren activated.
3 Dead After Ambulance Collides With Car In West Michigan Police say 61-year-old Shirley Stokes apparently ran a stop sign and flashing red light late Monday when the ambulance and her car collided
58-Year-Old Bicyclist Dies After Being Hit By Vehicle
Authorities say the bike didn’t have any lights on it.
Bicyclist Fatally Struck By Vehicle Along 15 Mile Road
Authorities said the driver, who was going about 45 mph, likely didn’t see the bicyclist until it was too late.
Clinton Township Man Arraigned In Connection To Drunk Driving Fatal Accident
A Clinton Township man has been arraigned for the traffic-related death of the passenger in his car.
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________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Weekly News Digest, Mar 30 thru April 6, 2015
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P R E PA R I N G F O R 2 0 1 6 C A M PA I G N , HILLARY CLINTON EMBRACING OBAMA WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rather than keeping him at arm’s length, Hillary Rodham Clinton is embracing President Barack Obama - sometimes even literally.
Obama has long been criticized for his lack of outreach to Congress, Clinton has emphasized the importance of having strong ties across the aisle, saying “I don’t think there’s any substitute to building relationships.”
Clinton had been expected to look for some ways to separate herself from the president to avoid the impression that having her in the White House would amount to a third Obama term. But as she prepares for another presidential campaign, Clinton has aligned herself with Obama far more often than not.
Hillary and Bill Clinton know firsthand what it’s like to be in the White House when an ally is running for the Oval Office. In 2000, Vice President Al Gore distanced himself from Bill Clinton’s impeachment battles and some of his centrist policies, framing the contest against Republican George W. Bush as “the people versus the powerful.” Bill Clinton said in his autobiography that the message mobilized conservative interest groups against Gore.
On Monday, a few hours after meeting Obama at the White House, Clinton tweeted a list of accomplishments of the president’s health care law on its fifth anniversary. “Repeal those things? Embrace them!” she declared, posting an old photo of herself extending her arms to hug Obama at the White House. The tactics carry risk with an electorate that often seeks change after one party runs the White House for eight years. Republicans are already warning voters that Clinton would merely cement Obama’s most unpopular policies and continue in his vein. “She will have to break with Obama significantly and substantively if she wants to win,” said Phil Musser, a former executive director of the Republican Governors Association. “Obama is no Reagan, and America is ready for the end of his presidency, not the extension of it.”
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President Barack Obama, accompanied by then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington. Rather than keeping him at arm’s length, Hillary Rodham Clinton is embracing President Barack Obama _ sometimes even literally. As she prepares for another presidential campaign, Clinton has aligned herself with Obama far more than she has disagreed with him. She had been expected to separate herself from the president to avoid appearing as though she’d simply carry out his third term.
Clinton, who is expected to announce her campaign in April, hasn’t presented an overarching message of where she would take the country. For now, she’s talking about finding consensus and building on “what has worked in the past.”
“The problem with the slogan was that it didn’t give Al the full benefit of our record of economic and social progress or put into sharp relief Bush’s explicit commitment to undo that progress,” Bill Clinton wrote. The populist approach, he argued, “sounded to some swing voters that Al, too, might change the economic direction of the country.” One of Hillary Clinton’s most public breaks with Obama came last summer when she took a veiled shot at his “Don’t Do Stupid Stuff” foreign policy doctrine. In an interview with The Atlantic magazine, she said, “Great nations need organizing principles, and `don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.” Clinton scrambled to walk back the jab, calling up her old boss to try to smooth things over. Obama and Clinton met in person a few days later and “hugged it out,” aides said.
She has also begun taking on the Republican-led Congress - recently blasting the House GOP budget plan on Twitter, the letter written by Senate Republicans that was seen as interference in Iran nuclear talks and delays in the confirmation Loretta Lynch as attorney general.
Still, foreign policy matters could be an area of divergence, reflecting Clinton’s position as one of the more hawkish members of his first-term national security team. But there have been few public signs of that in recent months.
Aligning herself with Obama may pose fewer risks than once thought. While his approval rating is still under 50 percent, it has stabilized following a noticeable dip last year. Obama could help Clinton connect with the diverse coalition of voters who powered him to two victories. And perhaps more important, the economy is steadily improving, with job creation up and unemployment down to 5.5 percent.
Clinton has avoided commenting on U.S.-Israeli relations in recent weeks, which have been strained by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition to Palestinian statehood and his late campaign warning that Arab voters were heading to the polls “in droves,” comments he has since backtracked.
Dan Pfeiffer, a longtime Obama adviser who recently left the White House, said that while he expects Clinton to break with the president when she actually disagrees with him, it would be unwise to create differences where none truly exists.
Clinton also has largely backed Obama’s decision to take military action against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. She’s supported his nuclear negotiations with Iran and joined him in sharply criticizing Republican senators who wrote to Tehran’s leadership warning that Congress could disrupt a deal.
“It’s tough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, especially if you have someone that’s been gone for five years and potentially may have some mental health issues at the time that the defense is going to bring up,” Rinckey said.
“Manufacturing agreement or disagreement to score some political points would be a mistake,” Pfeiffer said. “Candidates that get all tangled up trying align with or separate from their party or their president have a very poor track record of success.”
It’s unclear whether Clinton will ultimately back a nuclear deal if the U.S. and its negotiating partners achieve one. But she was involved in the administration’s early efforts to start secret talks with the Iranians, dispatching her policy adviser, Jake Sullivan, to lead them.
The misbehavior charge is rarely seen in military cases, typically reserved for shameful or cowardly conduct, said Daniel Conway, a military defense lawyer and the author of a forthcoming book on military crimes.
While Clinton has been avoiding substantive policy splits with the president, she’s suggesting her presidency would mark a change in style. While
“It’s by no means a referendum completely on the current president,” Democratic strategist Mike Feldman said of the 2016 campaign. “It will be a choice, and President Obama won’t be one of the choices.”
ferred to Gen. Mark Milley, who had a broad range of legal options. Milley could have decided not to charge Bergdahl at all, recommend administrative action or convene a court-martial on more serious offenses. Bergdahl also could have faced more serious desertion charges, though this charge does not require prosecutors to prove that he had no intention of returning to his unit. It was unlikely that prosecutors would have sought a desertion charge that carried a possible death penalty after American lives and Taliban prisoners were exchanged to get Bergdahl back, said Jeffrey K. Walker, a St. John’s University law professor, retired Air Force officer and former military lawyer. Still, the military could have a tough case to make, said former Army lawyer Greg Rinckey.
Conway said he wouldn’t expect the Army to seek much prison time for Bergdahl because of his time as a Taliban captive, but officials needed to prosecute the case because a conviction means Bergdahl cannot collect special compensation as a prisoner of war. “He did spend X number of years as a prisoner of the Taliban - that certainly mitigates the need for him to be locked up,” Conway said. “But as a political matter, I don’t think we can stomach the possibility that he deserted his post and could receive $300,000 in back pay for it.” Some within the military have suggested that Bergdahl’s long capture was punishment enough, but others, including members of his former unit, have called for serious punishment, saying that other service members risked their lives and several died - searching for him. One of those in Bergdahl’s platoon, Cody Full, 26, of Houston, said Bergdahl should be stripped of all his pay and benefits and be dishonorably discharged. “It’s not fair for guys that served honorably and didn’t desert, that go to college on the GI Bill or get their retirement and other benefits, for them to get it and him to get it as well,” said Full, who is no longer in the military. He also said Bergdahl should serve a lengthy sentence to send a message to anyone who considers deserting in the future. “The military’s obviously a very rough job. ... But everybody else stayed with the oath and did what they signed up to do,” Full said. “And as a result of that, some didn’t get to come home.”
PAYPAL TO PAY $7.7M IN SANCTIONS VIOLATIONS SETTLEMENT WASHINGTON (AP) -- PayPal Inc. has agreed to pay $7.7 million to settle with U.S. regulators who said the payments company allowed violations of U.S. sanctions against Iran, Cuba and Sudan. The Office of Foreign Assets Control, an agency of the Treasury Department, announced Wednesday the civil settlement with the digital payments processor. The agency said PayPal, a division of eBay Inc., didn’t adequately screen transactions so it could detect those by people or entities subject to sanctions against Iran, Cuba and Sudan. OFAC says the lapses occurred over several years through 2013. PayPal, based in San Jose, California, said in a statement that it voluntarily reported to the agency questionable payments it had processed. It said it has taken steps to improve compliance, such as real-time scanning of payments. OFAC also said that PayPal processed $7,091.77 in transactions in a customer account registered to Kursad Zafer Cire, an individual on a special State Department list as someone contributing to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Despite red flags from PayPal’s own screening system, the transactions continued from October 2009 to April 2013, the agency said.
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PRESIDENT OF YEMEN FLEES BY SEA A M I D R E B E L A D VA N C E I N S O U T H more extremist Islamic State group. Last week, the group claimed responsibility for suicide bombings against the Houthis in Sanaa that killed 137 people.
SANAA, Yemen (AP) -- President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi fled Yemen by sea Wednesday as Shiite rebels and their allies moved on his last refuge in the south, captured its airport and put a bounty on his head, officials said.
AQAP is considered the terrorist group most dangerous to the U.S. because it successfully placed three bombs on U.S. bound airlines, although none exploded. U.S. officials acknowledge their efforts against AQAP are seriously hampered, with the U.S. Embassy closed and the last U.S. troops evacuated.
The departure of the close U.S. ally and the imminent fall of the southern port of Aden pushed Yemen further toward a violent collapse. It also threatened to turn the impoverished but strategic country into another proxy battle between the Middle East’s Sunni powers and Shiite-led Iran.
Although the Houthis are avowed enemies of al-Qaida, they can’t project power against the militants the way the Hadi government could with U.S. support. The deeply anti-American rebels have rejected Washington’s overtures, officials say.
Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies believe the Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, are tools for Iran to seize control of Yemen and say they intend to stop the takeover. The Houthis deny they are backed by Iran. The crumbling of Hadi’s government is a blow to Washington’s counterterrorism strategy against al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen, considered to be the most powerful in the terrorist network. Over the weekend, about 100 U.S. military advisers withdrew from the al-Annad air base where they had been leading a drone campaign against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. Yemen now faces fragmentation, with Houthis controlling much of the north, including the capital of Sanaa, and several southern provinces. In recent days, they took the third-largest city, Taiz, as well as much of the province of Lahj, both just to the north of Aden. In fighting in Lahj, they captured Hadi’s defense minister, Maj. Gen. Mahmoud al-Subaihi, and then swept into the nearby al-Annad base, which the U.S. military had left. The Houthis are backed by former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the autocrat who ruled Yemen for three decades until he was removed amid a 2011 Arab Spring uprising. Some of the best-equipped and trained military and security units remained loyal to Saleh and they have helped the Houthis in their rapid advance. Hadi left Sanaa for Aden earlier this month after escaping house arrest under the Houthis, who overran the capital six months ago. In Aden, he had sought to make a last stand, claiming it as the temporary seat of what remained of his government, backed by allied militias and loyal army units. With Houthis and Saleh forces closing in on multiple fronts, Hadi and his aides left Aden after 3:30 p.m. on two boats in the Gulf of Aden, security and port officials told The Associated Press. The officials would not specify his destination.
People fee after a gunfire on a street in the southern port city of Aden, Yemen, Wednsday, March 25, 2015. Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi fled the country by sea Wednesday on a boat from Aden, as Shiite rebels and their allies advanced on the city where he had taken refuge. Aden was tense Wednesday, with schools, government offices, shops and restaurants largely closed.
Saleh said in a speech two weeks ago that Hadi might head for the African country of Djibouti across the gulf, just as leaders of southern Yemen fled . Hadi is scheduled to attend an Arab summit this weekend in Cairo, where Arab allies are to discuss forming a joint Arab force that could pave the way for military intervention against the Houthis.
The officials said Hadi had been preparing for the move since Sunday, when rebel leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi vowed in a fiery speech that his forces will keep advancing south, referring to Hadi as a “puppet” of international powers. Shortly after Hadi fled his palace in Aden, warplanes targeted presidential forces guarding it. No casualties were reported. By midday, Aden’s airport fell into hands of forces loyal to Saleh based in the city after intense clashes with pro-Hadi militias. Yemen’s state TV, now controlled by the Houthis, announced a bounty of nearly $100,000 for Hadi’s capture. The Houthis still face multiple opponents. Sunni tribesmen and local militias are fighting them in many places around Yemen, and the rebels have little support in the south. Some military units remain loyal to Hadi, although they are severely weakened. Alarmingly, al-Qaida militants have emerged as a powerful force against the rebels, and there are signs of a presence of the even
W O M A N ’ S ‘ E V I L’ K I D N A P P I N G P L O T L E D T O B A B Y ’ S D E AT H In California, D’Milian, of Thousand Oaks, was arrested on suspicion of murder, kidnapping, attempted murder and conspiracy. Anthony McCall, 29, of Oceanside, was arrested on the same charges. D’Milian’s 30-year-old daughter, Charisse Shelton, and 44-year-old Todd Boudreaux were arrested on suspicion of helping cover up the crimes, authorities said. All were being held without bail except Shelton, whose bail was set at $1 million. It wasn’t clear late Wednesday if they had attorneys or would request a public defender at a court hearing scheduled for Friday. Eliza’s mother, father and uncle were shot and wounded in their Long Beach home Jan. 3, and McCall kidnapped the baby two hours after he and D’Milian tailed a public bus carrying Eliza and her mother, police said. Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna, left, and Mayor Robert Garcia stand during a news conference in Long Beach, Calif., Wednesday, March 25, 2015. Southern California authorities have arrested four people in a plot to kidnap two newborn babies. The plot ended with the death of a 3-week-old girl and the shooting and beating of the children’s mothers, police said Wednesday. At left is an image of baby Eliza Delacruz, who was snatched Jan. 3, 2015, in Long Beach by a gunman who wounded her parents and uncle, Luna said. Her body was found the next day in a trash bin near the Mexican border
LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- A kidnapping that ended with the murder of a 3-week-old baby girl took a more sordid turn when police announced they tied it to a California woman accused of plotting to steal infants and pass them off as her own. In arresting Giseleangelique Rene D’Milian, 47, and three others Wednesday, police said they cracked a sinister scheme that led to the death of tiny Eliza Delacruz in January and an assault on a 23-year-old mother at a hotel last month who was targeted for her 4-month-old son.
The baby’s body was discovered the following day in a trash bin in Imperial Beach, a city on the Mexican border about 100 miles to the south. Another woman was beaten with a baseball bat on Feb. 6 in El Segundo while her 4-month-old son was in the room. Hotel employees interrupted the assault, but McCall escaped, police said. Police believe the child was the target of the kidnapping scheme. D’Milian also started a fake charity focusing on 1- to 2-month-old babies and asked her friends to spread the word in an attempt to find other children to kidnap, authorities said. She may have identified Eliza’s mother through that network, police said, but the mother told police she had never seen D’Milian before. Police don’t believe there were other victims.
Investigators in Long Beach and El Segundo would not say how baby Eliza died and declined to discuss what may have motivated the woman’s three accomplices to participate beyond saying that the man they believe carried out the attacks was a friend and the other woman arrested was D’Milian’s daughter.
The case stumped Long Beach authorities for weeks because Eliza’s parents and uncle were too severely wounded to be interviewed, Luna said.
Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna said his staff suggested avoiding the word “evil” to describe the case, but he couldn’t.
Police last week released composite sketches of the woman and kidnapper and surveillance video of the SUV. The information generated tips and new witnesses who led them to the Range Rover and the suspects, Luna said.
“I can’t summarize it any other way,” he said. “In my 29 years, I’ve never seen anything like this. We’ve never seen anything like this where someone goes out looking for babies and they attempt to kill the mothers. It’s just unbelievable.” The plot began when D’Milian falsely told her married boyfriend that she had given birth to his twins last December while she was out of the country, police said. There is no indication he knew of the plans, Long Beach Lt. Lloyd Cox said. “She fabricated a story and wanted him to believe these children were his. Why? We don’t know. We’re not sure what the motivation was,” he said, adding that D’Milian was searching for children with a dark complexion that matched her own. Details of the plot emerged a week after a Colorado woman who told her family she was pregnant lured an expectant mother with a Craigslist ad for baby clothes and cut the unborn baby from her belly, authorities said. The baby didn’t survive, but the mother has been released from the hospital.
Her mother later recalled that a woman pulled over in a black Range Rover when she got off the bus on Jan. 3 and asked her about the baby.
Hadi’s exit is a humiliating reversal, coming in large part at the hands of Saleh, the man he replaced in 2012 under a deal that allowed the former leader to remain free. The atmosphere in Aden was tense, with most schools, government offices, shops and restaurants closed. In the few cafes still open, men watched the news on TV. Looters went through two abandoned army camps, taking weapons and ammunition. Mohammed Abdel-Salam, a spokesman for the Houthis, told the rebel-controlled Al-Masirah news channel that their forces were not aiming to occupy the south. Foreign Minister Riad Yassin told Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV he officially requested the Arab League send a military force to intervene against the Houthis. Depicting them as a proxy of Shiite Iran, he warned of an Iranian “takeover” of Yemen. On Tuesday, Hadi asked the U.N. Security Council to authorize a military intervention “to protect Yemen and to deter the Houthi aggression” in Aden and the rest of the south. He said he also asked members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League for immediate help. Saudi Arabia warned that “if the Houthi coup does not end peacefully, we will take the necessary measures for this crisis to protect the region.” Saudi Arabia, which provided Yemen with an economic lifeline, has cut most of its aid after the Houthis’ takeover. The turmoil threatened a humanitarian disaster according to international aid organizations. In January, Oxfam said that half of Yemen’s population is in need of humanitarian aid, and nearly 1 million children are malnourished. The Houthis and Saleh’s forces also face internal enemies. Shiites make up around 30 percent of the population, mostly in the north. Saleh has never been popular in the south, making it a likely center for resistance. Protests were held Tuesday against the Houthis in the city of Taiz after the rebels took over there. The rebels opened fire on the demonstrators, killing at least six. In the north, the Houthis have so far been unable to take Marib province, housing Yemen’s oil and gas facilities. They face powerful resistance there from Sunni tribesmen, some armed by Saudi Arabia. Other southern provinces such as Abyan and Shabwa are known as al-Qaida strongholds, and the rebels will face stiff resistance from tribes allied with the militant group. Last week’s suicide bombings against mosques in Sanaa underscored the danger from militants, particularly if the presence of the Islamic State group is established. In Sanaa, dozens of coffins were lined up for a mass funeral Wednesday. “In the very short-term, Houthis’ next move will determine their next top enemy,” said Yemeni writer Samy Ghalib. “If they play politics, their enemies will be the politicians. If they continue the use of force, their foes would be the radical groups including al-Qaida.” The Saleh-Houthi alliance will likely hold for the time being, he said, adding that international intervention might only strengthen it. “The zero-sum game which Houthis and Saleh started is not over yet. ... An international intervention without a political vision, would only spark a civil war,” he said.
‘MOST INTERESTING MAN’ FAILS AS CARPOOL-LANE RUSE FIFE, Wash. (AP) -- A Washington State Patrol trooper says it’s by far the best carpool scam he’s seen, but it didn’t work. As KOMO-TV put it ( http://is.gd/7cZLaN ), “Troopers don’t always stop people in the HOV lanes, but when they do, they prefer `dos’ passengers.” A motorcycle trooper parked along Interstate 5 near Tacoma on Monday afternoon spotted a driver and a rather unusual “passenger” pass by him in the carpool lane. When the trooper stopped the car, he discovered the “passenger” was a cardboard cutout of the actor who portrays “The Most Interesting Man in the World” in Dos Equis beer ads. The driver’s response? “He’s my best friend.” The Most Interesting Man was not confiscated, but the driver was told not to use him again. Channeling the cardboard cutout, the State Patrol tweeted: “I don’t always violate the HOV lane law ... but when I do, I get a $124 ticket.”
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A F G H A N P R E S I D E N T S AY S H I S N AT I O N W O N ’ T B E ‘ L A Z Y U N C L E J O E ’
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Afghan President Ashraf Ghani thanked Congress on Wednesday for billions of American tax dollars and vowed his war-wracked country will be self-reliant within this decade.
both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill. The reason: He’s not Karzai. House Speaker John Boehner issued a statement after the speech calling Ghani a “trusted partner.” And just before Ghani stepped from the chamber, he and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is chairman of the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, embraced in a bear hug.
“We’re not going to be the lazy Uncle Joe,” he said. In a speech to a joint meeting of Congress, Ghani moved to mend U.S.-Afghan relations that were frayed under former President Hamid Karzai. Lawmakers have been critical about the lengthy U.S. troop presence in America’s longest war, wasteful spending in Afghanistan and were stung by Karzai’s anti-American rhetoric. Ghani humbly thanked Congress for the nearly $107 billion it has appropriated for Afghanistan so far. He paid homage to the 2,200 U.S. servicemen and -women who lost their lives in the war and the thousands more who were wounded, and thanked the U.S. aid workers who built schools, wells and cured the sick. “At the end of the day, it is the ordinary Americans whose hardearned taxes have over the years built the partnership that has led to our conversation today,” he said to applause in the House chamber packed with hundreds of lawmakers, dignitaries and guests. Ghani, wearing a gray western suit, peppered his speech with anecdotes about the time he’s spent in America, noting that he graduated from Columbia University in New York and was in his World Bank office in Washington when the first plane smashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11.
Obama said the U.S. would leave its 9,800 troops in Afghanistan in place rather than downsizing to 5,500 by year’s end. The size of the U.S. footprint for next year is still to be decided, Obama said, but he brushed aside any speculation the withdrawal will bleed into 2017. That means the slowdown won’t jeopardize his commitment to end America’s involvement in Afghanistan before leaving office.
In this file image made from a video released Sunday, Feb. 15, 2015 by militants in Libya claiming loyalty to the Islamic State group purportedly shows Egyptian Coptic Christians in orange jumpsuits being led along a beach, each accompanied by a masked militant. Libya, virtually a failed state the past years, has provided a perfect opportunity for the Islamic State group to expand from its heartland of Syria and Iraq to establish a strategic stronghold close to European shores.
family member who lacks the energy and drive to get out and find a job,” Ghani said. That’s a tall order for Afghanistan.
Perhaps trying to shed his image as a technocrat, Ghani recalled that he “ate corned beef at Katz’s, New York’s greatest, greasiest, pickle-lined melting pot.”
The national unity government that Ghani runs with chief executive Abdullah Abdullah has not yet seated a full cabinet, and some of the country’s 30-plus provinces are still run by acting governors. The country recently had a $500 million budget shortfall and domestic revenues missed targets by 26 percent, forcing the U.S. to step in in recent months to help cover the fiscal gap.
He touched on themes he hoped would convince lawmakers that he will be a reliable U.S. partner. He admitted that decades of war have resulted in high levels of fraud and graft in Afghanistan and promised to eliminate corruption. Ghani also voiced support for women’s rights and said he would emphasize law and justice and focus on self-reliance and economic development.
More than a third of Afghans live below the poverty line and the nation’s vast mineral resources remain virtually untapped. Afghanistan also is not at peace, and Ghani’s efforts to lure the Taliban to reconciliation talks have not yet been fruitful. Just hours before he spoke, at least six people were killed and more than 30 were wounded in a suicide car bombing near the presidential palace in Kabul.
“We don’t want your charity. We have no more interest in perpetuating a childish dependence than you have in being saddled with a poor
Ghani is untested as a leader, yet he received a warm reception from
OFFICIAL: BOKO HARAM USING CIVILIANS AS HUMAN SHIELDS presidential elections to be held Saturday. International concern has mounted along with the toll: an estimated 10,000 killed in the 6-year-old insurgency last year alone. Boko Haram has vowed to violently disrupt the elections. International assistance desperately is needed for the thousands of Nigerian refugees who have fled the violence, the head of the U.N. refugee agency said Wednesday as he visited a camp in Cameroon. Violence in Nigeria has forced more than 192,000 people to flee to the neighboring countries of Cameroon, Chad and Niger. But the U.N. refugee agency says the crisis hasn’t drawn sufficient international support, calling it one of the most underfunded emergencies in the world.
In this file photo taken on Wednesday March 18, 2015, Chadian soldiers collect weapons seized from Boko Haram fighters in the Nigerian city of Damasak, Nigeria. Hundreds of civilians, including many children, have been kidnapped and are being used as human shields by Boko Haram extremists, a top Nigerian official confirmed Wednesday, March 25, 2015.
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) -- Boko Haram is using an unknown number of civilians as human shields as its fighters flee an offensive by multinational forces, a top Nigerian official said Wednesday. Mike Omeri, the director general of the National Orientation Agency would not say how many people are being used.
At Cameroon’s Minawao refugee camp, residents aren’t getting enough to eat or drink, and there aren’t enough toilets or medical supplies, Isaac Luka, a representative of the refugees, said Wednesday. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said the agency will funnel more resources to Cameroon, but he noted that they have only received 3 percent of the funding necessary to run Minawao, which is home to 33,000 people. “Every country in the world needs to understand that Cameroon is not only protecting itself, Cameroon is protecting all of us,” he said.
Obama slowed the pace of the withdrawal because of deficiencies in the Afghan security forces, heavy casualties in the ranks of the army and police, the need for the Ghani-Abdullah government to gain traction and fears that Islamic State fighters could gain a foothold in Afghanistan. Ghani said IS militants pose a “clear and present danger” to Afghanistan, and he challenged Muslim leaders and intellectuals who believe that Islam is a religion of tolerance and virtue to speak out against Islamic extremism. “Silence is not acceptable,’” he said. Ghani’s speech drew much applause, but his appearance didn’t create as much buzz in the Capitol as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did when he spoke to Congress earlier this month. Some Democrats skipped the Israeli leader’s speech, in which he warned the U.S. that an emerging international agreement the U.S. was
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streets. The intersection would be unrecognizable to Weegee today: It’s the site of the 9/11 Memorial and museum. A 1952 picture shows the stately, pristine stone facade of One Times Square, where a spire on the roof is still used for the New Year’s Eve ball drop. Today the building’s exterior is covered with billboards. But Weegee’s 1957 view of Times Square does show neon ads, including now-outmoded brands like Admiral TV appliances alongside still-familiar names like Budweiser. Other photos, lined up with contemporary views of the same spot, are surprisingly unchanged - like a 1939 scene in Little Italy where small shops still line the sidewalks. A 1953 photo shows Humphrey Bogart on the marquee of the Victory movie theater, home now to the New Victory, which specializes in children’s entertainment. The photos in the book are organized by neighborhood, with maps and locations for each, including which direction Weegee was facing when he took the picture. The information makes it easy to compare images with how the city looks today - either by walking around or by going on Google Street View. “The classic New York skyline has changed dramatically since Weegee’s day, and the flurry of often mundane building construction over the last decades has obscured many of New York’s iconic skyscrapers,” said Philomena Mariani, director of publications at the International Center of Photography, who compiled the book with another ICP staff member, Christopher George. ICP owns 20,000 Weegee images, but for this book, Mariani said, “We were looking for pictures that showed something of New York’s built environment and public life,” including images of crowds gathered for celebrations and shoppers waiting for rationed goods. Mariani said she hopes the book, published by Prestel, will get people thinking not only about “how different the urban landscape is physically,” but also about “the public life that existed through the mid-20th century that Weegee captured.” Weegee died in 1968.
“Some say 500, some 400, some say 300,” but Omeri said he was awaiting reports from authorities on the ground around Damasak, a trading town near the border with Niger that was recaptured on March 16. Omeri stressed this was not a new incident and that the authorities are investigating. Instead, he said that as troops advanced, Boko Haram rushed to a school where people had been held after the insurgents had seized the town late last year. They released some women and children, but not those they had “married in the period of occupation.” He said the fighters and those being used as shields still are in the Damasak area. The soldiers who recaptured Damasak found the town largely deserted. The troops from Chad and Niger who now hold Damasak have discovered evidence of a mass grave, Chad’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mahamat Zene Cherif, confirmed Wednesday. Boko Haram has killed thousands of civilians and kidnapped unknown hundreds in its fight to create an Islamic state. The group was little known until it caused international outrage with its mass kidnapping almost a year ago of 276 girls from a government boarding school in northeast Chibok town. Dozens escaped in the first couple of days, but 219 remain missing. Their fate remains unknown and spawned the (hash)BringBackOurGirls campaign on social media. Nigeria’s battle against the Islamic extremists is a major issue for critical
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C O N D U C T I N G A I R S T R I K E S H E L P I R A Q R E TA K E T I K R I T “We have started the final phase of the operation in Tikrit,” he said. “You will liberate your ground, not anyone but you,” he said in a speech to the Iraqi people.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- At Iraq’s request, the U.S. began airstrikes in Tikrit on Wednesday in support of a stalled Iraqi ground offensive to retake the city from Islamic State fighters. The bombing marked a significant expansion of the U.S. military role in Iraq.
Al-Abadi praised all the groups involved in the battle against the Islamic State group, including the so-called Popular Mobilization Forces, which the U.S. calls Iranian-backed Shiite militias, and well as the Sunni tribes and coalition forces. But he fell short of confirming that the coalition is playing a direct role in Tikrit.
“These strikes are intended to destroy ISIL strongholds with precision, thereby saving innocent Iraqi lives while minimizing” unintended damage to civilian structures, Lt. Gen. James L. Terry, the commander of the U.S.-led campaign to defeat the Islamic State group, said in a written statement.
U.S. airstrikes in Tikrit raise highly sensitive questions about participating in an Iraqi campaign that has been spearheaded by Iraqi Shiite militias trained and equipped by Iran, a U.S. adversary.
“This will further enable Iraqi forces under Iraqi command to maneuver and defeat ISIL in the vicinity of Tikrit,” Terry said, using an acronym for the Islamic State group. Tikrit is deemed an important test of the ability of Iraq, with coalition support, to retake ground it ceded to the Islamic State last year. The U.S. initially did not provide air support in Tikrit because Baghdad pointedly chose instead to partner with Iran in a battle it predicted would yield a quick victory. In recent days, however, the Pentagon has called the Iraqi offensive “stalled.” An Associated Press correspondent in Tikrit reported hearing warplanes overhead late Wednesday, followed by multiple explosions. An Iraqi commander in the city told the AP that a warehouse used to store Islamic State weapons was bombed by a U.S. plane, and a U.S. official in Washington confirmed that arms warehouses were among the targets. The Iraqi commander spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss details of the airstrikes. The Washington official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss military details, said there were no more than one dozen airstrikes Wednesday, and said some were conducted by U.S. allies. The official had no details on the extent of allied participation, including
Shiite militiamen guard at the front line in Tikrit, 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, March 25, 2015. At Iraq’s request, the U.S. began airstrikes in Tikrit on Wednesday in support of a stalled Iraqi ground offensive to retake the city from Islamic State fighters, a senior U.S. official said.
which countries launched airstrikes. The official said Wednesday’s attacks were the first in a series that would be carried out in the days to come as the coalition coordinates with Iraqi ground troops who have encircled Tikrit but not penetrated deeply into the city. The battle for Tikrit is widely seen as a step toward the more difficult and potentially decisive battle to regain control of the larger city of Mosul. In an address to the nation Wednesday evening, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi predicted success in Tikrit but did not say the U.S. was providing airstrikes.
A L O N E AT C O N T R O L S , C O - P I L O T SOUGHT TO ‘DESTROY’ THE PLANE authorities were taking charge of the investigation into the co-pilot.
Robin said just before the plane hit the mountain, the sounds of passengers screaming could be heard on the audio. “I think the victims realized just at the last moment,” he said. The A320 is designed with safeguards to allow emergency entry if a pilot inside is unresponsive, but the override code known to the crew does not go into effect - and indeed goes into a lockdown - if the person inside the cockpit specifically denies entry, according to an Airbus training video and a pilot who has six years of experience with the jets.
Rescue workers work on debris at the plane crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, France, Wednesday, March 25, 2015, after a Germanwings jetliner crashed Tuesday in the French Alps. French investigators cracked open the badly damaged black box of a German jetliner on Wednesday and sealed off the rugged Alpine crash site where 150 people died when their plane on a flight from Barcelona, Spain to Duesseldorf, Germany, slammed into a mountain.
PARIS (AP) -- The co-pilot of the doomed Germanwings jet barricaded himself in the cockpit and “intentionally” sent the plane full speed into a mountain in the French Alps, ignoring the pilot’s frantic pounding on the door and the screams of terror from passengers, a prosecutor said Thursday. Co-pilot Andreas Lubitz’s “intention (was) to destroy this plane,” Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said, laying out the horrifying conclusions reached by French aviation investigators after listening to the last minutes of Tuesday’s Flight 9525. The Airbus A320 was flying from Barcelona to Duesseldorf when it began to descend from cruising altitude of 38,000 feet after losing radio contact with air traffic controllers. All 150 on board died when the plane slammed into the mountain. Robin said the pilot, who has not been identified, left the cockpit, presumably to go to the lavatory, and then was unable to regain access. In the meantime, Lubitz, a 28-year-old German, manually set the plane on the descent that drove it into the mountain. Robin said the commander of the plane knocked several times “without response.” He said the door could only be blocked manually. “The most plausible, the most probably, is that the co-pilot voluntarily refused to open the door of the cockpit for the captain and pressed the button for the descent,” Robin said. He said the co-pilot’s responses, initially courteous in the first part of the trip, became “curt” when the captain began the midflight briefing on the planned landing. The information was pulled from the black box cockpit voice recorder, but Robin said the co-pilot said nothing from the moment the commanding pilot left. “It was absolute silence in the cockpit,” he said. During the final minutes of the flight’s descent, pounding could be heard on the cockpit door as plane alarms sounded but the co-pilot’s breathing was normal the whole time, Robin said. “It’s obvious this co-pilot took advantage of the commander’s absence. Could he have known he would leave? It is too early to say,” he said. He said Lubitz had never been flagged as a terrorist and would not give details on his religion or ethnic background. German
Airlines in Europe are not required to have two people in the cockpit at all times, unlike the standard U.S. operating procedure after the 9/11 attacks changed to require a flight attendant to take the spot of a briefly departing pilot. In the German town of Montabaur, acquaintances told The Associated Press that Lubitz appeared normal and happy when they saw him last fall as he renewed his glider pilot’s license. “He was happy he had the job with Germanwings and he was doing well,” said a member of the glider club, Peter Ruecker, who watched Lubitz learn to fly. “He gave off a good feeling.” News of how investigators thought the plane crashed shocked the families, the airlines and everyone who heard the chilling, blow-by-blow description from the prosecutor. Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said the airline was already “appalled” by what happened. “I could not have imagined that becoming even worse,” Spohr said in Cologne. “We choose our cockpit staff very, very carefully.” The families of victims were briefed about the conclusions just ahead of the announcement. “The victims deserve explanations from the prosecutor,” Robin said. “(But) they have having a hard time believing it.” Robin said the second black box still had not been found but remains of victims and DNA identification have begun, he said. Lubitz had obtained his glider pilot’s license as a teenager, and was accepted as a Lufthansa pilot trainee after finishing a tough German college preparatory school, Ruecker said. He described Lubitz as a “rather quiet” but friendly young man. Lubitz’ recently deleted Facebook page appeared to show a smiling man in a dark brown jacket posing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge in California. The page was wiped sometime in the past two days. Lufthansa said Lubitz joined Germanwings in September 2013, directly out of flight school, and had flown 630 hours. The captain had more than 6,000 hours of flying time and been a Germanwings pilot since May 2014, having previously flown for Lufthansa and Condor. The circumstances of the crash are likely to raise questions anew about the possibility of suicidal pilots. In the 1999 crash of an EgyptAir jet off Nantucket that killed all 217 people on board, U.S. investigators found the co-pilot intentionally caused the plane to go down despite the pilot’s efforts to regain control. Egyptian officials rejected the findings, saying the crash may have been caused by a mechanical failure.
Iran has provided artillery and other weaponry for the Tikrit battle, and senior Iranian advisers have helped Iraq coordinate the offensive. U.S. officials have estimated that two-thirds of the ground troops involved in the offensive are Shiite militias; the others are combinations of regular Iraqi army soldiers and Sunni tribal fighters. In his statement Wednesday, Terry said the U.S. airstrikes were aimed at energizing the Iraqis. “Renewed efforts on the ground supported by the coalition are aimed at dislodging ISIL fighting elements from Tikrit and once again placing the town under (Iraqi) control,” Terry said. The U.S. has hundreds of military advisers in Iraq helping its security forces plan operations against the Islamic State, which occupies large chunks of northern and western Iraq. But the U.S. has said it is not coordinating any military actions with the Iranians. Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said that at Baghdad’s request the U.S. began aerial surveillance over Tikrit in recent days and is sharing the collected intelligence with the Iraqi government. The U.S.-led air campaign, launched in August and joined by several European allies, has allowed Iraqi forces to halt the IS group’s advance and claw back some of the territory militants seized last summer. But the growing Iranian presence on the ground has complicated the mission, with Washington refusing to work directly with a country it views as a regional menace, even though it is currently embroiled with Iran in sensitive negotiations over a nuclear deal. The prominent role of the Shiite militias in the fight to retake Tikrit and other parts of Iraq’s Sunni heartland has also raised concerns that the offensive could deepen the country’s sectarian divide and drive Sunnis into the arms of the Islamic State group. Hadi al-Amiri, leader of the Badr Organization and a commander of Iraq’s Shiite militias, told reporters in Samarra: “If we need them (the U.S.-led coalition ) we will tell them we need them. But we don’t need the coalition. We have surveillance planes over our heads already. The participation of U.S. planes hinders out operations. ... If we need it, we’ll tell our government what we need.” He claimed the militias, the overwhelming majority of which are made up of Shiite fighters, have their own surveillance drones. “We buy them anywhere,” he said. “We have our own ... controlled by Iraqis.” A series of U.S. airstrikes north of Tikrit, in the vicinity of Beiji, in recent weeks has had the indirect benefit of tying down Islamic State forces that might otherwise be operating in defense of Tikrit. On Wednesday, for example, the U.S. military said it had conducted five airstrikes Tuesday near Beiji, home of a major oil refinery that IS has sought to capture. That bombing targeted IS combat units and destroyed what the U.S. called an IS “fighting position,” as well as an IS armored vehicle.
MICROSOFT WANTS US SUPPLIERS TO GIVE E M P L O Y E E S PA I D T I M E OFF NEW YORK (AP) -- Microsoft said Thursday that it will push its U.S. suppliers to give their employees paid time off - but that only applies for the staffers that do work for Microsoft. Microsoft said it has about 2,000 U.S. suppliers, who provide services such as maintenance and security. The technology company does not know how many of its suppliers don’t provide paid time off. It has heard from workers and media reports that some companies don’t provide the benefit. The announcement comes at a time when paid sick leave and income inequality have become hot topics. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama called on Congress to pass measures that would allow workers to earn up to seven days of paid leave. Microsoft Corp. said suppliers with 50 or more employees will be asked to provide at least 15 days of paid time off for employees that mainly work with the Redmond, Washington, company. They can offer either 15 unrestricted paid days off or 10 days of paid vacation and five days of sick leave. Microsoft said it will give suppliers 12 months to make the changes. A Microsoft spokeswoman said the rules will be written into future contracts and those that don’t comply may be dropped as a supplier. She said the company did not discuss the issue with suppliers before the plan was announced Thursday.
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FOR AFRICAN MIGRANTS, TREK TO EUROPE BRINGS RISK, HEARTBREAK VELES, Macedonia (AP) -- This is the moment when Sandrine Koffi’s dream of a new life in Europe ended - and her nightmare of an infant lost in the Macedonian night began.
SHAME AND REGRET
As club-wielding police closed in, the 31-year-old from Ivory Coast couldn’t keep up with her fellow migrants. Not after more than a week of treacherous hikes through mud and bone-chilling rain; of leaky tents, stolen food and fitful sleep; of loads too heavy to bear.
The 28-year-old Malian has failed three times to breach EU immigration checks at airports, costing him at least 3,000 euros. This is his first attempt on foot, and he has mixed feelings.
Some are confident of reaching Germany or France. Sekou Yara is not.
“I left many people whom I love so much. I left my wife and our 4-year-old child,” said Yara, frustrated at sacrificing so much only to be stuck in Greece, where he says migrants can’t find jobs and sometimes must dig for food in the trash.
Koffi had given her 10-month-old daughter, Kendra, to a stronger person to carry as the 40-member group of West Africans walked with trepidation into Veles, Macedonia. They hoped, because it was pitch dark and miserably cold, that no one would see them and raise the alarm. But after a 10-day trek over 150 kilometers (90 miles), their luck ran out. Officers captured Koffi and deported her with most of the group back to Greece. Others who escaped carried Kendra all the way to the Serbian border. That was more than two weeks ago. Now, the mother cannot stop crying for her distant daughter - or wondering why they can’t travel like “normal” people. “I feel like I’m not a human being,” Koffi told The Associated Press from the migrants’ safe house in Greece, where she and her daughter had arrived last month in hopes of being escorted through the Balkans to Hungary and, eventually, to family in Paris. “Why is it necessary to separate a mother from her child? Why is all of this necessary?” HUMAN TIDE Each month, a tide of humanity pours through the hills of Greece, Macedonia and Serbia in hopes of entering the heart of the 28-nation European Union through its vulnerable back door in the Balkans. This is the newest of a half-dozen land and sea routes that Arab, Asian and African smugglers use to funnel migrants illegally from war zones and economic woes to opportunities in the West. Most don’t make it on their first attempt. Nor their third or fifth. Many, it seems, just keep trying - and failing - over and over. The AP followed a group of migrants to document the challenges of the Western Balkans route, witnessing key events on the journey: the confrontations with police and locals, disagreements with the smuggler leading them and among themselves, and other difficulties along the way. The flow of migrants has grown from a trickle in 2012 to become the second-most popular path for illegal immigration into Europe, behind only the more dangerous option of sailing from North Africa to Italy. Frontex, the EU agency that helps governments police the bloc’s leaky frontiers, says it appears nothing will deter migrants from trying the long walk that starts in northern Greece. Their monitors have detected more than 43,000 illegal crossings on the Western Balkans route in 2014, more than double the year before. And 2015 already looks on pace for a record number, with 22,000 arrivals in Hungary in the first two months. One pivotal point for the route is Turkey, a magnet for refugees of wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. The Turks provide easy travel visas to residents of most of Asia and Africa, too. Another is EU neighbor Greece, where migrants can claim asylum and usually, after a short detention, are permitted to travel freely within the country. But few intend to stay in Greece, with its debt-crippled economy and locals’ antipathy to the migrants. “Europe has not faced a situation like this since World War II, with so many conflicts happening so near to home, with fallen states from Libya to Syria and unrelenting conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Frontex spokeswoman Ewa Moncure. “And it’s a lot easier to take a boat from Turkey to Greece than to cross the open Mediterranean. Thousands drown taking the other route.” FROM ABIDJAN TO ATHENS
“It is shameful to live like this. I just want a normal life,” he said. Yara’s trip doesn’t last long. The next morning, he and another Malian are arrested shortly after the 45 arrive at the Thessaloniki bus station. Unlike the others, those two have no ID papers. a migrant from Cameroon feeds 10-months-old Kendra Koffi on their way to the Greek-Macedonian border near the town of Polikastro, Greece. The tide of hopeful migrants pours through the vulnerable ‘back-door’ countries in the hope of entering the 28-nation European Union, and although most people don’t make it, the human tide continues to grow, according to Frontex, the EU agency that helps governments police the bloc’s leaky frontiers.
“Never in my life was I even on a boat,” says Jean Paul Apetey, a 34-year-old Ivorian with a reputation as a sharp-witted opportunist. And so, when smugglers ask him if he wants to pilot the vessel to Greece in exchange for a free ticket, he goes straight to the stern engine of the rigid inflatable boat, overloaded with 47 migrants, and acts as if he knows what he is doing. Smugglers rarely ride on one-way journeys, facing prison if caught. Instead, they charge 1,000 euros ($1,100) or more per passenger, rich compensation for the sacrifice of a boat. The smugglers point Apetey to a Greek island in the distance - he doesn’t know if it’s Kos, Samos or Lesbos because he had no map - but boasts of reaching the target in 17 minutes flat. “I have many witnesses,” he says proudly. THE SAFE HOUSE The walls are sweating in the safe house in Thessaloniki, Greece, a windowless basement apartment with no furnishings, two bedrooms and a camp-style cooker on the floor. It’s the end of February, and an African smuggler has brought 45 clients to this base camp to escort them on off-road paths through Macedonia to Serbia. Among the group are 11 women, including two with 10-month-old children. The smuggler, a former soldier, agreed to allow an AP journalist to accompany them on condition he not be identified because what he’s doing is illegal. He goes from migrant to migrant, checking their readiness for the journey to Serbia. By car, it would take less than five hours. On foot, it’s an estimated 10 days. When some giggle at his questions, he sets a stern tone: “Shut up. This isn’t a joke once you’re out there. If you think it’s funny, I’ll send you back to Athens.” He’s taken three other groups on the route, and charges those on this trip a wide range of prices, depending on their ability to pay but averaging around $500. Discounts apply if they help him keep the others supplied and disciplined. Kids go free. Most are French speakers from Ivory Coast, Mali, Cameroon and Burkina Faso. Only a few speak English. One - a Congolese whose communist parents named him Fidel Castro - speaks both. All are hungry, so a Malian woman named Aicha “Baby” Teinturiere boils macaroni on the camp stove, adding to the humid air. The smuggler sends others to stock up on sleeping bags, socks and gloves for those who haven’t brought the necessities.
G E O R G I A O F F I C E R H A D T I M E T O U S E N O N L E T H A L F O R C E nut said the officer failed to ask Hill questions that might have shed light on his mental state. Olsen could not be reached for comment. Personnel records obtained by The Associated Press show that Olsen was well-regarded by his commanders and faced no major disciplinary issues. “He’s disrobed, so it’s blatantly apparent that he is not carrying nor concealing a weapon,” Chestnut said. “He’s not saying anything to the officer, so he’s not threatening the officer. There was absolutely no reason whatsoever for that officer to even draw his firearm, let alone use it.” The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is looking into the shooting. DeKalb County police spokeswoman Mekka Parish declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation. Dentist Rashmi Patel, who has been charged in the death of a patient who became unresponsive while having 20 teeth pulled and several implants installed last year. Patel faces a misdemeanor count of criminally negligent homicide and a felony count of tampering with evidence, according to police.
ATLANTA (AP) -- Witness statements suggest that a metro Atlanta police officer was initially 180 feet away from a naked, mentally ill man and could have retreated or used nonlethal force rather than shooting him, an attorney for the late man’s family said Wednesday.
DeKalb County police officer Robert Olsen shot 26-year-old Anthony Hill on March 9 while responding to a call reporting a suspicious person knocking on doors and crawling naked on the ground.
Hill’s mother, Carolyn Giummo, said Hill was an aspiring musician and never violent. She said she first learned her son was suffering from bipolar disorder after he returned from a military deployment in Afghanistan. He moved to Atlanta in 2013, but he did not receive his first medication from the Atlanta VA Medical Center until January. VA spokesman Greg Kendall said the hospital would not comment on Hill’s care. “He survived the war, the bullets, everything, just to come back home and be gunned down,” she said.
The smuggler deliberately keeps his distance at the station, communicating by phone to reduce chances of being spotted as a trafficker. Tell police you’re going to Athens, not the border, he instructs them. Don’t all sit together; spread out. In every direction are migrants from Syria, Afghanistan and Eritrea, all looking suspicious. Some hide in toilet stalls as the police canvass the crowds, checking documents. At least 20 from other groups are taken to a nearby police station. Fear of arrest keeps the West Africans from boarding their intended morning bus north to the frontier town of Polikastro. It’s not illegal for documented asylum-seekers to board a domestic bus in Greece, so nerves eventually settle, and all 43 get on four later buses: Greeks in front, Arabs in the middle, and blacks in the back. They’re a half-day behind schedule as the last members arrive in Polikastro. The hatred of some locals toward the Africans is clear near the town square as women prepare to boil water for the babies’ formula. A motorist drives over their bags, smashing the milk powder and cooking gear as he curses them. The easy part of the trip has ended. BRIGHT START The first day’s hike from Polikastro takes the group along a rail line, and they must navigate a rickety wooden bridge, hoping no train comes. Within the first hour, both women carrying infants become weary. “This is my souvenir!” jokes Apetey as he agrees to carry Sandrine Koffi’s daughter, Kendra. Another man takes Christian, the 10-month-old son of a Cameroonian woman, Mireille Djeukam. Kendra was born in Turkey, Christian in Greece. Both have relatives in Paris. After 10 hours, the 43 reach the border with Macedonia before midnight. They don’t bother with tents, preferring sleeping bags in the open air. The smuggler doesn’t want the full group to cross the border in daylight, but they’re already short of supplies - and the cheapest local shop is on the Macedonian side. So he leads three men on a reconnaissance trip through the trees. A border patrol vehicle sits on a hilltop but doesn’t move. The three others crouch down in the woods as he heads alone into the supermarket. A cashier inside warns the smuggler to hide because police are shopping in another aisle. After a tense wait, he emerges with six trash bags full of bread, canned sardines, juice and water. CROSSING BORDERS That night, the group crosses the border and a highway. Each approaching set of headlights is feared to be police. The chill means it’s time to sleep in the 10 tents they’ve brought. At the campsite, Hilarion Charlemagne illustrates his journey with a collection of cellphone SIM cards. “This one is from Togo, where I was a refugee for one year and eight months,” the 45-year-old Ivorian teacher says, identifying others as from Mali, Mauritania and Algeria. He tells of being turned back at the Moroccan border because he lacked 500 euros; of working as a tutor for an Algerian family for a month; of trying to reach Europe by boat five times and managing to reach Greece on the sixth attempt. Charlemagne and others have another way to remember the countries they’ve visited: recounting the racial epithets hurled at them in a half-dozen languages. SUSPICIOUS MINDS The group is startled by a Macedonian shepherd and his snarling dog. Tents are hurriedly packed. But in the rush, one of the smuggler’s helpers has lost his cellphone. Angry accusations are levied, and everyone is searched without success. The trek resumes at night. They scramble over an exposed ridge and sprint across a road junction, hiding in long reeds. They catch their breath under a full moon. A Malian woman, 34-year-old Miriam Toure, falls with a cramp. Two young soccer players in the group offer her a sports massage as she howls in pain. A man with a chronic leg injury, Mohamed “Mo-Mo” Konate, applies some ointment he uses for himself. Nothing works, so men take turns carrying Toure, joking she’s only faking to get a piggy-back ride. After a half-hour, they’re worn out and she’s told to walk or stay behind. She limps barefoot, weeping silently while trying to keep up. Passing through cabbage fields, some stuff the greens in their backpacks. They jostle to refill bottles when passing a tap bearing an Orthodox sign and the inscription “holy well.” Around 4 a.m., in the rain, they pitch tents - difficult in the dark - under a freeway overpass marked by graffiti from Afghan migrants. After sunrise, several members accuse each other of stealing their food, drink and bags as they slept. The smuggler threatens to return them to Greece, where Syrian smugglers will charge them triple for the journey. Apologies are demanded and given. Nearby, Charlemagne reads from the Book of Job. BREAKING POINT
Hill’s family said the Air Force veteran suffered from bipolar disorder and had stopped taking his medication because of side effects.
That night, the rain turns to snow, and the tents start to break. Sheltered campsites on the trail are occupied by other migrant groups, and the crying of the two infants is incessant. Some question whether the children, so cold and hungry, could be at risk of death if they continue.
Witnesses at the apartment complex told a private investigator that when Olsen first encountered Hill, they were about 180 feet away from each other, attorney Christopher Chestnut said. Those witnesses said Hill started a “brisk” walk toward the officer, who may have ordered Hill to stop. Chestnut declined to release the identities of the witnesses or their entire statements.
They keep following the Vardar River north, but near a village abandon the 41-year-old “Mo-Mo,” who cannot continue even with his cane.
Chestnut said those who saw the incident reported that Hill slowed down but kept moving toward the police officer. Chest-
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Food is so scarce that sardines are rationed to one can daily for three people. On the sixth day of walking, they reach the town of Nogotino, two days behind schedule and with a freezing wind howling. At 1 a.m., Sandrine Koffi passes out and slides down a muddy embankment. She is revived, and they walk another hour. Mireille Djeukam, the other woman traveling with a child, has tried and failed to
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FRANCE GETS AUDIO FROM JET’S BLACK BOX, BUT CAUSE A MYSTERY SEYNE-LES-ALPES, France (AP) -- The last communication from a doomed German jetliner was routine. The mangled black box has yielded sounds and voices, the lead investigator said Wednesday, but so far not the “slightest explanation” why the plane plunged into an Alpine mountainside, killing all 150 on board.
about 10 percent of crashes occurring at that altitude. “We still cannot understand what happened there yesterday,” he said. “Lufthansa has never in its history lost an aircraft in cruise flight and we cannot understand how an airplane that was in perfect technical condition, with two experienced and trained Lufthansa pilots, was involved in such a terrible accident.”
Midway through a flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf on Tuesday, Germanwings Flight 9525 was chilling in its normalcy. The last communication was a routine request to continue on its route, said Remi Jouty, the head of the accident investigation bureau, or BEA.
The four possible causes of any crash are human error, mechanical problems, weather, criminal activity or any combination of these. Investigators use the cockpit voice and flight data recorders to focus their work, said Alan E. Diehl, a former air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board.
Then minutes later, at 10:30 a.m., the Airbus A320 inexplicably began to descend. Within 10 minutes it had plunged some 32,000 feet from its cruising altitude of 38,000 feet, slamming into the remote mountainside at an altitude just above 6,000 feet, Jouty said. With no distress call or other indication of anything out of the ordinary, French investigators struggled Wednesday to solve the mystery. While alarming, the descent was still gradual enough to suggest the plane was under the control of its navigators. “The descent is compatible with a plane controlled by pilots,” Jouty said. “It is also compatible with a plane controlled by automatic pilot.” “At this point, there is no explanation,” he added. “One doesn’t imagine that the pilot consciously sends his plane into a mountain.” The BEA chief said “sounds and voices” were registered on the digital audio file recovered from the first black box, retrieved six hours after the crash and delivered Wednesday to investigators. He did not divulge the contents, insisting time was needed to decipher them. Confusion surrounded the fate of the second black box. French President Francois Hollande said the casing of the flight data recorder had been found in the scattered debris, but was missing the memory card that captures 25 hours’ worth of information on the position and condition of almost every major part in a plane. However, Jouty refused to confirm the discovery French officials said terrorism appeared unlikely and Germany’s top security official said there was no evidence of foul play.
A student who knew some of the German students involved in a crashed plane, reacts during a minute of silence in front of the council building in Llinars del Valles, near Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, March 25, 2015. Sixteen 10th-grade students from a town in western Germany and two of their teachers had just spent a week on an exchange near Barcelona and were less than an hour from landing when their Germanwings flight crashed in southern France. Officials confirmed Tuesday they were among the 150 people who died in the crash, including what are believed to be 67 Germans, many Spaniards and one person from the Netherlands.
As authorities struggled to unravel the puzzle, Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy converged on the remote accident site to pay their respects to the dead mostly German and Spanish citizens among at least 17 nationalities.
Jouty said the voice recorder, which records cockpit conversations, had yielded sounds and voices, though he refused to specify whether they belonged to the pilots or divulge what was said. He said deciphering the material was “an ongoing work” that could take days or weeks.
“Are these pilots fully conscious? Are they doing things? Are they just chatting? Do they recognize that something is wrong? ... Do you hear the sound of alarm bells? Are there spoken messages from the aircraft that are warning something has gone wrong?”
“There’s work of understanding voices, sounds, alarms, attribution of different voices,” the BEA chief said.
Helicopters ferried in rescue workers and other personnel throughout the day. More than 600 rescue and security workers and aviation investigators were on site, French officials said.
Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr, himself a pilot, said he found the crash of a plane flown by two experienced captains while at cruising altitude “inexplicable.” Cruise is considered the safest part of a flight, with only
Talhah was born in November 2009 to Chesser and his wife, a woman he met at a Washington, D.C., area mosque. They planned to travel together to Somalia where he would join al-Shabab, but Nzabanita’s mother hid her passport. Then, in the summer of 2010, they tried again. This time, Nzabanita dropped off Chesser and the baby to make the trip without her. Soon, they were both arrested. Chesser was facing a lengthy prison sentence, and Nzabanita struck a plea deal requiring her to leave the country, likely for good. According to Chesser’s complaint, agents monitoring his prison conversations in January 2011 tipped off Barbara Chesser that the young couple was making plans for a friend to take the boy to Jordan and join Nzabanita there. Chesser’s complaint states that agents went to the airport to stop that trip. Soon thereafter, Barbara Chesser won full custody of the boy after a judge declared Chesser and Nzabanita to be unfit parents. LaFond argues that the FBI had no business disclosing the content of his conversations to intervene in a family custody dispute.
Then he tried to join a terror group in Somalia, and went to the airport with his baby, hoping that would make him appear less suspicious.
“Prisoners largely lose the right to keep secrets from the government,” he wrote, but “they retain the right to keep those secrets from those outside the government.”
It didn’t work - stopped by the no-fly list, he was arrested and sentenced to 25 years in prison for attempting to support terrorist groups. He also pleaded guilty to threatening violence online.
Chesser was acting as his own lawyer when he first sued, in 2013. Judge Liam O’Grady dismissed that complaint, which remains under seal, as delusional and irrational. Chesser then amended his complaint, saying the essential facts remain accurate.
Chesser, 25, now lives in the Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. His wife, a Ugandan diplomat’s daughter named Proscovia Nzabanita, had to leave the United States in early 2011 after pleading guilty to lying about his plans the year before. The fate of their baby, Talhah, now 5 years old, remains at the center of a dispute being heard in federal appellate court on Thursday. Chesser is suing the FBI and his own mother, alleging that agents interfered with his parental rights by conspiring with his mother and her partner to ensure that the boy could not travel to Jordan to live with his wife.
The flight data recorder is important because of the critical information it provides on the plane’s altitude, speed, location and condition. But experts said the analysis can begin with the voice recordings investigators already have in hand.
“This is a true tragedy, and the visit here has shown us that,” Merkel said after she and Hollande overflew the desolate craggy mountainside.
Wayne LaFond, says in their appeal. But Chesser isn’t seeking custody. Instead, he wants monetary damages.
McLEAN, Va. (AP) -- Muslim convert Zachary Chesser of Virginia was very much on law enforcement’s radar after posting threats against the creators of “South Park” for cartoons he felt insulted the prophet Muhammad.
“You’re usually dealing with a jigsaw puzzle with many of the pieces missing,” he said. “You start eliminating things that didn’t happen.”
“You have a moment in time and you can start linking what you hear to what you have seen happening on the radar trace,” said Joris Melkert, an aerospace engineer at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.
T E R R O R C O N V I C T: M Y M O T H E R A N D T H E F B I V I O L AT E D M Y R I G H T S
This undated handout image provide by the US Court for the Easter District of Virginia shows Zachary Chesser. When Chesser tried to travel to Somalia to join the terror group al-Shabab, he took his infant son with him, hoping that flying with a baby would make him look less suspicious. It didn’t work. Chesser was arrested, charged and convicted of attempting to support terrorist groups and soliciting violence online, not only by trying to join Al-Shabab, but also by using the Internet to threaten the creators of the “South Park” cartoon series for episodes he felt were insulting to the prophet Muhammad.
“Both will point you in directions of what is critical,” Diehl says. “Based on what you learn from the recorders, you might focus on key pieces of wreckage.”
“It might not be particularly normal for the FBI to become so involved in a child custody proceeding ... but the scenarios described in the amended Complaint are far from fanciful,” he wrote. O’Grady again dismissed the lawsuit, saying Chesser had no expectation of privacy for conversations that occurred in a prison setting and therefore no reason to object when the FBI disclosed the conversation to his mother.
Germanwings CEO Thomas Winkelmann said the airline was in the process of contacting victims’ families. He said the 144 passengers and six crew members included 72 Germans, 35 Spaniards, three Americans and two people each from Australia, Argentina, Iran, Venezuela, and one person each from Britain, the Netherlands, Colombia, Mexico, Japan, Denmark, Belgium and Israel. The three Americans included a mother and daughter, the U.S. State Department said. Some of the victims may have had dual nationalities; Spain’s government said 51 citizens had died in the crash. Two babies, two opera singers and 16 German high school students and their teachers returning from an exchange program in Spain were among those who lost their lives. The principal of Joseph Koenig High School, Ulrich Wessel, called the loss a “tragedy that renders one speechless.” In Spain, flags flew at half-staff on government buildings and a minute of silence was held in government offices across the country. Parliament canceled its Wednesday session. Barcelona’s Liceu opera house held two minutes of silence at noon to honor the two German opera singers, Oleg Bryjak and Maria Radner, who were returning home after a weekend performance at the theater. Germanwings canceled several flights Wednesday because some crews declared themselves unfit to fly after losing colleagues.
the parent’s constitutional right to privacy,” especially when the disclosure revolves around plans to relocate a child out of the country ahead of a custody hearing. Barbara Chesser did not return calls seeking comment. This damages dispute is just the latest unusual turn in this saga. Addressing Chesser at his sentencing in 2011, O’Grady said he “took just a shocking leap from a high-school athlete to a highly energized traitor.” Chesser’s lawyers described a young man casting about for an identity, throwing himself headlong into whatever hobby consumed him. He joined a Korean breakdancing team, and became so fascinated with Japanese anime that he spent four years studying Japanese and traveled to Japan on a school trip. Then, he converted to Islam after becoming infatuated during his senior year with the daughter of Somali immigrants. That ended when he demanded they marry. Chesser’s divorced father said his son became so radical, he was “even wearing some type of loin cloth in place of underwear.” Chesser’s name resurfaced in the news earlier this year when the FBI named a “close associate” of his in northern Virginia, Liban Mohamed, to its list of most-wanted terrorists.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond appointed LaFond to handle Chesser’s appeal.
Instead, the boy is being raised by his mother, Barbara Chesser, a senior lawyer in the Office of the Attorney General in the District of Columbia, and her partner, who also is named as a defendant.
“Nothing alleged by Chesser is irrational or incredible. Chesser’s complaint alleges that government agents misused confidential information they had gathered about him,” LaFond wrote.
Chesser was behind bars and Nzabanita was facing deportation when his mother initiated custody proceedings, but both still enjoyed full parental rights, and they “opposed placing the young boy with his grandparents, who did not share Chesser and his wife’s conservative Islamic beliefs,” his court-appointed attorney,
Lawyers for the FBI agents want a ruling that their actions are completely legal. They wrote that no precedent exists “remotely suggesting that the disclosure of a parent’s travel plans for a child can violate
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The Weekly News Digest, Mar 30 thru April 6, 2015
11
SUSPICION SURROUNDED FLORIDA B U S I N E S S M A N W H O FA K E D H I S D E AT H
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- Jose Lantigua’s family appeared to be living the American Dream. The Cuban immigrant claimed he had a heroic military career and earned numerous degrees before running a successful furniture business. He owned a Florida beachfront condo and a new home atop a verdant North Carolina mountain.
Finally, the crematorium that had supposedly been used was 250 miles from where Lantigua supposedly died. Investigators found that suspicious. “The insured’s body was purportedly not prepared in any way prior to the cremation and likely would have rapidly decomposed during the lengthy travel in high temperatures,” American General said in court documents. The crematorium representative who signed the certificate was paid to generate false documents, the company said.
But in 2012, as his Circle K Furniture slid deeper into debt, those who knew Lantigua said he’d made some odd decisions: he ordered tons of new furniture on the company dime for his family’s many homes. He replaced the bookkeeper he’d used for years with a relative. He built a panic room with steel doors inside his North Carolina hideaway.
Last November, American General denied the claim and lawsuits were filed. Joseph Lantigua has not responded to several phone messages from AP seeking comment. No contact information for Christina Lantigua could be found. Neither has been charged with a crime.
And, prosecutors say, he and his wife began planning his fake death to scam almost $8 million from insurance companies. Lantigua, 62, and his 57-year-old wife, Daphne Simpson, are jailed on seven Florida insurance fraud charges each after he was arrested by federal agents Saturday in North Carolina wearing a brown toupee and a dyed beard. Each count carries a possible 30-year sentence. No matter how the criminal case turns out, his arrest gives a resolute end to a long-running court battle between Lantigua’s family and insurance companies that refused to pay off on his life policies because, for many reasons proven right, they didn’t think he was dead. “I’ve never seen anything quite like (this case),” said Joe Licandro, a Jacksonville prosecutor working the case. “There was always a suspicion, but they were able to evade authorities as long as he did, and she didn’t have any missteps either - until recently.” Lantigua, who had emigrated to the U.S. as a youth, purchased Circle K Furniture in 2008 after claiming to have served more than 20 years as a senior officer and in Airborne Ranger special operations in the U.S. Army, where he claimed to have earned the Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest military honor for bravery. Records released by the Army contained no record of Lantigua seeing combat and no record of his serving in special forces or of his being awarded the Silver Star. He was enlisted for two years in the 1970s, then served in the Army Reserve from 1980-2002, records show. He also graduated from Florida International University in 1989 with a degree in computer science, the school said, and claimed degrees in management, mathematics and physics and aerospace engineering from Pepperdine University, Northwestern University and the University of Florida, respectively. UF said he attended the school but did not earn a degree and Northwestern had no record of him. Pepperdine did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation. By the time Lantigua bought Circle K Furniture, it had grown from a few items sold from the corner of an old feed store to two large Jacksonville showrooms offering everything from contemporary to country-style pieces made from logs.
In this image taken from video, federal agents execute a search warrant at the Sapphire, N.C., home of Jose Lantigua on Monday, March 23, 2015. Lantigua, a Jacksonville businessman reported dead two years ago in Venezuela, was arrested in North Carolina on Saturday, March 21, on alleged fraud charges after his life insurance companies filed a lawsuit alleging he was alive and they shouldn’t be making payments.
Problems surfaced in 2012, when Lantigua told friends and colleagues he’d fallen ill and needed to go to Venezuela to get an experimental treatment not available in the United States. Simpson stood by his side with an expression of worry, people who know the couple said. Records showed they sold their Jacksonville-area condo for $600,000. About this time, Circle K was also developing financial problems. No one suspected anything suspicious at first, said Kathleen Leis, who was Circle K’s bookkeeper. But as the company’s debt grew into hundreds of thousands of dollars, she said Lantigua kept buying furniture for his family with company funds. Still, she trusted the man, whose kindness she said she leaned on previously when she had problems. Then Lantigua replaced her as bookkeeper with his sister-in-law. “I wasn’t given a reason except I was needed more on the floor and his sister-in-law couldn’t sell furniture,” she said. Before long, Lantigua headed to Venezuela to deal with his alleged illness. It was there, in April 2013, that his family said he died of a heart attack, his body cremated there instead of returned home. Circle K’s stores closed a month later and the company soon filed for bankruptcy. Lantigua’s family began filing life insurance claims for the nearly $8 million in policies he’d obtained. At his June 2013 memorial service at High Point Community Church in suburban Jacksonville, Lantigua’s daughter, Christina, sang “Amazing Grace” and the pastor read words of hope as his widow looked on. Meanwhile, American General Life Companies had suspicions about the $2 million claim Lantigua’s son, Joseph, had filed, particularly the Venezuelan death and cremation certificates accompanying it. First, the physician who signed Lantigua’s death certificate never received or examined the body. The investigators also said there had been no autopsy.
American General’s findings piqued the interest of local and federal prosecutors, who opened an investigation that included surveillance. At the time of his supposed death, Lantigua and his wife had been building a home at the top of a steep, narrow road on Hogback Mountain in North Carolina, a remote vacation destination near Asheville. “It’s possible that he’s been hiding out there these past couple of years,” said Licandro, the Jacksonville prosecutor. Residents of the nearby village of Sapphire said the area is perfect for hiding out: only a couple hundred people live there and they keep to themselves. But Lantigua apparently thought trouble was coming. He built a bunker in his basement complete with 20-inch thick steel doors, said a contractor who worked on the house. “It made me wonder why would you need a panic (room) here? There’s not that many people around here you got to worry about,” said Forrest Boutte, 28. Boutte said Lantigua was a nice, straightforward man. On Saturday, U.S. State Department security agents arrested Lantigua near the Hogback Mountain home. The passport he had used to get back into the U.S. had proved his downfall. The man whose name Lantigua was trying to steal was black - the photo Lantigua submitted showed he is white. Suspicious, State Department agents used facial recognition software to discover his true identity. Finding him wasn’t hard - while the other information on his passport application was allegedly forged, he listed his supposed widow as his emergency contact and gave the correct North Carolina address. For those who knew him, the news that he was still alive was startling. “I’m just shocked. He didn’t seem that type at all. He seemed to me an upstanding, Christian family man. He was nice to everybody and wanted help people,” Leis said.
AN MIGRANTS J E S S E J A C K S O N J R . L E A V E S F E D E R A L A F R I C continued from page 9 P R I S O N F O R H A L F WAY H O U S E pass through EU airports about 10 times already, but finds this trip much harder.
paign funds as a “piggy bank.” Jackson’s resignation ended a once-promising political career that was tarnished by unproven allegations that he was involved in discussions to raise campaign funds for imprisoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in exchange for an appointment to President Barack Obama’s vacated U.S. Senate seat. Jackson has denied the allegations.
“It’s very hard. Too hard,” she said. “If I knew it was this difficult, I wouldn’t have done it. I’m not used to this type of walking. I’m always in the back.” The youngest and fittest men grumble under their breath that they might be in Serbia already if not for the women and children. Laughter amid such suffering seems impossible, but a limping Miriam Toure brings down the house with an exasperated question: “Where is Macedonia?” CASUALTIES AND CHAOS As the group reaches Veles, the first major Macedonian town on the route and 145 kilometers (87 miles) into their hike, Djeukam cannot go on because of her aching legs. The group leaves her and 10-month-old Christian at an Orthodox church. The 40 remaining try to stick to Veles’ riverside railway, but around 10 p.m. they are confronted by youths. They run onto a road, startling motorists. Two police arrive, brandishing clubs and beating stragglers. Five are caught, including Sandrine Koffi.
former Illinois Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., leaves federal court in Washington after being sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for misusing $750,000 in campaign funds. Jackson Jr. will be released from a federal prison on Thursday, March 26, 2015, and will serve out the remainder of his term in a Washington, D.C., halfway house, former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy told The Associated Press after visiting Jackson behind bars.
CHICAGO (AP) -- Former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. was released from an Alabama federal prison early Thursday, two years after pleading guilty to spending $750,000 in campaign money on personal items, his father said. The Rev. Jesse Jackson described his son’s release from the minimum security federal prison camp at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, as a “joyous reunion” and said the younger Jackson was doing “very well.” Jackson, a 50-year-old Illinois Democrat, began his sentence on Nov. 1, 2013. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons lists his release date as Sept. 20, 2015. Former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, who visited Jackson on Monday, said Jackson would serve out the remainder of his 2 1/2-year term in a Washington, D.C., halfway house. Jackson must also spend three years on supervised release and complete 500 hours of community service. Jackson served in Congress from 1995 until he resigned in November 2012. In June of 2012 he took medical leave for treatment of bipolar disorder and other issues. Jackson’s wife, Sandra Jackson, a former Chicago alderman, was sentenced to a year in prison for filing false joint federal income tax returns that knowingly understated the income the couple received. She must serve her term after her husband completes his sentence. The couple has two children. According to court documents, the Jacksons spent campaign money on televisions, restaurant dinners and other costly personal items, including $43,350 on a gold-plated men’s Rolex watch and $9,587.64 on children’s furniture. During sentencing, the judge scolded Jackson for using cam-
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In the melee, members of the group drop their gear and scatter. A woman breaks an ankle and is hospitalized in the Macedonian capital, Skopje. By 3 a.m., the smuggler has found only eight of his clients. The next day, Aicha “Baby” Teinturiere returns to Veles to search for her bags and stumbles into the police. She claims, falsely, to be looking for her baby; she has none. The police believe her and agree to help search - and in the process discover and arrest many of her comrades. By the end of the 10th day, all but 13 are in custody and put on trucks back to Greece with scores of others from Syria, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
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But Teinturiere is not among them. The sympathetic police set her free so she could keep searching for the make-believe child. NEXT STEPS Two days later, the West Africans reach a smuggler’s safe house in the border town of Lojane, Macedonia. Teinturiere is given responsibility for caring for Kendra until Koffi can complete the trip. Others, mostly the strongest men in their 20s, cross into Serbia, where they meet the next smugglers, who charge them 100 euros each to drive them hidden in trucks to the Hungarian border. Three weeks into the journey, the first few make it to Hungary and send triumphant messages to friends. The smuggler returns to Thessaloniki with his deported clients. He organizes a second trek combining new migrants with many from the original group, including Koffi and the first person arrested on the previous trip, Sekou Yara. They depart a week later but run into a police ambush south of Veles. All are returned to Greece. Another attempt to complete the 250-kilometer (150-mile) journey on foot has begun this week. Joining the smuggler are at least 20 veterans of the last two failures, including Koffi. Her focus used to be on reaching her husband, mother and other relatives in Paris. Now, she prays simply to make it far enough to be reunited with her child. There’s no joy left in her heart, only a sense of being duped, over and over. “In Turkey, I was told: `You just take a train, it will be easy,’” she said. “It was a lie.”
12
The Weekly News Digest, Mar 30 thru April 6, 2015
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2 EXOTIC TERMITES FIND LOVE IN FLORIDA, WORRYING RESEARCHERS
MIAMI (AP) -- Two particularly hungry, exotic termite species apparently have found love halfway around the world and, as with so many other Florida hook-ups, the results are disturbing.
throughout the Southeast and blamed for roughly $300 million in property damage each year in New Orleans alone. Asian termites normally found in tropical southeastern Asia have spread to Brazil, the Caribbean and South Florida.
Asian and Formosan subterranean termites are two of the most destructive termite species in the world, responsible for much of the estimated $40 billion in economic losses attributed to termites annually. Their habitat ranges overlap in lush South Florida, already home to a daunting number of invasive plant and animal species thriving where they should not. Each termite invaded Florida, probably through cargo shipments, several decades ago, but experts believed the colonies didn’t mingle because their aboveground mating swarms launched in different months.
Asian termites aren’t expected to spread farther north in the U.S. than South Florida because they don’t tolerate colder weather, but a hybrid might be able to thrive in a greater range than either species alone. Liquid insecticides injected into the soil or baited traps are effective ways for homeowners to fight back against Asian and Formosan termites, and those methods should work against any hybrid, Messenger said.
That is, until University of Florida researcher Thomas Chouvenc noticed something unusual about the termite swarms in his Fort Lauderdale neighborhood two years ago. The two species were flying around looking for mates at the same time and they were giving each other that look. The research is preliminary and leaves many questions unanswered, but the idea of a hybrid termite carrying the destructive capabilities of two invasive species worries experts. “That’s big news,” said Matthew Messenger, an entomologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “They’re two bad ones, too.” Chouvenc is the lead author of a study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE detailing observations of Asian and Formosan termite swarms in downtown Fort Lauderdale and then in a lab at UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. In the field, including Chouvenc’s own yard, researchers documented the two species swarming at the same time and in the same places. The same behavior was documented again last year, and Chouvenc said he’s seeing again this spring. “What we didn’t expect to see was when they’re in the same place at the same time, we saw the male Asian subterranean termites looking for the female Formosan termites in the field,” Chouvenc said.
This undated photo provided by Thomas Chouvenc of the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS), shows young hybrid termite offspring eight months after the light-colored female Formosan termite, bottom right, mated with the darker male Asian termite, bottom left, in Florida. The Asian and Formosan termites, two of the most destructive termite species in the world, invaded Florida, probably through cargo shipments, several decades ago. Now they may be breeding where their habitats overlap in South Florida, according to a University of Florida study published Wednesday, March 25, 2015, in the journal PLOS ONE.
analysis confirmed they were looking at a hybrid species. Similar hybridization has been documented in invasive bee and fire ant species, but not in termites. The two termite species also are found together on the island of Oahu in Hawaii and in Taiwan, but the simultaneous swarms and hybridization found in Florida appears to be a new phenomenon. It’s still unknown whether a hybrid colony has survived in the wild in Fort Lauderdale, or whether the hybrids bred in the lab can reproduce. Female termites can lay millions of eggs, but it takes five to eight years for a colony to produce the mature adults that fly in the mating swarms. “Let’s keep our fingers crossed that they’re not able (to reproduce) and that they’re donkey termites,” said Messenger, who reviewed the data but did not participate in the UF study.
“When we put them in vials and brought them back to the lab, to our biggest surprise they started laying eggs and the eggs started growing.”
Even if hybrid termites can’t reproduce, they could cause damage over many years. Alone, each species is a challenge to control. Their below-ground colonies are bigger than those of native termites and can be hard to find.
The resulting “hybrid” colony in the lab grew more vigorously than colonies produced by either species alone, researchers said. Genetic
The Formosan termites originated in China but now are established
A M E R I C A N , R U S S I A N L E AV I N G E A R T H F O R Y E A R AT S PA C E S TAT I O N will oversee the comings and goings of numerous cargo ships, as well as other Russian-launched crews. Soprano superstar Sarah Brightman will stop by as a space tourist in September. THE SCIENCE Doctors are eager to learn what happens to Kelly and Kornienko once they surpass the usual six-month stay for space station residents. Bones and muscles weaken in weightlessness, as does the immune system. Body fluids also shift into the head when gravity is absent, and that puts pressure on the brain and the eyes, impairing vision for some astronauts in space. Might these afflictions peter out after six months, hold steady or ramp up? That’s what researchers want to find out so they can protect Mars-bound crews in the decades ahead. THE TWINS Russia’s Soyuz-FG booster rocket with the space capsule Soyuz TMA-16M that will carry a new crew to the International Space Station (ISS) is photographed at the launch pad in Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, Wednesday, March 25, 2015. The new Soyuz mission is scheduled for Saturday, March 28.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- An American astronaut and Russian cosmonaut will leave Earth this week and move into the International Space Station for an entire year, all in the name of science. Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko begin their marathon mission with a Soyuz rocket launch from Kazakhstan early Saturday - Friday in the U.S. They should arrive at the orbiting outpost six hours later. It will be NASA’s first stab at a one-year spaceflight, a predecessor for Mars expeditions that would last two to three times as long. The Russians are old hands at this, but it’s been nearly two decades since a cosmonaut has spent close to a year in orbit. Five things to know about the duo’s extraordinary endeavor:
NASA’s scientists couldn’t resist when Kelly’s identical twin brother, Mark, a retired astronaut, agreed to take part in many of the same medical experiments as his orbiting sibling. Researchers are eager to see how the space body compares with its genetic double on the ground. They won’t follow the same diet or exercise regime, however. Mark, who’s married to former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, said he has no intentions of consuming bland space-type food or working out and running two hours a day on a treadmill, as his brother will be doing. THE HISTORY NASA and the Russian Space Agency announced Kelly and Kornienko as the one-year crew in late 2012. This will be new territory for NASA, which has never flown anyone longer than seven consecutive months. The Russians hold the world record of 14 months, set by a physician-cosmonaut aboard the former Mir station in 1994-1995. Several other Russians spent between eight and 12 months at Mir. All but one of those long-timers are still alive.
THE CREW Both Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko have lived on the space station before. No-nonsense former military men, they were selected as an astronaut and cosmonaut in the 1990s. Kelly, 51, is a retired Navy captain and former space shuttle commander. Kornienko, 54, is a former paratrooper. The pair will blast off with Russian Gennady Padalka, a veteran spaceman who will spend six months at the orbiting lab.
D o n t Te x t a n d D r i v e
THE MISSION Kelly and Kornienko will remain on board until next March. During that time, they will undergo extensive medical experiments, and prepare the station for the anticipated 2017 arrival of new U.S. commercial crew capsules. That means a series of spacewalks for Kelly. They also
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photo provided by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency shows an asteroid named Itokawa photographed by the Hayabusa probe. On Wednesday, March 25, 2015, NASA announced it is aiming to launch a rocket to an asteroid in five years and grab a boulder off of it - a stepping stone and training mission for an eventual trip sending humans to Mars. Itokawa, 2008 EV5 and Bennu are the candidates for the mission.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- NASA is aiming to launch a rocket to an asteroid in five years and grab a boulder off of it - a stepping stone and training mission for an eventual trip sending humans to Mars. The space agency Wednesday unveiled details of the $1.25 billion plan to launch a solar-powered unmanned spaceship to an asteroid in December 2020. The ship would spend about a year circling the large space rock and pluck a 13-foot boulder off its surface using robotic arms. It would have three to five opportunities to grab the rock, said Robert Lightfoot, NASA’s associate administrator. The smaller rock would be hauled near the moon and parked in orbit around the moon. Using a giant rocket ship and the Orion crew capsule that are still being developed, two astronauts would fly to the smaller rock in 2025 and start exploring. Astronauts aboard Orion would dock with the robotic ship, make spacewalks, climbing around the mini-asteroid to inspect and document, and even grab a piece to return to Earth. The smaller rock might not even be big enough for the two astronauts to stand on; it would have fit in the cargo bay of the now-retired space shuttles. The mission will “demonstrate the capabilities we’re going to need for further future human missions beyond low Earth orbit and then ultimately to Mars,” Lightfoot said. Lightfoot also identified the leading target. It’s a 1,300-foot wide space rock discovered in 2008 called 2008 EV5, making it somewhat larger than most of the asteroids that circle the sun near Earth. Two other space rocks are being considered, called Itokawa and Bennu. NASA managers chose this option over another plan that would lasso or use a giant bag to grab an entire asteroid and haul it near the moon. The selected plan is about $100 million more expensive but it was picked by managers in a meeting Tuesday because it would test technologies and techniques “we’re going to need when we go to another planetary body,” Lightfoot said during a telephone press conference. Those include “soft landing” and grabbing technologies, he said. A few years ago, the administration proposed sending astronauts to an asteroid and landing on it, but later changed that to bringing the asteroid closer to Earth. The $1.25 billion price does not include the larger costs of the rockets launching the spaceships to the asteroid and the smaller boulder. The entire project called ARM for Asteroid Redirect Mission would also test new spacesuits for deep space, as opposed to Earth orbit, and may even help companies look at the idea of mining asteroids for precious metals, said NASA spokesman David Steitz. Steitz said by getting closer to the large asteroid, the mission will help with “planetary defense” techniques, learning how to nudge a threatening space rock out of harm’s way. Scott Pace, space policy director at George Washington University and a NASA associate administrator in the George W. Bush administration, said the concept in some ways makes sense in terms of training, engineering and cost, but “it still leaves the larger questions: What this leads to and why?”