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ELECTION BRINGS NEW GOP POWER T O S TAT E C A P I T O L S KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- State capitols across the country will be more Republican than at any point since the 1920s when victorious legislators and governors take office next year.

Republicans already are making plans to pursue deeper tax cuts, expand private school vouchers and impose new limits on public welfare programs.

As a result of Tuesday’s elections, Republican will have full control of at least 28 state legislatures. The National Conference of State Legislatures says that’s the largest GOP total since 1928.

Republicans also will hold at least 32 governorships, including in traditionally Democratic states such as Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts.

In many cases, the recent Republican victories expanded legislative majorities that had been won in 2010. Those majorities already have cut taxes, but some GOP leaders want to go even further.

A P P L I C AT I O N S F O R US JOBLESS AID FALL TO 278,000

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OBAMA VOWS TO ‘GET THE JOB DONE’ WITH REPUBLICANS WASHINGTON (AP) -- One day after sweeping Republican election gains, President Barack Obama and incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pledged to try and turn divided government into a force for good rather than gridlock on Wednesday, yet warned of veto showdowns as well.

Obama said that unless Congress takes action by the end of the year, he will order a reduction in deportations of working immigrants living in the country illegally.

He made his pledge a short while after McConnell warned him against acting unilaterally.

Trade legislation loomed as one possibility for quick compromise, and immigration as an early irritant.

“There is no doubt that Republicans had a good night,” the president said at the White House, referring to big gains that left the GOP in control of the Senate, with an expanded House majority and in possession of a handful of governorships formerly in Democratic hands.

President Barack Obama gestures as he speaks during a news conference in the East Room of the White House, on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014, in Washington. Obama is holding an afternoon news conference Wednesday to share his take on the midterm election results after his party lost control of the Senate, and lost more turf in the GOP-controlled House while putting a series of Democratic-leaning states under control of new Republican governors.

To voters who handed the GOP control of Congress, he said, “I hear you. ... It’s time for us to take care of business.” He cited construction of roads, bridges and other facilities as one area ripe for cooperation, and trade as another.

At the same time, he noted, “Congress will pass some bills I cannot sign. I’m pretty sure I will take some actions that some in Congress will not like.”

Obama and McConnell presented differing profiles at news conferences a little more than an hour apart.

The 53-year-old president now faces a Congress under two-house control by Republicans for the first time in his tenure - and a lame duck status that becomes more of a check on his political power with each passing day.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Fewer people applied for U.S. unemployment benefits last week, adding to signs that the job market should continue to improve.

Economists predict that the Friday jobs report will show 230,000 new jobs in October. The unemployment rate is projected to hold steady.

Payroll processor ADP reported Wednesday that U.S. companies added 230,000 jobs in October. The result was the highest in four months and a sign that businesses are still willing to hire despite signs of slowing growth overseas. Job gains above 200,000 are usually enough to lower the unemployment rate.

“There will be no government shutdown or default on the national debt,” he said, making clear he doesn’t agree with some tea party-backed lawmakers who have supported one or the other in the past - or may want to in the future.

McConnell will take office in January as Senate majority leader, and he and House Speaker John Boehner will have the authority to set the congressional agenda.

Boehner ceded the Republican limelight to McConnell for the day. The Ohio Republican is in line for a third term as House leader - and his first with a Republican majority in the Senate.

At his news conference, McConnell said, “When America chooses divided government, I don’t think it means they don’t want us to do anything. It means they want to do things for the country.”

“I would enjoy having some Kentucky bourbon with Mitch McConnell,” said Obama, who once joked at a black-tie dinner that the Kentucky senator wouldn’t be much of a drinking buddy.

Obama ruled out ending the requirement for purchasing of health care.

But he pointedly did not reject repeal of the tax, which many Democrats as well as Republicans have already signaled they are ready to jettison.

Said McConnell, “In our system the president is the most important player” who can veto legislation or persuade lawmakers of his own party to back compromise.

Republicans are also expected to mount a major attack on federal deficontinued on page 2

FEEDING THE HOMELESS: ACT OF CHARITY OR A CRIME?

The ordinance that restricts public feeding took effect Friday. It is one of five laws dealing with the homeless that Fort Lauderdale passed in May. The others ban people from leaving their belongings unattended, outlaw panhandling at medians, and strengthen defecation and urination laws, according to Michael Stoops, director of community organizing for the National Coalition for the Homeless.

“I’ve never seen a city pass so many laws in such a short period of time,” said Stoops, who testified at a City Council hearing on the issue.

Applications are a proxy for layoffs and have retreated 18.5 percent in the past year. This suggests rising economic confidence among businesses, leading them to keep their workers and potentially look to hire more employees.

Employers have added an average of 227,000 jobs a month in 2014, up from an average of 194,000 last year. Over the past 12 months, they have added 2.64 million jobs, the best showing since April 2006. The unemployment rate has fallen to 5.9 percent, a six-year low.

McConnell also cited trade and taxes among areas ripe for compromise.

Still, the two said they had had a pleasant telephone conversation earlier in the day.

The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications fell 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 278,000. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, declined 2,250 to 279,000, the lowest level in more than 14 years.

The decline in applications has overlapped with stronger hiring this year.

“It’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull to say if you guys don’t do what I want I’m going to do it on my own,” McConnell said at a news conference in Kentucky.

Beyond that, he made it clear Congress will vote on legislation to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada through the United States, and work to repeal portions of the health care law that stands as Obama’s signature domestic accomplishment. He said a tax on medical devices and a mandate for individuals to purchase health insurance are also Republican targets.

McConnell, 72 and famously taciturn, smiled and joked with reporters on the day after achieving a lifelong ambition.

In this Monday, Oct. 6, 2014 photo, Jonathan Alsina, 25, of Miami, fills out paperwork before being interviewed during a job fair at Fontainebleau Miami Beach in Miami Beach, Fla. The Labor Department releases weekly jobless claims for the week of Oct. 27 on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014

Nov 3 thru Nov 10, 2014

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) -- To Arnold Abbot, feeding the homeless in a public park in South Florida was an act of charity.

But to the city of in Fort Lauderdale, the 90-year-old man was committing a crime.

Arnold and two South Florida ministers were arrested last weekend as they handed out food. They were charged with breaking a new ordinance restricting public feeding of the homeless, and each faces up to 60 days in jail and a $500 fine.

“One of the police officers said, `Drop that plate right now,’ as if I were carrying a weapon,” Abbott told South Florida television station WPLG (http://bit.ly/1qpgywd ).

City officials did not immediately comment Wednesday. Fort Lauderdale Police spokeswoman DeAnna Greenlaw said those arrested “were well aware of the changes to the ordinance and its effective date.”

Advocates for the homeless say cities around the U.S. have been criminalizing homelessness more aggressively since 2006. Some conduct routine homeless sweeps, and others have launched anti-panhandling campaigns, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless.

Public feedings are often a target of the new laws. In Houston, groups need written consent to feed the homeless in public, or they face a $2,000 fine. Organizations in Columbia, South Carolina, must pay $150 for a permit more than two weeks in advance to feed the homeless in city parks.

In addition to the relatively low applications for benefits, the ADP report and gains in manufacturing sentiment tracked by the Institute for Supply Management also indicate strong hiring last month.

The arrests haven’t deterred the group. Ministers Dwayne Black and Mark Sims were back at church Wednesday preparing meals for a feeding at a public park later that night.

In Orlando, an ordinance requires groups to get a permit to feed 25 or more people in parks in a downtown district. Groups are limited to two permits per year for each park. Since then, numerous activists have been arrested for violating the law.

“I’d say all of these point to a solid nonfarm payroll report for October,” said Jennifer Lee, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.

“I don’t do things to purposefully aggravate the situation,” Abbott, an advocate for the homeless, said. “I’m trying to work with the city.

Any human has the right to help his fellow man.”

They’ve drawn national attention, with some focusing on the contrast between the vacation destination of the Orlando area and the poverty in its surrounding cities.

Police said that the men were not taken into custody and that they were given notices to appear in court, where the matter will ultimately be decided by a judge.

“I think cities have grown tired of the homeless situation, and businesses and residents complain about the homeless population,” Stoops said, citing the conflict between business needs and the needs of the homeless.

Still, the improvement in hiring has yet to translate into higher wages.

Average wages have grown slightly faster than inflation. Median annual household income at $54,045 remains 4.6 percent lower than incomes when the recession began in late 2007, according to Sentier Research.

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WHY GOP WON: SHIFTING WHITE V O T E S H U R T D E M O C R AT S

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But for the Democrats, dominating the vote among minorities isn’t enough to win elections today - and it won’t be in the future if the GOP is able to run up similar margins among whites, who still make up a majority of voters in every state.

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was widely credited with running a solid campaign, she carried just 33 percent of the white vote - down from 39 percent in 2008 - and lost.

White voters under age 30 backed Hagan by close to a 2-to-1 margin six years ago as they helped to sweep President Barack Obama into office.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- White voters of all ages were less likely to back Democrats this year than in elections past, helping Republicans nationwide but most acutely in the South - and overpowering Democratic efforts to turn out their core supporters among blacks and Hispanics.

This time, in a midterm election, the younger white voters who cast ballots in North Carolina broke just as decisively for Hagan’s Republican opponent, state House Speaker Thom Tillis.

Steve Rosenthal, president of the Organizing Group, a Democratic-leaning consulting firm, said he’s been jokingly calling this election the Seinfeld election for Democrats - they had no national message that resonated with their voters.

“It was an election about nothing.

Republicans made it an election about President Obama. That was their goal,” he said. “Their mission was to turn out people who were angry, people who were displeased with the job the president has done.”

“The rule of thumb was Democrats could win with 90 percent of the African-American vote and 40 percent of the white vote,” said Merle Black, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta.

“But now very few Democrats could think about getting 40 percent of the white vote. They’re trying to get 30 percent. In the Deep South states, from South Carolina to Louisiana, it’s very hard for the Democratic candidate to get 25 percent of the white vote.”

Nationally, Republicans running for seats in the U.S. House won 60 percent of the white vote, while Democrats won the backing of 89 percent of African-Americans and 62 percent of Hispanics.

The only states in which Democratic Senate candidates improved their overall support among whites were Minnesota, Oregon and Mississippi, a Southern state where Travis Childers managed to grow the Democratic share of the white vote from 8 percent in 2008 to 16 percent.

The data on voters come from exit polls of voters nationally and in 27 states that were conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks by Edison Research. Most interviews were conducted among randomly selected voters at precincts nationwide and in each state.

Democratic voters were especially less engaged in states where there were not supposed to be competitive elections, said Michael McDonald, an associate professor of political science at the University of Florida who tracks voter turnout.

Outside of the South, whites broke for Republicans by an average of 8 points on Tuesday. But in 10 Southern states with an election for Senate on the ballot, Republicans won the white vote by an average of 42 points. Democrats garnered so little support among whites in Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas that a majority of those voting for the Democratic candidate were non-white.

In North Carolina, though incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan

Q U A R A N T I N E S continued from page 1

In the second midterm elections of Obama’s presidency, Republicans were assured of a gain of seven Senate seats. They bid for another in Alaska, where challenger Dan Sullivan led Sen. Mark Begich. Also uncalled was a race in Virginia, where Democratic Sen. Mark Warner faced challenger Ed Gillespie.

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Democratic voters are traditionally more likely to stay home if the midterm races are uninspiring, while Republican voters - who tend to be older, wealthier and more educated and also are more likely to be white - generally come to the polls anyway, he said.

“The poster child for this would be Virginia. It’s an uncompetitive race according to all the polls. In that environment, who sits out the election? It’s predominantly Democrats,” McDonald said.

Two days after the election, while heavily favored incumbent Democratic Virginia Sen. Mark Warner had a lead of a few thousand votes out of more than 2 million cast, the race remained too close to call.

H A L F O F A L L S TA R S M AY L I E OUTSIDE GALAXIES

In Louisiana, Rep. Bill Cassidy led Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu into a Dec. 6 runoff.

photo shows, a view of the stars above Lindisfarne Castle in Holy Island, England, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2014. Scientists reported Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014, that as many as half of all stars may lie outside galaxies.

Despite the reverses, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada announced he intended to remain as the Democratic leader. There was no sign of opposition.

House Republicans were within hailing distance of their largest majority since World War II, 246 seats in 1946, when Harry Truman sat in the White House.

Even so, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she would seek another term as Democratic leader.

Only one governor’s race remained uncalled, in Al

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“I’m sure (it) led a lot of these voters to say, `How is this candidate going to treat me in two years?’” he said.

Those are nearly identical margins to the 2010 midterm elections.

But Democrats won more of the white and Hispanic vote in 2006, the last midterm elections in which the party won control of the House. White voters last tilted in Democrats’ favor in a midterm in 1990, and were a swing group in the 1980s.

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It was a mistake for Democrats to distance themselves from the president, said Erik Smith, a former Obama campaign adviser and Democratic strategist. Democratic voters are not motivated to help candidates who were happy to be with Obama two years ago, but tried to avoid his presence this year, he said.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- The universe may be full of reclusive stars - not washed-up Hollywood stars, but the kind lurking deep in the cosmos. continued on page 3

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A M I D E B O L A P I C K S N E W

D I S A S T E R , W H O A F R I C A C H I E F

COTONOU, Benin (AP) -- With nearly 5,000 dead of Ebola in West Africa, the World Health Organization elected a new director Wednesday of its Africa office, which has been accused of bungling the response to the outbreak in its early stages.

The center in Kerry Town includes an 80-bed facility to be managed

by Save the Children and a 12-bed unit for infected health care workers. This smaller one will be staffed by British army medics.

A U.S.-built facility in Liberia for health care is scheduled to open to patients on Saturday.

The new chief, Matshidiso Moeti, is a doctor from Botswana and a WHO veteran who stepped down as deputy director for Africa in March, the same month the crisis was announced.

Britain’s Department for International Development said there are only 326 treatment beds in Sierra Leone - this, in a country that has routinely reported around 350 cases per week over the last several weeks.

The results of the five-candidate election were made public at a meeting of the U.N. agency in Benin and came amid the worst outbreak of the dreaded disease ever seen.

“I hope, with all the control efforts that are now in place, the situation will have improved by the time I take office in February,” Moeti told reporters.

She said that the health systems in hard-hit Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea have been devastated and need to be rebuilt and that warning systems and monitoring capabilities must be improved ahead of any future Ebola outbreak.

In an internal draft document obtained by The Associated Press last month, WHO accused its Africa office of initially botching the response to Ebola, deriding many of its regional staff members as “politically motivated appointments.” The report said WHO staff in Africa refused to help get visas for outside experts and compromised the containment effort in other ways.

The outgoing regional director, Dr. Luis Sambo of Angola, is completing his second five-year term and was ineligible to run again. He has declined numerous interview requests.

In a report on lessons learned, released ahead of this week’s meeting, the Africa office attributed the explosive spread of the lethal virus to such factors as poor awareness and badly trained health workers.

Aboubakar Sidiki Diakite, inspector general for Guinea’s health ministry, welcomed the election as an opportunity for reform.

“A change always brings new impetus,” he told the AP in Paris this

That is worrying because the key to stemming the outbreak is getting sick people out of their homes and into treatment centers where they can no longer infect others.

This undated handout photo issued by Save the Children UK on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014, shows prospective health care workers in the Kerry Town Ebola Treatment Centre being tested on their personal protection equipment procedure in Sierra Leone. The center in Kerry Town includes an 80-bed facility to be managed by Save The Children and a 12-bed unit, which will expand to 20 beds over the coming months, for health care workers and international staff who become infected by Ebola.

week. He said the new director would find “weaknesses” in the system that need to be remedied.

Representatives of WHO’s 47 African member countries voted by secret ballot for the regional director.

In her campaign brochure, Moeti listed one of her priorities as building a responsive, effective WHO. Moeti previously held posts in Botswana’s Health Ministry and also led WHO’s Malawi office.

The circumstances of her departure as Sambo’s deputy back in March were not immediately clear.

In other developments, President Barack Obama asked Congress for $6.2 billion in emergency funds to fight Ebola in West Africa and strengthen U.S. defenses against the disease.

In Sierra Leone, meanwhile, where the epidemic is particularly bad and where treatment centers are urgently needed, one built by Britain finally opened outside the capital Wednesday.

W H A T P L A C E S T H A T LEGALIZED POT NEED TO KNOW and Washington for now rely on blood tests.

NOT CLEAR WHETHER OVERALL POT USE GOES UP Though it’s been two years since Colorado and Washington legalized weed, it’s too soon to say whether more people are using it. That’s because drug use is gauged by survey responses, so changes take time to show up in public health metrics. All eyes will be on 2015’s “Monitoring The Future” survey, a federal youth assessment of risky behaviors. Next year’s is the first post-legalization survey to include state-specific data. Both states have seen increased marijuana-related admissions to hospitals and substance abuse treatment facilities, but marijuana remains a small fraction of admissions.

PEOPLE STILL DRINK DENVER (AP) -- Oregon, Alaska and Washington, D.C., voted to legalize recreational marijuana Tuesday. The drug is already legal for people 21 and older in Colorado and Washington, thanks to ballot measures voted on in 2012.

It was a whole new frontier for those states, so here are some hints from the legal weed states on what the new places can expect: UNCLE SAM IS (MOSTLY) LOOKING THE OTHER WAY Some expected a federal lawsuit when Washington and Colorado flouted federal drug law, which considers pot illegal for any purpose. But last summer, the U.S. Justice Department said it wouldn’t interfere with state marijuana laws as long as the states tightly regulate the drug and make efforts to keep it from children, criminal drug cartels and other states. There have since been isolated federal raids on pot businesses in Colorado, but no widespread federal crackdown on the industry in either state.

LEGAL POT BRINGS IN SOME GREEN Pro-marijuana advocates predicted that legal weed would be a huge windfall for Washington and Colorado. Marijuana opponents predicted the drug would prove a drain on state finances because of higher law enforcement costs. Both sides were wrong. Colorado is on track to bring in some $84 million this year from medical and recreational pot taxes and fees. Washington by some estimates will it bring in more than $50 million between 2015 and 2017. That’s not chump change, but in the mix of multibillion-dollar state budgets, legal pot isn’t exactly a game-changer.

POT LEGALIZATION PROMPTS MORE DRUG LAWS Washington and Colorado both had to create a raft of new regulations when pot became legal. That’s because when weed was illegal for all, there was no such thing as, say, a crime of providing weed to someone under 21, or growing pot where it’s not zoned. The new legal weed states will need hundreds of pages of new regulations governing how and where marijuana can be produced, sold and consumed.

MORE DRIVERS MAY TEST POSTITIVE FOR WEED Colorado and Washington both have seen an uptick in drivers testing positive for marijuana. But traffic fatalities in both states are down. Marijuana proponents and opponents argue about whether the increase is a result of more testing, or whether more folks are driving high. There’s still no widely available roadside pot test similar to an alcohol breath test, though saliva tests are in development. Convictions for driving stoned in Colorado

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Some wondered whether widely available pot would have people replacing cocktails with joints. But according to alcohol-tax receipts in both states, legal weed appears to have little impact on how much alcohol people drink.

OUTSIDE GALAXIES continued from page 1

Scientists reported Thursday that as many as half of all stars may lie outside galaxies.

Individually, these lonesome stars are too faint to detect. But together, they create a hazy background of fluctuating near-infrared light. A team of astronomers from the U.S., Japan and Korea say the diffuse glow appears to be from stars booted out of their galaxies by mergers and collisions.

The measurements by Michael Zemcov of the California Institute of Technology and his colleagues were made on two suborbital rocket flights, launched in 2010 and 2012 from New Mexico, and validated by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.

NASA program scientist Michael Garcia said this diffuse glow between galaxies is as bright as all the known galaxies combined, and is redefining galaxies. Instead of having sharp edges, galaxies may spread out like a starry web, connecting all the galaxies together.

“Traditionally, we’ve talked about galaxies as disks or sometimes spheroids that have a finite extent. They run out of stars and gas at a certain radius,” Zemcov told reporters. While scientists previously have known about these halos around galaxies, “these halos seem to be extending farther out than we thought and is responsible for more light than we thought.”

Details of this Cosmic Infrared Background Experiment CIBER for short - appear in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.

WHO said 4,500 health workers are still needed. More than 500 health workers have become infected, reducing their ranks and making it difficult to recruit more.

Foreign medical workers who have been infected have been evacuated for high-quality treatment abroad.

A Ugandan man who became infected while working for an aid group in West Africa has “significantly improved” since arriving in Germany on Oct. 3 for treatment, the University Hospital Frankfurt said.

And a Spanish nursing assistant who recovered from Ebola was released Wednesday from a hospital in Madrid.

OBAMA STRIKES U P B E AT T O N E A F T E R A GLOOMY ELECTION ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- An explosive storm surpassing the intensity of 2012’s Superstorm Sandy is expected to reach Alaska’s western Aleutian Islands over the weekend and bring unseasonably frigid temperatures to much of the U.S. next week, weather forecasters said Thursday.

The remnant of Typhoon Nuri is moving northeast from off the Japanese coast and is mixing with cold air and the jet stream, which will give it the power to produce hurricane-force winds and waves 50 feet high. It could arrive late Friday or Saturday before weakening in the Bering Sea, the National Weather Service said.

The storm potentially could be one of the most intensive to ever hit the North Pacific, weather service forecaster Brian Hurley said. The Coast Guard and Alaska state emergency responders were keeping a close eye on its strength.

The system is expected to push cold air into much of the continental U.S. next week, forecaster Bob Oravec said. By the weekend, high temperatures in Minneapolis will only reach the upper 20s, and mid30s are expected in Chicago - more than 15 degrees below normal.

Snow also is coming to areas including the northern Rockies and northern Plains.

“It looks like winter’s starting early,” Oravec said.

While Sandy caused destruction along the urban East Coast, Nuri’s target in the north is a sparsely populated region with a few small communities that are accustomed to severe weather.

In fact, 69 mph wind gusts blew in last week in the western Aleutian town of Adak, a former Naval Air Station east of Nuri’s direct route that retains its military appearance. To prepare for the storm, the community’s 100 year-round residents were tying down loose items like picnic tables, storage containers and pallets, and parking cars differently so doors won’t get blown off, city manager Layton Lockett said.

A multiuse building that houses the town’s school can also be used as an emergency center if necessary.

“If it gets really bad, you know, everybody’ll come over here, camp out a little bit, have fun and drink cocoa,” Lockett said.

The storm’s path includes a busy maritime route for cargo ships traveling to or from Asia, as well as the red king crab fishery made famous by the Discovery Channel reality show “Deadliest Catch.”

Vessels are finding protected harbors or moving away from the path, according to Brett Farrell with the Marine Exchange of Alaska, a nonprofit maritime organization. No one in their right mind would stick around that area, he said.

With most of the red king crab quota caught, the season is winding down, said Mark Gleason, executive director of the Seattle-based trade association Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers. He said the coming storm is huge but the fleet has decades of experience dealing with severe conditions. Crews will hunker down and wait out the weather, then move on and do the job that needs to be done, he said.

“This isn’t some kid’s sailing class,” Gleason said. “These guys are professionals. They know what they’re doing.”

Officials are also closely watching the western coast of Alaska’s mainland, according to Jeremy Zidek, a spokesman for the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. Fall storms routinely batter many coastal communities, and erosion has long been a problem.

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The Weekly News Digest, Nov 3 thru Nov 10, 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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S U R V E Y F I N D S P E O P L E T E X T A N D D R I V E K N O W I N G D A N G E R S

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Nearly everyone agrees that texting and driving is dangerous. Many people do it anyway.

to friends, family and work. Nearly a third did it out of habit.

Among other reasons for texting and driving:

In an AT&T-sponsored survey of drivers who text daily - regardless of where they are - 98 percent said they were aware of the dangers of texting behind the wheel. Nonetheless, three-quarters of them admitted to texting while driving, despite broad public-service campaigns and laws against it in some states.

- Twenty-eight percent said they are worried about missing out of something important if they don’t check their phones right away.

- More than a quarter believes that their driving performance is not affected by texting, and just as many people said they believe that others expect them to respond to texts “right away.”

Two-thirds said they have read text messages while stopped at a red light or stop sign, while more than a quarter said they have sent texts while driving. More than a quarter of those who texted while driving believed they “can easily do several things at once, even while driving.”

OBAMA STRIKES U P B E AT T O N E A F T E R A GLOOMY ELECTION WASHINGTON (AP) -- For anyone expecting postelection contrition at the White House or vows to change course after a disastrous election for Democrats, President Barack Obama had one message Wednesday: Think again.

A day after Democrats lost control of the Senate and suffered big losses in House and governors’ races across the country, Obama struck a defiant tone. He defended his policies, stood by his staff and showed few signs of changing an approach to dealing with congressional Republicans that has generated little more than gridlock in recent years.

Rather than accept the election results as a repudiation of his own administration, the president said voters were disenchanted with Washington as a whole. And rather than offering dour assessments of his party’s electoral thrashing, as he did after the 2010 midterms, the president insisted repeatedly that he was optimistic about the country’s future.

“It doesn’t make me mopey,” he said of the election during a news conference in the East Room of the White House. “It energizes me because it means that this democracy’s working.”

The president’s sunny outlook stood in sharp contrast to the gloomy electorate. Most voters leaving polling places said they didn’t have much trust in government and felt the nation was on the wrong track.

Those feeling pessimistic were more likely to vote for Republican congressional candidates, according to exit polls.

To some Republicans, the gulf between the public’s mood and the president’s outlook suggested a White House that’s out of touch and refusing to recalibrate after getting a clear message from voters.

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, wondered whether Obama was “detached or in denial.”

“In word and tone, he refused to take responsibility or even express humility,” Priebus said. “He seemed to suggest the only ideas he’s willing to listen to are his own, old, failed ones.”

Indeed, Obama spoke only broadly about the need to reassess as he heads into his final two years in office. He said it was “premature” to discuss overhauling his staff or shifting positions on policies. He reasserted his pledge to move forward with executive actions on immigration before the end of the year, despite strong opposition from Republicans. And he rejected the notion that his limited relationships with Republican lawmakers, including the likely Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would hamper potential compromise with the Congress.

Obama’s postelection positioning was part of a calculated strategy from a White House eager to avoid a repeat of 2010, when the president declared that Democrats had suffered a “shellacking” - a blunt assessment that came to define that election. This time around, Obama repeatedly refused to publicly analyze the outcome of the election, saying he didn’t want to “read the tea leaves on election results.”

Privately, Obama’s advisers acknowledge that Tuesday’s outcome was far worse than what they expected. They say Obama’s upbeat approach reflects a president who has spent the past several weeks growing more comfortable with the prospect of Republicans controlling Congress in his final two years in office and is intrigued by the possible opportunities that could open up as a result.

Advisers disputed the Republican criticism that Obama was tone deaf to the need to adjust to Washington’s new political landscape.

Announcing an array of administration changes Wednesday would be little more than a gimmick, one adviser said, adding that the president needs to instead show the country over time that he’s committed to working alongside Republicans.

The advisers would only discuss the White House’s internal thinking on the condition of anonymity.

The president’s outreach to Capitol Hill will get underway Friday, when Obama meets with congressional leaders at the White House.

And the president suggested he’d be up for more one-on-one time with the presumed Senate majority leader.

“I would enjoy some Kentucky bourbon with Mitch McConnell,” said Obama, who last year mocked the idea of having a drink with the GOP leader.

Then, offering a glimpse into how little time Obama has spent cultivating a relationship with McConnell over the past

- Just 6 percent answered that they are “addicted to texting,” although 14 percent admitted that they are “anxious” if they don’t respond to a text right away, and 17 percent feel “a sense of satisfaction” when they can read or respond to a text message.

A man uses his cell phone as he drives through traffic in Dallas. In a new survey, 98 percent of motorists who own cellphones and text regularly were aware of the dangers, yet three-quarters of them admit to texting while driving, despite laws against it in some states. Two-thirds said they have read text messages while stopped at a red light or stop sign, while more than a quarter said they have sent texts while driving.

The telephone survey of 1,004 U.S. adults was released Wednesday by AT&T Inc. as part of an anti-texting-and-driving campaign. AT&T designed the survey with David Greenfield, founder of The Center for Internet and Technology Addiction and a professor at the University of Connecticut’s School of Medicine.

The survey came as AT&T expanded availability of a free app that silences text message alerts and activates automatically when a person is moving 15 miles per hour or faster. (Passengers can turn it off.) The DriveMode app is coming to iPhones after being previously available on Android and BlackBerry phones for AT&T users only. The iPhone version will be available to customers of competing carriers as well, but some functions will work only on AT&T devices.

The study in May was of cellphone owners ages 16 to 65 who drive almost every day and text at least once a day. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Researchers conducted surveys with people on their cellphones, and it’s possible those who would have picked up on a landline might have different attitudes. It’s also possible attitudes among those who don’t text as often are different. It wasn’t immediately known what portion of daily drivers text less than once a day, excluding them from the survey.

Greenfield said the survey is the latest to show a discrepancy between people’s attitudes and behaviors.

It found a broad range of reasons why drivers text. Forty-three percent of the texting drivers said they want to “stay connected”

Reggie Shaw was 19 in 2006 when he caused a car accident while texting, killing two people. Today, he speaks out against texting and driving.

“It’s something I struggle with every day,” he said. “I know that I need to go out and talk to others about it. I don’t want others to make the same mistake I did.”

Shaw does not remember what he was texting about right before the accident. Back then, he said, “being on my phone when I drove was something I did all the time. It was just driving to me. I guess you’d call it ignorance but I never understood that it was dangerous. How could me being on the phone cause a car accident?”

Today, his phone is off when he’s driving. Never in the past eight years since the accident, he says, has he gotten a phone call or text message that was so important that it couldn’t wait until he stopped the car.

Greenfield, who studies the effects of digital technology on the brain, likes to call smartphones “the world’s smallest slot machines” because they affect the brain in similar ways that gambling or drugs can. Dopamine levels increase as you anticipate messages, and that leads to higher levels of pleasure. Getting desirable messages can increase dopamine levels further.

While all distractions can be dangerous, much of the focus has been on texting and driving, Greenfield said, because “it’s ongoing and because there is an anticipatory aspect to it.”

Greenfield said people should not use their phone at all while driving, but acknowledges that this might not be realistic. Apps, public education and laws that ban texting and driving, he said, will all help change people’s behavior, just as anti-drunken-driving laws and public education campaigns have reduced drunken driving over the past few decades.

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JERUSALEM F E A R S O F

VA N AT TA C K R A I S E S M O R E V I O L E N C E

JERUSALEM (AP) -- A Hamas militant slammed a minivan into a crowd waiting for a train Wednesday in Jerusalem, killing one person and wounding 13 in a midday attack that raised fears of worsening violence after months of simmering tensions in the holy city.

The train stop where Wednesday’s attack occurred is located along an unmarked line between west Jerusalem and the eastern sector captured in 1967.

Hamas said the attack, the second of its kind in two weeks, was meant to protect the city’s most sensitive and sacred site - the compound known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

Police identified the assailant as Ibrahim al-Akari, a 38-year-old Palestinian, and said he had recently been released from prison after serving time for security offenses. His wife, Amira Soultan, told The Associated Press that he was inspired by the violence he saw at the mosque.

It also injected new religious fervor into a wave of unrest fueled by failed peace efforts and stepped-up Jewish settlement construction in the eastern sector.

“He saw how the carpet of Al-Aqsa was burned. He saw it on his laptop, on Facebook and he went out,” she said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the attack on incitement stemming from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and “his Hamas partners,” a reference to a unity government led by Abbas and backed by the Islamic militant group.

“We are in a prolonged battle in Jerusalem. I have no doubt we will win.

We are deploying all the necessary forces to restore calm and security to all parts of the city but it may certainly be a prolonged struggle,” he said.

Israel has been trying for months to quell the unrest in east Jerusalem that began this summer but has surged over tensions surrounding the holy site. Earlier in the day, Israeli police had dispersed dozens of masked Palestinians who threw rocks and firecrackers near the site in the Old City ahead of a visit by a group of Jewish activists.

Neighboring Jordan recalled its ambassador to Israel for consultations in a strong protest of the police raid at the site. Jordan also said it would submit a complaint to the U.N. Security Council. Under a longstanding arrangement with Israel, Jordan retains custodial rights over Muslim holy sites in the Old City, which includes the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the compound.

“We have sent repeated messages to Israel directly and indirectly that Jerusalem is a red line,” said Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, citing “continuous violations and incursions, and stopping people from worshipping freely and allowing extremists from coming in.” He spoke at a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Paris.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the world body is “deeply concerned about the continued violence and tensions we’re seeing in Jerusalem,” adding that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned

Several of the wounded were security officers who had been deployed in response to the recent unrest. Police said the man killed by al-Akari was a member of the paramilitary border police force from the Arab Druse minority.

Police tape cordons off the scene of an attack in Jerusalem, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014.

A Palestinian man rammed his car into a crowded train platform in east Jerusalem on Wednesday and then attacked people with an iron bar, killing one person and injuring 13 in what authorities called a terror attack before he was shot dead by the police. The militant Islamic group Hamas took responsibility for the attack.

the attack on pedestrians.

Dujarric said the continuing provocations and restrictions on access at the holy sites “need to be urgently deescalated.”

In a statement, Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman for Abbas, also condemned the police actions at the holy site but made no mention of the car attack.

In a similar attack last month, a Palestinian rammed his vehicle into a crowded train stop on the same street in east Jerusalem, killing a 3-month-old Israeli-American girl and a 22-year-old Ecuadorean woman.

Days later, police shot and killed the suspected gunman behind a drive-by attack on Yehuda Glick, a Jewish activist who has pushed for greater Jewish access to the sacred hilltop compound. Glick remains hospitalized.

In Wednesday’s attack, police said the motorist drove the minivan into pedestrians waiting for the train at a stop. The driver backed out and drove away, hitting several cars along the way. He then got out of the van and attacked civilians and police officers on the side of the road with a metal bar before he was shot and killed.

U K S P Y C H I E F S AY S W E B I S COMMAND CENTER FOR TERROR Dont Text and Drive

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said security forces were working to thwart more such attacks, which have occurred sporadically in Jerusalem before the recent violence.

“It’s obviously a threat we’re having to deal with,” he said. Police said they plan to set up barricades near train stops to prevent the attacks.

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, praised the violence as a “glorious operation” and called for more. The group said al-Akari was a member, and that his brother was in exile in Turkey after being released in a 2011 prisoner swap. Hamas’ West Bank commander, Saleh Arouri, is based in Turkey.

Israel and Hamas are bitter enemies and fought a 50-day war in the summer. On Wednesday, Amnesty International accused Israel of committing war crimes during the fighting, saying it displayed “callous indifference” in attacks on homes in the densely populated coastal area. A U.N. commission is investigating Israel’s conduct in the war and is to release a report in March.

East Jerusalem, the section of the city captured by Israel in 1967 and claimed by the Palestinians, has been fraught with unrest since summer, with Palestinian youths throwing stones and firebombs at motorists and clashing frequently with Israeli police.

The Old City’s holy site has been beset in recent weeks by clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police. Police say the aim of the unrest was to prevent the visits of non-Muslims to the site. Palestinians see the visits as a provocation and fear Israel is secretly plotting to take over the site.

The tensions come at a sensitive time, with U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian peace talks having collapsed in April. This week, Israel announced plans to press forward with housing construction in east Jerusalem, drawing condemnation from the U.S. and other key allies.

The European Union’s new foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, condemned the settlement construction, calling it “another highly detrimental step” that undermines peace prospects and “seriously calls into question” Israel’s commitment to peace.

U S , F R A N C E C I T E C O N C E R N S A B O U T I R A N N U C L E A R TA L K S The French diplomat’s comments underscored concerns that Washington could change course on its diplomacy with Iran after Jan. 1, when Republicans will control both houses of Congress. Many Republican leaders have criticized the Obama administration’s desire to ease sanctions on Iran while the talks are underway, or to embrace any agreement that would allow Tehran to continue generating nuclear power.

A page of the British GCHQ official website, the government electronic and communications spy agency is pictured on a computer, Robert Hannigan, the new head of the agency made remarks in a British national newspaper, London, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2014.

Writing in Tuesday’s Financial Times, Robert Hannigan said that GCHQ and other British intelligence agencies know that IS extremists use messaging services like Facebook and Twitter to reach their peers with ease. He said spy agencies need to have greater support from the U.S. technology companies which dominate the Web in order to fight militants and those who host material about violent extremism and child exploitation

If that’s the case, the November deadline may represent the last shot the White House will get at securing a deal with Iran - a major foreign policy legacy issue for Obama. But Obama also said that internal politics in Iran could also affect the negotiations.

LONDON (AP) -- U.S.-based social media have become “command-and-control networks” for terrorists and criminals, and tech companies are in denial about their misuse, the new head of Britain’s electronic eavesdropping agency said.

Writing in Tuesday’s Financial Times, GCHQ chief Robert Hannigan said British intelligence agencies know that IS extremists use messaging services like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp to reach their peers with ease. He said spy agencies need to have greater support from the U.S. technology companies which dominate the Web in order to fight militants and those who host material about violent extremism and child exploitation.

“However much (tech companies) may dislike it, they have become the command-and-control networks of choice for terrorists and criminals.” he wrote.

Twitter declined to comment on the story. Facebook - which owns WhatsApp - had no immediate comment.

Yet the problem is larger than the question of social media, said Thomas Rid, professor of security studies at King’s College London. Companies like Apple, cognizant of the privacy concerns of its customers, are installing powerful encryption programs on their devices. That leaves agencies like GCHQ facing the onset of encryption on a massive scale.

“You cannot make the Internet super safe and keep it unsafe for pedophiles and terrorists,” Rid said of GCHQ’s dilemma.

Although Edward Snowden’s leaks have focused the world attention on the mass surveillance powers of the National Security Agency, Snowden has accused GCHQ of being far more aggressive.

Hannigan said intelligence agencies need to enter the public debate about privacy.

Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online privacy group that is partly funded by tech companies, told BBC radio that intelligence agencies’ “powers are already immense. I think that asking for more is really quite disingenuous.”

“They have their own politics and there’s a long tradition of mistrust between the two countries,” he said. “And there’s a sizable portion of the political elite that, you know, cut its teeth on anti-Americanism and still finds it convenient to blame America for every ill that there is.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry speaks to the press at the US ambassador’s residence in Paris, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014. Kerry met earlier with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh.

PARIS (AP) -- With time running out on the latest round of negotiations, France and the United States on Wednesday stepped up demands for Iran to prove that its nuclear program is peaceful - or risk scuttling the closest chance for a deal in years and losing a chance to ease crippling sanctions on Tehran’s economy.

The entreaty to Iran comes days before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is to meet with top diplomats to Iran and the European Union to discuss how to break the years-long deadlock before a Nov. 24 deadline. Iran is seeking global recognition for its right to generate nuclear power - which it says it will use for energy, medical and other benign purposes - and the removal of at least some Western penalties against its oil and financial sectors.

But much of the rest of the world fears that Tehran, which has hindered fully transparent inspections of its reactors over the years, wants to build an atomic weapon.

“We have presented to them a framework that would allow them to meet their peaceful energy needs,” President Barack Obama said Wednesday.

“Whether they can manage to say yes to what clearly would be better for Iran, better for the region, and better for the world, is an open question.”

In Paris, Kerry met with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and placed the burden to complete a deal on Iran.

“They have a right to a peaceful program but not a track to a bomb,” Kerry said after his meeting. “We believe it is pretty easy to prove to the world that a plan is peaceful.”

Fabius called it “very important” for the U.S. and France to keep a united front as the negotiations enter the final stretch.

Kerry dismissed questions about whether the GOP’s command of Congress would derail the nuclear deal, and said the same sticking points would remain no matter which U.S. political party was in power. “I don’t believe that changes either side,” he said. “I honestly don’t.”

Congress has very limited power to influence a potential deal. It could refuse to lift sanctions imposed on Iran, but it can’t stop the president from suspending or relieving some of the sanctions by executive order.

And, he noted: “As we have learned in the last few years, the minority has enormous power to stop things from happening.” Obama’s party, the Democrats, will be in the minority in Congress next year.

Kerry also insisted that the U.S. is not prepared to extend the looming deadline, just three weeks away with scant sign of a final agreement. But he left open the possibility if, at the end, the two sides find themselves “inches” away from a resolution that has long bedeviled the international community.

On-and-off negotiations between Iran and world powers have languished for years without resolution, and the last time the two sides came close to a deal was in 2008.

But world powers saw a new opening with the 2013 election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who campaigned to end bruising Western sanctions to punish Tehran for its nuclear production.

Israel has also objected to the negotiations, which have become a sore point between Washington and Tel Aviv.

While in Paris, Kerry also met with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh - both of whom have been focused on the stagnant effort to broker a peace agreement between Israel and Palestinian authorities.

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A C T I V I S T S : U S S T R I K E H I T S S Y R I A N R E B E L C O M P O U N D BEIRUT (AP) -- U.S. aircraft bombed al-Qaida’s Syrian branch as well as another hard-line rebel faction in northwestern Syria early on Thursday, activists said, in an apparent widening of targets of the American-led coalition against the Islamic State extremist group.

crossing, which several rebel groups use to bring in military supplies and aid for Syrians.

The activist who goes by the name of Abu Abdul-Qader witnessed the blasts in Babiska, and said “the moment of the explosion turned the dark night into day.”

The series of airstrikes overnight targeted three different areas near the Turkish border, hitting a headquarters and a vehicle belonging to the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front as well as a compound of the deeply conservative Ahrar al-Sham rebel group. It marked only the second time the United States had expanded its aerial campaign against Islamic State militants to hit other extremists in Syria.

There was no immediate confirmation from U.S. officials, but the apparent strikes took place amid a Nusra Front offensive that has routed Western-backed rebel groups from their strongholds in Syria’s Idlib province near the Turkish border. The timing suggests that Washington could be trying to curb the militant assault and destroy weapons supplies of hard-line rebels and al-Qaida fighters.

But by striking groups whose primary focus is fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad, the U.S. risks further enraging many Syrians in opposition-held areas who believe Washington is aiding Assad in his struggle to hold onto power in the country’s 3 1/2-year-old civil war. Purported civilian casualties have only compounded those frustrations, and activists said Thursday that at least two children were killed in the overnight strikes.

“We are tired of people saying they are coming to help us, and then they kill us,” said activist Asaad Kanjo, based in Idlib.

The latest strikes hit a Nusra Front compound in the village of Harem and a vehicle near the town of Sarmada, said two other Idlib-based activists, Abu Abdul-Qader and Ahmad Kaddour. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the strikes.

Nusra Front fighters seized Sarmada and a series of other communities throughout Idlib province earlier this month from a Western-backed and funded rebel group known as the Syrian Revolutionaries Front. The militants have since been massing in Sarmada, closing in on the strategic Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey without physically taking it over.

“Of course they (Americans) would be worried that Nusra could take Bab al-Hawa or seize arm stockpiles going in for other groups, if they are doing that,” said Aron Lund, editor of Syria in Crisis, a website run by the Carnegie Endowment.

The Nusra Front is a fierce rival of the Islamic State group, despite their shared extremist ideology. The two factions have been locked in a bloody conflict since early this year, during which Islamic State militants routed Nusra fighters from eastern Syria as they consolidated their hold on a vast tract of territory spanning Syria and neighboring Iraq.

POPE MULLS REMOVING MARRIAGE ANNULMENT CHARGES

He said six strikes targeted a facility widely known to belong to Ahrar al-Sham, leaving a crater that he estimated as 20-meters (yards) wide, and seven meters deep. At least three men were killed, he said, and more were buried under the rubble. The structure was located next to another that belonged to the Nusra Front, said Abdul-Qader.

In total, Abdul-Qader said the strikes collectively killed four children and four fighters. The Britian-based Observatory reported that at least two children died. Conflicting death tolls following such incidences are routine.

In this Friday, Oct. 31, 2014 photo provided by the U.S. Navy, the guided-missile destroyer USS Sterett, right, participates in International exercise, involving British and U.S. mine-countermeasure vessels in the Persian Gulf. The guided-missile destroyer is deployed as part of operations targeting Islamic State group militants in Iraq and Syria.

The U.S. targeted the Nusra Front in the first wave of airstrikes in Syria in late September, accusing it of harboring a militant cell plotting attacks against American and Western interests. But the Americans had not gone after the group since then, until Thursday.

“Ahrar al-Sham was one of the biggest fighting groups against the (Assad) regime, and it proved its ability to liberate many areas. They (the Americans) said they would shell the strongholds of terrorists - who they think are terrorists,” said Abu Abdul-Qader.

The strikes overnight also marked the first time the U.S. has bombed the hard-line Ahrar al-Sham group. Activists said several missiles hit a compound belonging to the group in the village of Babiska in Idlib province.

Others in the Syrian opposition have said it wasn’t strategically wise to widen the scope of US strikes against other rebel groups, because it gives the impression - at the very least - that the U.S. and its allies are siding with Assad forces.

Ahrar al-Sham is part of the Islamic Front, an alliance of seven powerful conservative and ultraconservative rebel groups that merged in November last year. The Islamic Front wants to create an Islamic state in Syria governed

by Shariah law and rejects the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition, but cooperates with some Western-backed rebel groups on the ground.

Babiska had one of the Syrian rebels’ main arms depots, and the Islamic Front seized control of it in December from Western-backed rebels, Lund said. It is located about a 1 kilometer (1/2 mile) from the Bab al-Hawa border

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Francis on Wednesday denounced the hardships Catholics can face when seeking marriage annulments, revealing he once fired an official who tried to charge thousands of dollars for one.

Francis told participants at a Vatican course for officials dealing with annulments that as bishop of Buenos Aires, he was dismayed to learn that some faithful needed to travel hundreds of kilometers (miles) and lose days of work to reach church tribunals.

He also recalled sacking an unidentified church tribunal official, possibly a lawyer, who told someone: `’Give me $10,000 and I’ll take care” of the annulment process. `’One must be careful that the procedures don’t become a business,” Francis said.

The Vatican teaches that matrimony is a sacrament and forbids divorce. Many Catholics wanting to end their marriages seek annulments, a church ruling their union was invalid and thus, essentially, never existed. Possible reasons include a spouse who never intended to be faithful or who was psychologically too immature to understand the forever nature of marriage in the Catholic church.

Annulments allow Catholics to marry again in the church.

Francis said he was considering requests, made at a recent Vatican meeting of bishops about families, to make annulments cost-free.

Many dioceses customarily ask annulment petitioners to pay hundreds of dollars to defray administrative costs, but some are now dropping fees, as a northern Indiana diocese started doing last month.

Francis reiterated his resolve to streamline annulment processes, which are sometimes `’so long and so weighty,” he said, that people become “discouraged.”

Divorced Catholics who remarry without annulments cannot receive Communion since the Vatican considers them as adulterers living in sin. Many such divorced Catholics are hoping the pontiff, who says he wants a merciful church, will relent and let them receive Communion.

“Extremism is completely contradictory to the nation-building project we have,” said a Syrian opposition official, Abdul-Basit Sieda. “But (the bombings) are causing doubts among Syrians .... Fighting terrorism must be part of a complete strategy, built on the basis that the (Assad) regime is the source of terrorism, and created it.”

The United States insists it still supports Assad’s removal from power but is not targeting government forces.

G O P C O N G R E S W E I G H L E G A L P O T A sample of medical marijuana is displayed at Shango Premium Cannabis dispensary in Portland, Ore., Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014. Oregon voters have made their state the third to legalize recreational pot, but it will be more than a year before the first shops open.

But dispensaries that already sell medical marijuana are expected to start taking steps to get their applications in to sell recreational weed as well.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The national marijuana legalization debate is moving into the backyard of a Republican-controlled Congress, now that the District of Columbia has voted to legalize growing, possessing and sharing small amounts of pot.

Voters in Oregon and Alaska also approved legalization initiatives, joining Colorado and Washington state, where pot is already legally available.

Pope Francis arrives for his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014.

Targeting Ahrar al-Sham could further strain relations between Washington and the Western-backed opposition. It was likely to infuriate many Syrians, who view them as important allies in their fight against Assad, and see the U.S. strikes as an attack on their nearly four-year-old uprising.

But while states out West enjoy both autonomy and distance, federal lawmakers have the power to quash any District law they don’t like. And with legalization getting a foothold on the East Coast for the first time, the District’s initiative could force Congress to make decisions affecting the future of legal pot nationwide.

“Members of Congress are literally going to be witness to these changes,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which spent heavily to push all three ballot initiatives. “It’s a form of educating the members of Congress in a way that some members would not get educated, depending on the states that they’re from.”

All laws in the nation’s capital are sent to Capitol Hill for review.

Congress rarely invokes that power, but when members do want to block District policies, they can attach amendments to unrelated, omnibus legislation too critical to be vetoed. Congress routinely bars the spending of local tax dollars on abortions for poor women using this strategy, and delayed medical marijuana in the District for more than a decade.

The District voted 69-31 percent Tuesday to approve the growing,

S T O I N D C

possessing or sharing of up to two ounces of pot and up to three mature marijuana plants for personal use. Months earlier, a decriminalization law took effect, limiting the penalty for possession of a personal-use amount to a $25 ticket.

But it could take months at least before pot-smoking is totally OK in the District. Elected officials and advocates can’t even agree whether the Congressional review period lasts 30 days while the House and Senate are both in session, or 60. Also, the initiative doesn’t provide for the legal sale or taxation of marijuana. Democratic mayor-elect Muriel Bowser said Wednesday that she would not allow it to take effect unless the D.C. Council first implements a tax-and-regulation program.

Rep. Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican, tried to block the decriminalization law, and said Wednesday that he’ll try to block legalization as well, arguing that drug use among teenagers will rise if they fail to stop it.

But polls have shown a majority of Americans favor legalization, and Republicans are far from united in opposition.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the ranking Republican on the subcommittee that oversees the District, said Tuesday that the city’s pot laws should be left to local officials. Paul also has sought to block the federal government from interfering with states’ medical marijuana programs.

If the Republican-led Congress does try to quash the initiative by amending some bill President Barack Obama won’t veto, it could force him antagonize his base after advocates pointed to the huge racial disparities in marijuana arrests in the nation’s capital.

In Florida, 58 percent of voters were for legalization of medical marijuana on Tuesday, narrowly missing the 60 percent needed to amend the state’s constitution.

“This is just the first battle, and I plan to win the war,” said Orlando trial attorney John Morgan, who vowed Wednesday to begin working on another try in 2016.

Other legalization advocates plan a big push for similar initiatives on 2016 ballots in California, Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada, Nadelmann said.

Legalization opponent Kevin Sabet, the president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, said his side would need to respond in kind. Tuesday’s votes were “a bit of a wake-up call before 2016,” he said, noting that legalization advocates had vastly outspent opponents this time.

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

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L A W Y E R : A - R O D A D M I T T E D S T E R O I D S U S E T O D E A

MIAMI (AP) -- A lawyer for the University of Miami’s former pitching coach said Wednesday that Alex Rodriguez admitted to federal investigators he used steroids supplied by the owner of a now-closed South Florida clinic.

Neither the DEA nor the Miami U.S. Attorney’s office commented.

However, in a separate public court filing, prosecutors made clear Rodriguez would be a star witness if the case against Sucart and the others goes to trial. It is currently set to begin Feb. 9 in Miami federal court.

Attorney Frank Quintero Jr., who represents Lazaro “Laser” Collazo in his defense against charges of conspiracy to distribute performance-enhancing drugs, told The Associated Press that the New York Yankees third baseman confessed to steroids use, according to Drug Enforcement Administration documents provided by the government to defense lawyers.

The Miami Herald first reported Rodriguez’s admission Wednesday, saying he met with DEA agents on Jan. 29 at the agency’s South Florida field office. Given a grant of immunity from prosecution, Rodriguez told investigators he did use banned substances between late 2010 and October 2012 supplied by Anthony Bosch, who owned the Biogenesis of America clinic in Coral Gables.

Rodriguez has publicly denied any use of banned substances during his time with the Yankees, which began in 2004.

The three-time AL MVP acknowledged in 2009 that he using performance-enhancing drugs while with Texas from 2001-03.

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig suspended Rodriguez for 211 games in August 2013 for violations of the sport’s drug agreement and labor contract, and the penalty was cut to the 2014 season in January by arbitrator Fredric Horowitz.

Rodriguez proclaimed his innocence and sued in federal court, then withdrew the suit and accepted the penalty.

The Herald reported Bosch told the DEA that A-Rod agreed to pay for steroids for 20 Biogenesis customers after the clinic closed to keep Bosch from talking about his involvement. That could prompt MLB to investigate whether Rodriguez could be suspended again under the sport’s drug agreement for violations related to the sale and distribution of PEDs, which are separate from the prohibitions

“Rodriguez has a prominent role in the government’s proof of the ... conspiracies to distribute testosterone and human growth hormone,” the prosecutors wrote.

In addition to A-Rod, Manny Ramirez, Ryan Braun, Melky Cabrera, Nelson Cruz, Francisco Cervelli, Yasmani Grandal, Cesar Puello and Jordany Valdespin have been granted immunity by the federal government, the Herald reported New York Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez heads to the dugout during their 5-1 loss to the Boston Red Sox in a baseball game at Fenway Park in Boston. The U.S. government says New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez paid his cousin almost $1 million to keep secret Rodriguez’s use of performance enhancing drugs. In court documents filed last week in Miami, federal prosecutors say Rodriguez paid $900,000 last year to settle a threatened lawsuit by Yuri Sucart, who had worked as Rodriguez’s personal assistant.

Sucart, in a letter from his lawyer, threatened to expose Rodriquez’s PED use if he wasn’t paid $5 million.

on personal use.

An attorney for Rodriguez did not immediately respond to a telephone call seeking comment. The Yankees declined comment.

The DEA report is among the evidence federal prosecutors have assembled against Rodriguez cousin Yuri Sucart, Collazo and others accused of supplying testosterone and human growth hormone to MLB players and other athletes linked to Biogenesis.

Quintero told the AP he has a copy but cannot release it under federal evidence rules.

“I can for your report confirm that the report by the Herald is accurate as to what Rodriguez said,” Quintero said in an email. “I don’t have a dog in this fight. My client has no involvement with ANY major league players concerning the use of banned substances.”

M O M G U I LT Y O F M A N S L A U G H T E R I N A U T I S T I C S O N ’ S D E A T H But Jordan’s lawyers said she acted out of a conviction as real to her as it might seem remote to others: that her life was in danger because one of her ex-husbands wanted her dead to keep her from airing claims of financial malfeasance, and that her death would leave Jude defenseless against another man she says had sexually abused him.

“I couldn’t see any way out of the situation,” except killing herself and Jude, she testified.

Both men have denied Jordan’s claims, and neither has been criminally charged.

Gigi Jordan, the multimillionaire mother charged with killing her autistic 8-year-old son, appears in Manhattan Supreme court in New York. Jordan was convicted by a jury of manslaughter Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014 and faces up to 25 years in prison when sentenced.

NEW YORK (AP) -- A health care millionaire who fatally drugged her developmentally disabled son was convicted of manslaughter Wednesday in what her defense portrayed as a mercy killing by a mother trying to escape a labyrinth of fear and despair.

Gigi Jordan had been charged with murder after her 8-year-old son’s death in a pill-strewn luxury hotel room in February 2010. Jurors found her guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter after her lawyers argued she was overcome by emotion when she killed Jude Mirra and tried to kill herself.

She faces up to 25 years in prison. The murder charge could have put her behind bars for life. Her sentencing hasn’t been set, but she’s due back in court in January.

Prosecutors sought to poke holes in her account. They noted that she said Jude, who spoke only a few words, typed to her such messages as “I want to aggressively punish God” starting at age 6 1/2 and accused nearly two dozen different people of abusing him.

Rodriguez told agents it was Sucart who introduced him in 2010 to Bosch, who falsely posed as a physician nicknamed “Dr. T.” Rodriguez paid mainly in cash and Bosch promised secrecy, although he would eventually begin to cooperate with MLB and federal investigators.

In the DEA report, the Herald said Rodriguez admitted he also helped pay for Bosch’s criminal defense, including $25,000 as a down payment to retain one attorney.

In total, 14 MLB players were suspended last year following the sport’s Biogenesis investigation. None have been charged with crimes.

Rodriguez, who turns 40 next summer, played in just 44 games last year and hit seven home runs to increase his total to 654, fifth on the career list.

He is owed $61 million for the final three years of his contract with the Yankees. He could receive an additional $6 million each for five milestones that the team designates as historic achievements.

other staffers to easily smuggle in all manner of contraband - including heroin, marijuana, booze and weapons - to the inmates they are supposed to be watching, city investigators found.

Such porousness has proved lucrative to those willing to take the risk, with inmates paying an average of $600 in “courier fees” for each illicit delivery. In one case last year, a guard got $2,000 for smuggling in 150 grams of pot.

She was released after doctors concluded she wasn’t dangerous to herself or anyone else.

It followed a series of smuggling sweeps at Rikers, which this year alone resulted in charges against 10 guards and the arrest of 30 inmates.

P R OBE F I N D S P OR OU S S E C U R I T Y AT N Y C ’ S R I K E R S I S L A N D

The report found one undercover investigator posing as a guard was able to smuggle in more than $22,000 worth of contraband in separate attempts at six different Rikers jails. The booty included 250 tiny envelopes of heroin, 24 strips of the opiate-addiction drug suboxone, two bags containing a half pound of marijuana, a 16-ounce water bottle containing vodka and one razor blade.

Investigators found guards were routinely allowed to put lunches on top of X-ray machines, rather than through them, and were regularly waved through security after setting off metal detectors.

One jail nurse told investigators he sneaked clear alcohol such as vodka in Poland Spring water bottles while darker liquor could be put into Snapple iced tea bottles, neither of which would be checked by guards.

Peters and Department of Correction Commissioner Joseph Ponte said some of the recommended reforms already are being implemented, such as mandating that supervisors oversee searches at shift changes and requiring that food go through the X-ray machines in clear containers.

A nurse who made an estimated $40 million as a medical entrepreneur, Jordan left her career to seek care around the country for her nearly mute, often tormented-seeming son. He was initially diagnosed autistic, though she has said other medical explanations followed, as varying as immune-system disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Other recommendations in the report included putting drug-sniffing dogs at porous security checkpoints, turning over screening to specially trained security staff and eliminating extraneous pockets from uniform pants.

But training security staff, hiring more canine units and implementing search protocols up to Transportation Security Administration standards could take up to six months, Peters said.

Prosecutors said Jordan, 53, killed the boy with chilling determination, plunging a deadly combination of painkillers and other medications down his throat with a syringe, because she couldn’t handle knowing his condition would never be cured.

Bogdanos called the killing “deliberate, planned, calculated,” noting that as Jude lay dying or dead, Jordan transferred money out of a trust fund for him and arranged to extend her hotel stay.

“Rodriguez said Bosch told him the HGH would help with sleep, weight, hair growth, eyesight and muscle recovery,” the newspaper quoted the DEA report as saying. Bosch also gave Rodriguez tips on how to avoid detection in MLB drug tests.

“Clearly our investigation indicates that this is a real problem,” said city Department of Investigation Commissioner Mark Peters, who released a scathing report Thursday that recommended an overhaul of screening at the 10-jail Rikers complex, including better-trained security workers and more drug-sniffing dogs.

Her lawyer Earl Ward said, “This was never a case of murder and the jury after careful and thoughtful deliberation arrived at that very conclusion.”

A friend of Jordan’s testified that Jordan had talked about taking her own life and Jude’s about three years before she did, saying she would “end it” if a new set of treatments didn’t help.

According to the Herald, the DEA report goes into great detail about how Rodriguez paid Bosch for testosterone cream and lozenges known as “gummies” and human growth hormone injections into the player’s stomach. Bosch has pleaded guilty in the case and is cooperating in the prosecution of the other men.

She didn’t immediately report the alleged abuse directly to police, instead telling therapists and later flying to Wyoming to try to meet with a noted child-exploitation investigator - a 2008 trip that ended with her being hospitalized there for several days for a psychological evaluation.

The jury has “held the defendant accountable for killing her non-verbal, autistic child. Gigi Jordan showed no mercy to her son, and should receive none at the time of her sentencing,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said in a statement.

“Instead of focusing on the gift that was Jude Mirra, instead of focusing on the laughter and the happiness, all she could see was the disability and the challenges, and she couldn’t accept it,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos said in a closing argument.

In their filing, prosecutors said Rodriguez paid Sucart $900,000 and provided him and his family with medical insurance, a vehicle and a house in return for Sucart’s silence regarding Rodriguez’s use of banned substances.

In this undated photo provided by the New York City Department of Investigation, contraband smuggled by an undercover investigator into Rikers Island jail facilities is shown.

During six visits to the New York City jail, the investigator was able to get a plastic bag containing 250 glassine envelopes of heroin; one plastic bag containing 24 packaged strips of suboxone; two plastic bags containing a total weight of one half-pound of marijuana, 16 ounces of vodka in a water bottle, and one razor blade past the personnel at the security entrance.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Water bottles filled with vodka that go uninspected. Lunch boxes packed with drugs allowed to bypass X-ray machines.

Razor blades and other objects waved on through, even when they set off metal detectors.

Gaping security holes at the city’s Rikers Island jail allowed guards and

In a statement, Ponte said he had “zero tolerance for anyone, including staff, bringing contraband into DOC facilities.” Guards who get caught are arrested and criminal investigators are called. The department can then initiate the administrative process of firing them.

“It’s true that this report provides hard and detailed evidence of smuggling,” Peters said. “But it also provides DOC a set of reforms that they’ve already started to put in motion.”

The investigation comes amid increased scrutiny of New York City’s jails, where inmate violence has steadily surged in tandem with useof-force by jail guards. Mayor Bill de Blasio has vowed to reform the troubled system.

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The Weekly News Digest, Nov 3 thru Nov 10, 2014

9

E L E C T I O N N E W S G U I D E : A N E W O R D E R I N W A S H I N G T O N WASHINGTON (AP) -- A look at the post-election political order and how it came to be:

SO OBAMA’S HEALTH LAW IS DEAD?

CONFLICT AND COMMON GROUND

No. It’s alive.

The incoming Republican majority in the Senate and expanded majority in the House might take action to approve the long-delayed Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL oil pipeline, joined by some Democratic lawmakers who support the environmentally contentious project. Also, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, in line to become Senate majority leader, could make common cause with President Barack Obama on trade agreements and some tax changes. But plenty of conflict looms in the even more sharply divided government.

Repealing “Obamacare” has been the Republican rallying cry for four years. But they might not be any closer to that goal.

The president is bound to veto bills repealing his chief domestic accomplishment. Republicans would need a two-thirds vote in each chamber to override Obama. Senate Democrats could delay a straightforward repeal bill.

A potentially more promising route for Republicans would be to pick off unpopular parts of the law, such as some of its taxes and mandates.

LEAVE A MESSAGE Obama tried to reach McConnell in a phone call after midnight to congratulate him on the Republican’s big election night, topped by the GOP’s takeover of Senate control.

But the senator had gone to bed. They finally connected on Wednesday, and McConnell said they talked about areas of potential agreement such as international trade agreements and tax reform.

SCORECARD Republicans claimed at least 52 seats in the next Senate, a gain of seven, with the outcome still to be decided in Alaska, Virginia and Louisiana, which has a runoff election Dec. 6.

House Republicans expanded their majority, swelling their numbers to heights not seen for perhaps 60 years. They added more than a dozen members and were on track to meet or exceed the 246 seats they held during President Harry S. Truman’s administration.

GOVERNORS Highlights: Republicans scored upsets in Maryland, Massachusetts and Illinois; won hard-fought re-election in presidential swing states including Florida, Ohio, Illinois; and prevailed in Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker may use his victory as a springboard for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination contest. They also flipped Arkansas and held

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., addresses supporters at his victory rally in the Kentucky Senate race, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2014, in Louisville, Ky.

on in Kansas, where Gov. Sam Brownback narrowly won re-election.

In Colorado, Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper won a nail-biter that was not decided until late Wednesday morning.

Democrats pulled off one significant victory, in Pennsylvania, where Tom Wolf ousted Gov. Tom Corbett.

WHAT NOW? In short, much talk of a bipartisan working relationship in Washington. Easier said than done.

The GOP Senate takeover complicates Obama’s agenda in his final two years in office and places more expectations on Republicans to use their dual legislative majorities to govern, not just hold up what Obama wants to do.

But Obama can still veto GOP legislation. Senate Democrats can employ the same delaying tactics on GOP initiatives that Republicans have used against them.

Still, it’s a new order. The levers of power that come with the majority - committee chairmanships, enhanced abilities to launch investigations that embarrass Democrats, increased budget influence and more - now will fall to the GOP.

If they ever do succeed in repealing the health care overhaul, Republicans could find themselves in a tight spot: What would they do about the estimated 10 million uninsured people who have gained coverage as a result of the law?

HOW THEY DID IT On the march to Senate control, the GOP switched open seats that had been held by Democrats to their column. Then they added Arkansas, where incumbent Democrat Mark Pryor lost a closely fought race to Republican Tom Cotton. Colorado made it five pickups. Republicans avoided possible losses in Kansas, Georgia and Kentucky. Then came victory in North Carolina, for a net gain of six seats, and the Democratic Senate majority was toast.

A Republican turnover in Iowa made it a gain of seven.

ALSO ON THE BALLOT Nearly 150 ballot measures were decided Tuesday. Oregon and the District of Columbia legalized the use of recreational pot. In Colorado and North Dakota, voters rejected measures that opponents feared could lead to bans on abortion, while Tennessee voters approved a measure that will give state legislators more power to regulate abortion. Voters in four states approved minimum wage increases.

A C / D C ’ S P H I L R U D D A C C U S E D REMAINS FOUND O F M U R D E R - F O R - H I R E P L O T OF MISSING FOX a plea.

MOVIE EXECUTIVE Phil Rudd, the drummer for rock band AC/DC, leaves a court house in Tauranga, New Zealand, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014, after being charged with attempting to procure murder.

The 60-year-old has also been charged with threatening to kill and possession of methamphetamine and marijuana. (AP Photo/Bay Of Plenty Times via The New Zealand Herald,

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- Drummer Phil Rudd of Australian rock band AC/DC whose hits include “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” was accused Thursday of trying to arrange two killings as well as possession of drugs.

He appeared briefly at the Tauranga District Court in his adopted home of New Zealand and was charged with attempting to procure murder, which carries a maximum prison term of 10 years.

Rudd, 60, was released on bail. One of the conditions is that he must not have any contact with anyone involved in the alleged plot.

The Bay of Plenty Times newspaper reported that the Australian-born Rudd was accused of trying to hire a hit man to carry out the two killings. Police raided Rudd’s home Thursday morning, according to the paper, and held him in custody until his court appearance.

A judge suppressed the names of the intended victims and the would-be hit man, the newspaper said.

The court declined to release further details.

Rudd’s lawyer Paul Mabey said he was still getting up to speed on the case and had no comment. Mabey said he was out of town attending a trial when he heard about the charges.

A publicist for the band could not be immediately reached for comment.

Rudd has also been charged with threatening to kill and possession of methamphetamine and marijuana.

Court staff said Rudd was due to make a second appearance Nov. 27, although that date could change. He has yet to enter

AC/DC is due to release the “Rock or Bust” album next month and plans a world tour next year. It was unclear whether Thursday’s events would affect those plans.

Rudd and the other members of AC/DC were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.

“Featuring guitarist Angus Young as their visual symbol and musical firebrand, they grew from humble origins in Australia to become an arena-filling phenomenon with worldwide popularity. They did so without gimmickry, except for Angus’s schoolboy uniform, which became mandatory stage attire,” said the Hall of Fame’s biography.

According to the biography, Rudd first joined AC/DC in 1974, the year after it was started. Other reports indicate he left the band in 1983 but rejoined again in 1994. The Bay of Plenty Times reported that Rudd first moved to New Zealand in 1983, during the period when he had left the band, and in 2011 bought a Tauranga restaurant he named Phil’s Place.

The restaurant’s website says it represents Rudd’s long-held vision to “offer you fresh local food at affordable prices delivered by warm and friendly staff.”

AC/DC’s albums include “Highway to Hell,” “Back in Black,” and “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.”

The U.S. military has used the band’s music for martial purposes. In 2004, U.S. troops blasted AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells” and other rock music full volume in Fallujah, Iraq, hoping to grate on the nerves of Sunni Muslim gunmen.

AC/DC had been one of the few acts that refused to allow its music to be released digitally on iTunes. It relented in late 2012. This year, the band announced that founding member Malcolm Young, brother of Angus, was leaving due to unspecified health reasons.

This file photo released by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department shows missing 20th Century Fox executive Gavin Smith who was last seen May 1, 2012. The Los Angeles County coroner’s office confirmed early Thursday Nov. 6, 2014 that the remains of Gavin Smith have been positively identified.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The remains of a 20th Century Fox executive who disappeared more than two years ago have been found in a rural desert area of Southern California, authorities said.

Lt. Larry Dietz of the Los Angeles County coroner’s office confirmed early Thursday that the remains of Gavin Smith have been positively identified.

Smith, 57, was last seen May 1, 2012, in Ventura County’s Oak Park neighborhood after leaving a friend’s home, and his disappearance has been investigated as a murder.

Hikers discovered the remains near Palmdale in the Antelope Valley on Oct. 26, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office said in a statement.

Results of an autopsy have not been finalized. Sheriff’s officials planned to discuss the case further during a news conference Thursday.

Authorities said earlier they had found his Mercedes-Benz at a Simi Valley storage facility, and its condition and witness statements led them to believe Smith was killed.

The storage facility was linked to John Creech, a man who was serving an eightyear prison sentence for sales or transport of narcotics, sheriff’s Lt. Dave Dolson said last year. Creech was named a person of interest but has not been charged with Smith’s murder.

Dolson said then that Smith had “some kind of relationship” with Creech’s wife, Chandrika, after meeting her in rehab several years previously. Dolson declined to provide details.

Smith was with Fox’s movie distribution department for nearly 18 years and was a branch manager for several theaters.

10

The Weekly News Digest, Nov 3 thru Nov 10, 2014 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

GOP IN CHARGE, EAGER TO MOVE O N K E Y S T O N E X L , T A X E S

empowered Republicans is the president’s vow to act unilaterally before year’s end to reduce the number of deportations and grant work permits to millions of immigrants illegally in the United States.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republicans’ resounding victory gives them an opportunity to push legislation that’s been bottled up in the Democratic Senate, from targeting elements of President Barack Obama’s health care law to constructing the Keystone XL oil pipeline to rolling back environmental regulations.

“What I’m not going to do is just wait,” the president said as bipartisan, comprehensive immigration legislation that the Senate passed in June 2013 remained stalled in the House.

Democrats suffered an electoral drubbing in Tuesday’s midterms, and Republicans regained control of the Senate and widely expanded their majority in the House. In command in both chambers in January, Republicans maintained that they have to show they can govern or else voters will show them the door.

“We now have the votes and we have the ability to call the agenda, so stop name-calling and let’s actually produce some legislation that helps jobs and the economy and moves our country forward,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said in an interview. “I think the country has figured that out, and they’ve given us the mandate to do it, and we better produce, or they’ll kick us out too.”

House Republicans are counting on Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in line to be the next Senate majority leader, to move ahead on the dozens of jobs bills that have been passed by the House but remained stalled in the Senate.

“It’s jobs, jobs, jobs,” said Rep. Randy Weber, R-Texas, who also wants to lift the ban on crude oil exports.

Republicans also are counting on a swift vote early next year on building the Keystone XL pipeline to carry oil from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast now that Republicans clearly have the numbers in the Senate.

The GOP could have as many as 54 Senate seats if Republican Dan Sullivan prevails in Alaska and the party wins a Dec. 6 runoff in Louisiana.

The House majority could reach historic levels of 250 out of 435 seats.

“It’s in our best interest to show we can function and that we can lead responsibly, and that would involve getting bills that have already passed the House with bipartisan support and get Democrats to join us in the Senate and get those to the president, even something like trade,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo. McConnell signaled Wednesday that he could work with Obama on trade agreements and a tax overhaul as both sides look toward governing rather than gridlock.

McConnell and other Republicans said such a step would be an in-yourface affront to the new majority GOP - “like waving a red flag in front of a bull,” McConnell said - and Republicans would use spending bills to restrict or stop such executive action.

Large sections of pipe are shown in Sumner, Texas. Republicans are counting on a swift vote in early 2015 on building the Keystone XL pipeline to carry oil from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast now that Republicans clearly have the numbers in the Senate.

It won’t be easy. Many of the moderate Democrats who would be willing to compromise were defeated in Tuesday’s elections, reducing the number of lawmakers in the middle. In the next Congress, independent Sen. Angus King of Maine and moderate Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Jon Tester of Montana will hold considerable leverage.

Republicans will be under pressure from many in their ranks and outside conservatives to scrap the health care law, but McConnell and the more pragmatic GOP lawmakers acknowledge that is next to impossible because of Obama’s veto power.

“If I had the ability, obviously, I’d get rid of it,” McConnell said of the Affordable Care Act as he spoke to reporters at a news conference in Kentucky. “Obviously, it’s also true he’s still there.”

McConnell indicated the GOP would push for a repeal of the tax on medical devices, which has some Democratic support, and target the requirement that individuals sign up for health insurance or face a penalty.

Obama told reporters that ending the individual mandate was a nonstarter, calling it a “line I can’t cross” because it would unravel the law.

Further complicating the relationship between Obama and the newly

Several Republicans hold the deep-seated view that Obama already has been abusing his constitutional authority. “He doesn’t get the line-item veto to unilaterally change different tenets of the law after he signs the law,” Weber said of Obama’s moves to delay provisions of the health care law.

On energy, McConnell was already exploring ways to derail Obama’s plans to reduce the pollution blamed for global warming from coal-fired power plants, a maneuver that some Democrats from coal states are likely to support but that the president would likely veto.

Pro-energy Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is expected to chair the Senate Energy Committee, and Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, who rejects the scientific consensus that global warming is being caused by fossil fuels, will likely lead the environment panel.

On the Keystone Pipeline, White House spokesman Josh Earnest reiterated Thursday that the administration will wait on the Nebraska Supreme Court to rule on a dispute about the pipeline’s route through the state before completing an evaluation of the pipeline. “Once some of those things are resolved, then the State Department can do their work evaluating whether or not this pipeline is in the national interest of Americans,” he said on CNN. The Senate turnover from Democrats to Republicans could also complicate efforts by the U.S. to broker a new international deal to curb global warming that is legally enforceable, because a Republican-controlled Senate would be unlikely to ratify it.

“There is no way to dance around the issue that in too many races we lost good allies,” said Michael Brune, head of the Sierra Club. “And we will see them replaced by people who oppose our values.”

F B I S AY S A G E N T I M P E R S O N AT E D S L AY S U S P E C T C A U G H T A F T E R D E A T H P H O T O S A P R E P O R T E R P O S T I N G SEATTLE (AP) -- FBI Director James Comey says an agent impersonated an Associated Press reporter during a 2007 criminal investigation, a ruse the news organization says could undermine its credibility.

In a letter Thursday to The New York Times, Comey said the agent “portrayed himself as an employee of The Associated Press” to help catch a 15-year-old suspect accused of making bomb threats at a high school near Olympia, Washington. It was publicized last week that the FBI forged an AP story during its investigation, but Comey’s letter revealed the agency went further and had an agent actually pretend to be a reporter for the wire service.

Comey said the agent posing as an AP reporter asked the suspect to review a fake AP article about threats and cyberattacks directed at the school, “to be sure that the anonymous suspect was portrayed fairly.”

The bogus article contained a software tool that could verify Internet addresses. The suspect clicked on a link, revealing his computer’s location and Internet address, which helped agents confirm his identity.

“That technique was proper and appropriate under Justice Department and FBI guidelines at the time. Today, the use of such an unusual technique would probably require higher-level approvals than in 2007, but it would still be lawful and, in a rare case, appropriate,” Comey wrote.

Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of the AP, said the FBI’s actions were “unacceptable.”

“This latest revelation of how the FBI misappropriated the trusted name of The Associated Press doubles our concern and outrage, expressed earlier to Attorney General Eric Holder, about how the agency’s unacceptable tactics undermine AP and the vital distinction between the government and the press,” Carroll said in a statement.

In a letter to the Justice Department last week, the AP requested Holder’s word that the DOJ would never again misrepresent itself as the AP and asked for policies to ensure the DOJ does not further impersonate news organizations.

In a letter Thursday to Comey and Holder, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press asked the agency for full disclosure about the incident.

“The utilization of news media as a cover for delivery of electronic surveillance software is unacceptable,” the letter said. “This practice endangers the media’s credibility and creates the appearance that it is not independent of the government. It undermines media organizations’ ability to independently report on law enforcement.”

In his letter to The New York Times, Comey said all undercover operations involve deception, “which has long been a critical tool in fighting crime.”

This image released by the Portland, Ore., Police Bureau, shows David Kalac, 33, who police say is a suspect in the killing of a woman in Port Orchard, Wash., where graphic photos of the victim’s body were posted online hours before before police found the body.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- A man accused of slaying his girlfriend, posting photos of her body and the gruesome crime scene online, and writing that he wanted authorities to kill him has surrendered in Oregon.

Clackamas County sheriff’s Sgt. Nate Thompson said late Wednesday night that 33-year-old David Kalac was arrested at a transit center in Wilsonville, about 20 miles south of Portland.

Kalac has been charged with second-degree murder in the slaying of Amber Lynn Coplin, 30, in Port Orchard, Washington. He was transported to Portland, where he was being held on $2 million bail.

An officer was patrolling the area when a man came out of a wooded area near a parking lot.

“He basically said, `I have a warrant for my arrest,’” Thompson said in a telephone interview. Kalac was cooperative but provided no details about how he got to Wilsonville, the spokesman said.

Washington state detectives have arrived in Portland and hoped to interview him, as well as take possession of the dead woman’s car, a 2001 Ford Focus that was found Wednesday afternoon in Portland, about 160 miles south of the crime scene.

“He’s our primary suspect,” Wilson said Wednesday. “It stands to reason that in all likelihood he is the person who posted those photographs.”

Coplin’s body was found by her 13-year-old son, Wilson said.

Hours earlier, the boy had heard her arguing with Kalac, detectives said in court papers. An arrest warrant was issued Wednesday.

Police say they found Coplin’s body in a bedroom. Near her head was her driver’s license with the word “dead” written on it. The words “bad news” were written on blinds. And the words “she killed me first” were written on a picture on the wall.

Coplin’s son told police that his mother and Kalac argued loudly Monday night, court records show. Witnesses also said they heard what sounded like a violent argument and loud thumping and banging noises coming from the apartment in the city west of Seattle across Puget Sound.

The teenager told police he thought his mom was sleeping in and Kalac was gone when he left the apartment Tuesday morning, according to court documents.

According to Wilson’s account, the boy came home from school Tuesday morning and took a nap. When he woke up that afternoon, he noticed the car was missing, went to check on his mother and “found her unresponsive,” Wilson said.

At that point, the teen called his father, who is Coplin’s estranged husband. The man came over, found the body about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday and called 911, the sheriff’s spokesman said.

The caller reported that Coplin’s face was bashed in, her car was missing and she was bloody and bruised, court documents show.

Portland police briefly chased the car early Wednesday.

Kalac texted a friend from his cellphone on Tuesday morning telling the friend that he would read about him in the news.

Kalac has a criminal history in Washington state and Virginia that includes convictions for assault, burglary and DUI, Kitsap County, Washington, sheriff’s Deputy Scott Wilson said.

Wilson said at some point Kalac took Coplin’s car and made the threehour drive to Portland, where a police officer spotted the vehicle about 1:15 a.m. Wednesday.

Deputies have confirmed that gruesome photos posted on a website are of the victim and the Port Orchard crime scene, Wilson said.

Wilson said investigators believe he is the sole suspect in Coplin’s death and they are not looking for any accomplices.

The person who posted the photos commented online on how the woman was killed and wrote of planning to be fatally shot by police.

The officer tried to stop the driver early Wednesday, but the car sped away. The chase was called off because the car was swerving into oncoming traffic.

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EGYPT’S HUMAN S L A M M E D A T

secular opponents of the regime behind bars- some facing long sentences and hefty fines.

Toby Cadman, an international barrister, told a news conference organized by Morsi’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, that it was “absolutely essential to have a fact-finding mission or a full blown international commission of inquiry to look into these incidents.”

The damning assessment came during the first U.N. review of the country’s human rights record since the 2011 uprising that toppled long-ruling autocrat Hosni Mubarak. The uprising was led by youthful activists hoping for a more democratic future, but rights groups say today’s government is even more oppressive, having enacted draconian curbs on protests and political activity and jailed thousands of Islamist and secular opponents.

Harper called for the release of political prisoners and urged Egypt to “investigate excessive use of force by security forces, publicly release findings, and prosecute those identified as being responsible.”

Hundreds of protesters have been killed during clashes with security forces under the transitional military leadership following the popular uprising that toppled Mubarak, as well as since the first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, took office in 2012. The violence only intensified when the military overthrew Morsi following mass protests against him last year, with security forces violently breaking up demonstrations by Islamists denouncing his removal. Hundreds were killed over a few days in the summer of 2013.

The Egyptian government defended its actions, rebuffing Wednesday’s criticism as based on false information or “misconceptions.” The government says it is trying to contain three years of turmoil that has devastated

11

RIGHTS RECORD U N M E E T I N G

CAIRO (AP) -- Egypt’s human rights record came under harsh criticism during a U.N. review Wednesday, with the United States and European nations urging President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi’s government to reverse tough measures enacted following last year’s overthrow of his Islamist predecessor that have clamped down on freedoms.

“We are deeply concerned with steps taken by Egypt that have resulted in violations of freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly and association, deprived thousands of Egyptians of fair trial guarantees, and undermined civil society’s role in the country,” U.S. Ambassador Keith Harper told the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council.

The Weekly News Digest, Nov 3 thru Nov 10, 2014

“We also need to ensure, not just through the U.N. system, (but) through the European Union and through Egypt’s strategic and trade partners that there is sufficient pressure on this regime to implement a process of democracy and accountability,” he said.

Wednesday’s U.N. review came days before a Nov. 10 deadline the authorities have set for all human rights, democracy advocacy and other non-governmental groups, including those that receive foreign funding, to register under a restrictive law that dates back to Mubarak’s era or risk being shut down - a step these groups fear is aimed at silencing them.

Egyptian Presidency, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, left, delivers a speech during an Air Force exercise as part of Badr 2014 Strategic Maneuver, in the Nile Delta province of al-Sharqia, Egypt. President Sissi attended the Air Force exercises Monday, which the government said involved more than 250 combat fighters and helicopters.

The Badr 2014 Strategic Maneuver is a 17-day-long military exercise conducted by the Egyptian army and air force. The government says the maneuvers are designed to repel “hostile forces.”

the economy while combatting an increasingly virulent insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula that has carried out scores of deadly attacks, mainly targeting soldiers and police.

Thousands of political opponents languish in jail, mostly Islamists charged with inciting violence. An undetermined number of mass trials are underway, with at least two cases involving more than 1,200 death sentences that sparked an outcry and were later reduced. A controversial protest law was put in place, with the government arguing it was needed to help restore order.

The law was criticized as a tool to quell dissent, sending Islamist and

A L I B A B A P R O F I T D O W N , INVESTS IN MOBILE, MARKETING

Reflecting the panic over their continued ability to function, seven Egyptian rights groups that presented a report to the U.N. review said they would not attend the meeting in Geneva for fear of being targeted by authorities on their return.

Washington’s criticism echoed that of many other countries, including Britain, Sweden, Germany, Turkey, Brazil, the Netherlands and Norway, which particularly faulted Egypt’s crackdown on rights groups and journalists. They also criticized the harsh sentences meted out against journalists, urging their release.

“We remain concerned about the shrinking space for civil society,” said Erling Hoem, the first secretary for human rights at Norway’s U.N. mission in Geneva. Although there have been guarantees in the constitution adopted after a public referendum in 2014, “many laws that are currently being enforced are contradicting constitutional provisions.”

Egyptian government delegates pushed back against the criticism.

Egypt’s minister for transitional justice, Ibrahim el-Heneidy, defended his country’s record, saying its new constitution was “a true victory for human rights and freedoms” and insisting the government was committed to upholding the international treaties it had signed.

Other costs that the company took during the quarter included consolidating newly acquired businesses, investing in its mobile operating system and digital entertainment, and marketing costs.

Hesham Badr, deputy foreign minister of Egypt, told the session that some of the comments by delegations were based on “misconceptions,” lauding his government’s efforts at legal and constitutional reforms and commitment to international obligations.

“The fundamental strength of our business gives us the confidence to invest in new initiatives to add new users, improving engagement and customer experience, expand our products and services and drive long-term shareholder value,” Chief Financial Officer Maggie Wu said.

Lashing out at the criticism, he added: “Egypt urges that the remarks (at the review) be based on correct and accurate information, because some of them appear to be dealing with conditions in a country other than Egypt. ... Maybe some here have the wrong address.”

Revenue, as expected, was strong. Revenue rose 54 percent to $2.74 billion, beating analyst expectations of $2.61 billion. It was boosted by more mobile commerce and growth across its platforms.

In his closing remarks, el-Heneidy paid a nod to the international recommendations, but said Egypt’s efforts to improve its human rights will take time considering the political upheaval and the threat of terrorism.

“We in Egypt know that we have tremendous challenges and the road is still long to reach what we aspire to...especially in light of the circumstances and the political developments as well as the threat of terrorism that is engulfing us,” he said.

Trader Richard Cohen works near the post that handles Alibaba on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2014. Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba’s second-quarter net income fell 39 percent as it spent more on investing in its mobile business and marketing and gave some executives stock grants, but its revenue surged 54 percent on strong user demand.

Gross merchandise volume, the total amount of goods sold, rose 49 percent during the quarter. Annual active buyers rose 52 percent to 307 million. Mobile monthly active users more than doubled to 217 million.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Alibaba’s financial results in its first quarter as a publicly traded company highlight its strategy of plowing its profit back into investments, particularly in mobile commerce and marketing.

Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Youssef Squali said strong results reflect “solid execution against the massive growth opportunity both in and outside of China.”

The U.N. Human Rights Council will publish a conclusion Friday containing non-binding recommendations for ways in which Egypt can improve its human rights situation. In most cases, countries that are reviewed immediately respond by noting which recommendations they accept or reject.

The Chinese e-commerce powerhouse said net income fell 39 percent in the July-September period despite a 54 percent surge in revenue on strong user demand.

He said that even though Alibaba did not give any outlook, it’s likely that its strategy of investing in new initiatives like its mobile business, digital entertainment and higher marketing are likely to remain elevated.

Mohammed Zaree, a member of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, which was among those that presented a report to the U.N. council, said the government’s response indicated it was “evading” responsibility.

Shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. rose $3.17, or 3.1 percent, to $104.97 in afternoon trading Tuesday. That’s 13 percent higher than the $92.70 the stock opened at on its first day of trading.

“All the time, the government is taking cover behind the constitutional text but the implementation of that text doesn’t happen,” he said.

The results released Tuesday show that Alibaba has a similar strategy as U.S. e-commerce retailer Amazon: Invest profit back into the company to spur long-term growth. Last month, Amazon. com Inc. reported a large loss in the third quarter despite a 20 percent increase in revenue.

But the two companies operate differently. Amazon works with third-party sellers but it also sells and distributes products directly, while Alibaba does not compete with its merchants or hold inventory. Instead, Alibaba serves as a conduit that links buyers and sellers of all kinds. It makes money from transaction fees and marketing services.

Alibaba’s biggest tech competitors in China are Tencent Holdings Ltd., which operates online games and the popular WeChat messaging service, and Baidu Inc., a Chinese search engine. All three companies are hoping to capture mobile revenue as more users shift to shopping and spending time on mobile devices.

It was Alibaba’s first earnings report since it went public on the New York Stock Exchange in September. The $25 billion initial public offering was the largest ever. Alibaba operates such popular e-commerce platforms as Taobao and Tmall in China.

Alibaba’s platforms account for some 80 percent of Chinese online commerce.

Chinese e-commerce is growing fast. Still growing at an explosive rate, online shopping is forecast by consulting firm McKinsey to triple from 2011 levels to $400 billion a year by 2015. Beyond that, Alibaba has said it plans to expand into emerging markets and, eventually, into Europe and the U.S.

S P A C E W A L K E R S C O M P L E T E TIRING ANTENNA INSTALLATION DETROIT (AP) -- The largest public bankruptcy in U.S. history is reaching a climax, with a judge set to decide whether to approve Detroit’s plan to emerge from Chapter 9 with buckets of debt emptied and $1.7 billion pledged to improve the quality of life in the struggling city.

Judge Steven Rhodes promised to announce his decision early Friday afternoon in a downtown courtroom. His task: to declare whether the plan is fair to creditors and feasible for the years ahead, the key standard under bankruptcy law.

All major critics have been silenced, particularly two bond insurers who dropped their opposition in exchange for cash, real estate and long-term leases on some city assets. General retirees voted in favor of a 4.5 percent cut in pensions and the elimination of annual cost-of-living payments. Detroit also is shedding $7 billion in debt.

they had no protection under the Michigan Constitution.

The most unusual feature is an $816 million pot of money funded by the state, foundations, philanthropists and The Detroit Institute of Arts.

The money would patch holes in pension funds, prevent even deeper cuts to retirees and avert the sale of city-owned art at the world-class museum.

It took more than two years for a smaller city, Stockton, California, to get out of bankruptcy. San Bernardino, a California city even smaller than Stockton, still is operating under Chapter 9 protection more than two years after filing.

“I think we’ve met all the conditions we need to meet, but he’s the final voice,” emergency manager Kevyn Orr said of the judge.

“Chapter 9 is an open book. It’s not going to look the same from case to case,” said Melissa Jacoby, who teaches bankruptcy law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill law school. “One shouldn’t look at Detroit and say, `We’re going to do exactly that.’ That would be very difficult to do.”

Orr, who ran Detroit for 18 months until late September, took the city into bankruptcy with Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s blessing in 2013.

She noted the “high level” of involvement by the governor and Legislature in the Detroit bankruptcy as well as federal judges wh

In the latest quarter, net income after paying preferred dividends fell to $485 million, or 20 cents per share. Excluding one-time items, net income was 45 cents per share, matching analyst expectations, according to FactSet.

“No one has said it’s not feasible. No one has said it will not provide adequate services,” Orr said of the bankruptcy exit plan. “Everybody said, `It’s skinny, so we’ll be on a little bit of a diet for a while.’ That’s OK.”

Alibaba, which is based in Hangzhou, China, said the decline resulted partly from $490 million in stock-option expenses related to performance-based and retention grants to some executives before its IPO, with vesting periods of four to six years.

With Rhodes’ decision, the case could be concluded in just under 16 months, lightning speed by bankruptcy standards. That was largely due to the series of deals between Detroit and creditors, especially retirees who agreed to accept the smaller pensions after Rhodes last year said

12 The Weekly News Digest, Nov 3 thru Nov 10, 2014

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R O C K E T C R A S H S T I R S U N C E RTA I N T Y A B O U T S P A C E T O U R I S M

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Federal accident investigators have an early sense of what went wrong before an experimental spaceship designed to ferry tourists beyond the Earth’s atmosphere broke apart during a test flight. But they still don’t know why the craft prematurely shifted its shape prior to the deadly crash.

the safety has been disengaged.

And another question looms: How far will the accident push back the day when paying customers can routinely rocket dozens of miles into the sky for a fleeting feeling of weightlessness and a breathtaking view?

Investigators believe once the feathers were unlocked, “aerodynamic forces” buffeting the craft as it hurtled along at about 760 mph caused the feathers to start rotating, NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson said Monday. Within a few seconds, the craft began to disintegrate, NTSB investigators determined.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators worked Monday at the main wreckage area where Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo fell to the ground in the Mojave Desert, but also collected tiny debris 35 miles away. The accident killed the co-pilot and badly injured the pilot who parachuted out of the ship Friday.

Acting NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart said cockpit video and data showed that the co-pilot unlocked SpaceShipTwo’s unique “feathering” system earlier than planned. The system works somewhat like the wing flaps that airplanes use to slow for landing - except that SpaceShipTwo’s twin tails rotate up at a far more extreme angle, to a position that creates strong resistance and slows the descent.

But while the co-pilot unlocked the system before planned, that action

Questions abound: Why did the co-pilot activate the system at that moment? Why did the tails begin to rotate without the co-pilot starting that process?

In this Nov. 1, 2014, photo provided by the National Transportation Safety Board, Virgin Galactic pilot Todd Ericson, right, talks with NTSB Acting Chairman Christopher A. Hart, second from left, at the SpaceShipTwo accident site with investigators in Mojave, Calif.

The cause of Friday’s crash of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo has not been determined, but investigators found the “feathering” system, which rotates the tail to create drag, was activated before the craft reached the appropriate speed, National Transportation Safety Board Acting Chairman Christopher Hart said.

alone should not have been enough to change the craft’s configuration.

Activating the feathering system requires the pulling of a lever - not unlike how a gun fires only when the trigger is pulled, not just because

P L A N S F O R A N TA R C T I C M A R I N E R E S E R V E F A L T E R A G A I N

China is the world’s largest importer of smuggled tusks, and Tanzania is the largest source of poached ivory, the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency said. Poaching in Tanzania alone has killed half of the country’s elephants in the past five years, the group said in the report.

It said Chinese-led criminal gangs conspired with corrupt Tanzanian officials to traffic huge amounts of ivory, some of which was loaded in diplomatic bags on Xi’s plane during a presidential visit in March 2013.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied the report. Spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily briefing that China has “consistently” opposed poaching and has sought to crack down on ivory smuggling.

Though rival companies also are pushing ahead, the dawn of space tourism seems to have been pushed beyond the horizon yet again.

It said that in December 2013, one dealer boasted of having sold $50,000 worth of ivory to Chinese navy personnel on an official visit in Tanzania’s port city of Dar es Salaam. It said a Chinese national was caught trying to enter the port with 81 illegal tusks intended for two Chinese naval officers.

In China, authorities have campaigned against illegal ivory. Six tons of illegal ivory was pulverized earlier this year in the southern city of Dongguan, and Chinese courts have stepped up prosecutions of illegal ivory trade.

Criminal cases involving endangered animals and the illegal ivory trade rose 9.6 percent in the first months of last year, compared with the same period a year earlier. The government also warns Chinese tourists in Tanzania not to purchase ivory products or face stiff penalties.

But animal rights and environmental protection advocates have called on China to ban the ivory trade altogether.

“We are already seeing the detrimental effect to allow a little bit of the ivory trade. We know that does not work,” Ge Gabriel of IFAW said. “We certainly hope any country that has a domestic ivory market should shut it down.”

In its report, EIA said its investigators learned as early as 2006 that some staff members of the Chinese Embassy in Tanzania were major buyers of illegal ivory.

It said Chinese government officials and businesspeople in the entourage during Xi’s 2013 state visit used the opportunity to buy such a large amount of ivory that local prices doubled. Two traders claimed that Chinese buyers, two weeks before the visit, began purchasing thousands of kilograms of ivory, which was later sent to China in diplomatic bags on

“We need to be absolutely certain our spaceship has been thoroughly tested - and that it will be,” he said. “And once it’s thoroughly tested, and we can go to space, we will go to space.”

Friday’s crash could trigger increased government regulation.

To give the fledgling commercial space industry space to innovate, the Federal Aviation Administration has not overregulated test flights during the past decade, according to Diane Howard, an assistant professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University who specializes in space law.

But the crash could allow the FAA to propose new rules affecting future Virgin Galactic flights, and “it will be very interesting to see how Congress and the FAA and industry respond,” Howard said.

The FAA did not immediately comment Monday. The agency is able to initiate a rule-making process that would affect the design or operation of a spacecraft involved in a fatal accident, but is unlikely to do so before the end of the NTSB’s investigation.

The second name honors Joseph Sertich, now a curator at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, who collected the sandstone block in 2010.

The 5-inch-long skull gives scientists their first good window into a poorly understood group of ancient Southern Hemisphere mammals that had been known only from isolated teeth and bits of jaw. They went extinct long ago, without leaving any descendants today.

He said that the EIA has been “unfriendly to China for quite some time,” calling the allegations irresponsible.

The country’s licensing system is flawed and enforcement is lax, said Grace Ge Gabriel, Asian regional director for International Fund for Animal Welfare. On top of that, the ivory-buying public in China is largely unaware that the global ivory trade is banned and that elephants must be killed in order to obtain tusks. Many are simply indifferent to the plight of an animal species on a distant continent, she said.

Branson still plans to be on the maiden voyage. He said that day will not come before a new round of crew-only flights.

When scientists did a CT scan of a large sandstone block to look for fish fossils, “we saw this thing staring back at us,” Krause said. “We were just amazed.”

“I don’t think there’s hard evidence, and I have not seen such cases,” Meng said. “Allegations without evidence are not believable, and I don’t think it is appropriate for (EIA) to come up with this mess.”

Critics say the legal stockpile of ivory has provided a convenient cover for a thriving black market in recent years.

SpaceShipTwo has been under development for years, and Branson originally predicted passengers would be enjoying the wonders of flight by now. In the weeks before the crash, he said he hoped to fly next year.

WEIRD SKULL FROM MADAGASCAR R E V E A L S A N C I E N T M A M M A L

Meng Xianlin, director general of the Endangered Species Import and Export Management Office of China, said he has never heard of involvement of Chinese delegations in ivory trade.

But, after legal pieces started showing up in shops, ivory soon became a status symbol in China. Carved ivory has historically been highly prized in China, and its scarcity has turned it into an investment choice akin to gold and silver.

The ultimate goal of Virgin Galactic co-owner Richard Branson is to create an industry that can move people around the globe in a fraction of the time it takes passenger jets, by rocketing them into space and back down.

“Your president was here,” one of the traders told investigators in hidden video footage provided by the agency. “When he was here, many kilos go out.”

“The report is groundless, and we express our strong dissatisfaction,” Hong said.

The illicit trade began to explode in China in 2008, when Beijing was permitted to purchase 62 tons of ivory under the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species. The purchase was presented as a way to keep alive China’s traditional artisan ivory carving industry.

A state-owned enterprise was authorized to sell the legal ivory to about 200 licensed factories and vendors.

Passenger jets typically fly about 7 miles high. Virgin Galactic envisions flights with six passengers climbing to more than 62 miles above Earth. Seats sell for $250,000 and the company says it has booked passengers including Justin Bieber, Ashton Kutcher and Russell Brand.

But the company now lacks not only a craft to fly but also an understanding of what caused the crash.

Another ivory dealer made a similar claim about the entourage for former Chinese President Hu Jintao on his 2009 state visit to Tanzania, the report said. “Then they go direct to the airport, because VIP no-one checks your bag,” the dealer told investigators.

BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese officials and businesspeople used a state trip

by President Xi Jinping and other high-level visits to smuggle ivory out of Tanzania, an environmental watchdog said Thursday, casting doubt over Beijing’s efforts to end the illegal trade that has led to rampant elephant poaching throughout Africa.

Knudson said a final cause will take months to determine and investigators were looking into other factors, including pilot training, mechanical failure and design flaws.

the presidential plane, the EIA report said.

“When the guest come, the whole delegation, that’s time ... the business go out,” the trader said.

Confiscated ivory is displayed at a chemical waste treatment center in Hong Kong. The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency said Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014 Chinese officials used a state trip by Chinese President Xi Jinping and other high-level visits to smuggle ivory out of Tanzania. In a report the environmental watchdog says Chinese-led criminal gangs conspired with corrupt Tanzanian officials to traffic huge amounts of ivory, some of which was loaded in diplomatic bags on Xi’s plane during a presidential visit in March 2013.

SpaceShipTwo is carried aloft on the underside of a jet-powered mother ship. It then drops from that ship and fires its own rocket to head higher.

The feathers are not supposed to engage until the craft reaches a speed of Mach 1.4, or more than 1,000 mph, Hart told reporters.

Now researchers can see a face, and it is bizarre, Krause said. The skull is very tall in comparison to its length. The eye sockets are huge. Weird flanges by the bottom jaw once anchored chewing muscles.

This Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2014 photo provided by the U.S. Geological Survey shows lava that has pushed through a fence marking a property boundary above the town of Pahoa on the Big Island of Hawaii.

The skull also revealed that the brain was tilted at a strange angle not seen in other animals. And it displayed an odd mix of primitive characteristics with more advanced ones.

NEW YORK (AP) -- During the dinosaur age most mammals were puny, generally weighing less than a pound. Now a bizarre fossil skull from Madagascar has revealed a comparative giant, one that clocked in at maybe 20 pounds.

Analysis suggests Vintana was an agile plant-eater with good eyesight in low light and a good sense of smell. Such abilities probably came in handy to avoid the predatory dinosaurs and other beasts that shared its environment, Krause said.

“It was a monster,” said David Krause of Stony Brook University in New York, who led the discovery team. “It looks like a big groundhog.”

“It would have been a very fine hors d’oeuvre” for a dinosaur, Krause said.

It’s the second heaviest mammal known from the dinosaur era, which ran roughly from 250 million years ago to 65 million years ago, and the most massive of that time from Southern Hemisphere.

John Flynn, an expert in fossil mammals at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who didn’t participate in the discovery, called the find “fantastic” because of its good preservation and relative completen

Krause said his best guess is that the creature might have measured 20 inches to 24 inches from nose to rump. It lived sometime between 66 million and 72 million years ago.

In a paper released Wednesday by the journal Nature, Krause and colleagues named the creature Vintana sertichi (VIN’-ti-nuh SIR’-ticheye). The first name, which means “luck” in the Malagasy language of Madagascar, was chosen because the skull appeared unexpectedly.