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 | March 12, 2015 |
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| BREAKING NEWS IN FERGUSON, MI |
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NBC News: Two Officers Shot During Protest Near Ferguson Police Department
Two police officers suffered "very serious" wounds after being shot early Thursday during a demonstration in Ferguson, Missouri, authorities said. Gunfire rang out as about 50 protesters and about 30 police officers remained outside the Ferguson Police Department shortly after midnight local time (1 a.m. ET). St. Louis County Police Chief John Belmar said that it appeared the shots were "directed exactly at" the officers. Freelance producer Jennifer Roller had been covering the rally, which had been peaceful since about 8 p.m. local time. "I heard pop, pop, pop, pop," Roller said. "I thought they were fireworks until I heard the cops screaming, 'get down, get down'." In an early-morning press conference, Belmar said that officers aged 41 and 32 had been shot — with one wounded in the face and the other struck in the shoulder. Belmar told reporters both victims were both conscious and talking but described their injuries as "very serious." Read more..
Earlier Wednesday... NYT: Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson Joins Exodus Of City Officials
The city’s embattled police chief, the focus of bitter complaints after a white officer fatally shot an unarmed black teenager here last August, agreed to resign Wednesday, completing a near complete shake-up of the city’s most senior administrators. In the week since the Department of Justice released a scathing report detailing how Ferguson used law enforcement to pad its coffers, often violating constitutional rights and disproportionately targeting blacks in the process, the city manager and Municipal Court judge have also stepped down, and the city’s court has been placed under state supervision. Together with the chief, Thomas Jackson, the three officials were cited as central figures in the abuses found by the Justice Department. Read more..
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| POLITICAL NEWS |
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WSJ: Clinton Private Email Plan Drew Concerns Early On
Before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state in 2009, one of her most trusted confidantes approached Bill Clinton’s aides with a plan. Mrs. Clinton wanted to run her private email account through the server her husband set up in the family’s Chappaqua, N.Y., home, people familiar with the matter said. A private server had obvious advantages. It would give Mrs. Clinton more control over her email, people familiar with her team’s reasoning said. Privately, aides of the former president worried that adding her account would make the system a target for hackers. They also weren’t aware she would use it for all her official correspondence. That decision has now invited the kind of relentless public scrutiny it was designed to avoid, while also maximizing Mrs. Clinton’s control over sensitive email correspondence that that she might not want to get out. Read more..
USA Today: AP Sues State Dept. Over Clinton E-mails
The Associated Press said Wednesday it has sued the State Department to force the release of government documents and e-mails from Hillary Rodham Clinton's tenure as secretary of State, an action taken a day after she defended her use of a private e-mail account to conduct business and after six formal attempts by the news agency to obtain records. "After careful deliberation and exhausting our other options, The Associated Press is taking the necessary legal steps to gain access to these important documents, which will shed light on actions by the State Department and former Secretary Clinton, a presumptive 2016 presidential candidate, during some of the most significant issues of our time," AP General Counsel Karen Kaiser said in a statement. Read more..
Politico: A Hillary Clinton Feeding Frenzy In The GOP House
Now that the Hillary Clinton email flap has blown up into the biggest news story in Washington, seemingly every House Republican wants in on the action. No fewer than three House committees have launched or are considering probes into Clinton’s email practices, a feeding frenzy that could allow the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to cast the investigations as yet another partisan witch-hunt. It could also become a problem for Speaker John Boehner and his leadership team, which has made a point of trying to prevent multiple committees from tripping over themselves investigating the same topic. They’re now working to keep the Clinton investigations on distinct tracks.http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/a-hillary-clinton-feeding-frenzy-in-the-gop-house-116002.html?hp=t1_r Read more..
Washington Post: Some Top Democrats Are Alarmed About Clinton’s Readiness For A Campaign
Senior Democrats are increasingly worried that Hillary Rodham Clinton is not ready to run for president, fearing that the clumsy and insular handling of the nine-day fracas over her private e-mails was a warning sign about the campaign expected to launch next month. Few Democrats believe that the revelations about her unorthodox e-mail practices as secretary of state are a substantive issue that would damage Clinton with voters, and many said she performed adequately in a Tuesday news conference defending herself. But in interviews Wednesday with The Washington Post, current and former Democratic officeholders and operatives from across the country raised serious questions about her and her political team’s strength and readiness for a 2016 presidential campaign. Read more..
NBC News: Hillary Clinton: No GOP 2016 Hopeful Should Sign Iran Letter
The debate about her use of personal emails is still largely consuming the political world, but Hillary Clinton took to Twitter Wednesday to slam potential Republican 2016 candidates for signing a letter to Iranian officials warning against a nuclear deal. She tweeted: "GOP letter to Iranian clerics undermines American leadership. No one considering running for commander-in-chief should be signing on." The letter was signed by likely GOP candidates Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul.http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-no-gop-2016-hopeful-should-sign-iran-letter-n321696 Read more..
Miami Herald: Preparing For Presidential Run, Jeb Bush Withdraws From Remaining Businesses
Jeb Bush has dropped his remaining business interests, freeing him from professional entanglements and potential conflicts as he prepares to run for president. The former Florida governor has divested from the two Coral Gables-based companies where he still had ownership stakes, his spokeswoman said Wednesday. Bush sold his ownership stakes this month in Jeb Bush & Associates and Britton Hill. He had already resigned from other corporate boards. “This was a natural step as Governor Bush transitioned his time and focus from running his business to increasing his political efforts on behalf of conservative candidates and causes,” spokeswoman Kristy Campbell said. Read more..
Washington Post: Secret Service Agents Investigated After Car Hits White House Barricade
The Obama administration is investigating allegations that two senior Secret Service agents, including a top member of the president’s protective detail, drove a government car into White House security barricades after drinking at a late-night party last week, an agency official said Wednesday. Officers on duty who witnessed the March 4 incident wanted to arrest the agents and conduct sobriety tests, according to a current and a former government official familiar with the incident. But the officers were ordered by a supervisor on duty that night to let the agents go home, said these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive internal matter. Read more..
WSJ: Netanyahu Slips In Polls Days Before Israeli Elections
Less than a week before Israel’s general elections, the party of incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu has begun to fall behind an opponent who promises to restart talks with Palestinians and smooth the prime minister’s notoriously rocky relations with the White House. Two polls on Wednesday put Isaac Herzog, leader of the dovish Labor Party, slightly ahead and suggest that support for Mr. Netanyahu and his Likud party among working-class Jews has eroded because of their widespread perception that he has focused on nuclear threats from Iran and extremist Muslims at the expense of economic problems. “He’s talking about something that isn’t relevant—Iran and ISIS,’’ said Avi Biton, owner of a snack bar and a Likud voter in previous elections. “Today my kids don’t have the ability to settle down and buy a house. If they can’t do that, this country has no reason to exist.” Read more..
Politico: Aaron Schock: I ‘Certainly Hope’ I Didn’t Break The Law
The question to Rep. Aaron Schock was simple: Do you think you’ve broken any rules or federal laws? But the scandal-plagued congressman did not have a definitive answer. “Well, I certainly hope not,” Schock said. “I’m not an attorney.” The 33-year-old Republican went on to argue that he does his “best” and takes his obligations “very seriously,” which is why he’s enlisted outside advisers to help audit his office’s procedures. “That’s what we can all do, is our best effort,” Schock said. And so it went for six defensive minutes with POLITICO on Tuesday, in one of the lawmaker’s most extensive interviews with the press since news of his big-spending, sloppy-accounting ways — from luxury hotels and fine dining paid for with public and campaign money to gifts that apparently should have been reported but weren’t — erupted a month ago. Read more..
International Business Times: Chris Christie Maintained State Pension Investments In Prudential After Top Official Gave Contributions
Republican Gov. Chris Christie's administration has over the past five years paid at least $6.5 million in taxpayer fees to Prudential Financial to manage New Jersey pension funds, even after company officials made substantial contributions to Christie's 2009 gubernatorial campaign, International Business Times has learned. One of the Prudential officials was Christie's top fundraiser, adviser and donor. Christie appointees nonetheless maintained investment contracts with Prudential despite state rules that require such contracts to be canceled when executives at firms managing pension money donate to or raise money for state lawmakers. “It sounds like it’s a clear conflict with the rules,” said Melanie Sloan, a former U.S. Department of Justice official who served as executive director of the watchdog group CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington), after IBTimes described its findings. “It seems like this thing is a clear violation of the rules. The rules just haven’t been enforced and now everyone is scrambling for cover.” Read more..
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| ISIS LATEST |
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WSJ: Islamic State Begins Retreat From Tikrit
Iraqi forces raised the national flag over a number of landmarks in Tikrit, working with Iran-backed Shiite militias to chip away at Islamic State’s once-firm grip on the strategically important Sunni city. The offensive has been a bright spot in the halting effort to uproot the insurgency, which swept through nearly one-third of the country last summer. While many of the militants in the city appeared to have retreated, posing potential challenges on other fronts, Iraqi officials said they are now more confident about the prospects for a planned U.S.-backed campaign to retake the city of Mosul from Islamic State. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was certain that the Iraqi security forces and allied militias would be able to retake Tikrit, but added that the U.S. was concerned about how Iran and the Shiite militias would use their influence in the aftermath. Read more..
NYT: A Rift Imperils Authorization To Combat ISIS
President Obama’s formal request for congressional authorization to fight the Islamic State — once framed by lawmakers as a matter of great constitutional import — is now seriously imperiled because Republicans think it does too little and Democrats think it does too much. And neither the White House nor many members of Congress seemed in any rush to bridge the divide. Secretary of State John Kerry and other top administration officials urged members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday to approve Mr. Obama’s request, but it was clear during the contentious three-hour session that lawmakers were far from reaching any agreement. Read more..
NBC News: ISIS Fight: Secretary of State John Kerry Takes On Protester at Senate Hearing
Secretary of State John Kerry directly responded on Wednesday to protesters who interrupted his testimony to a Senate committee about the American-led military campaign against ISIS. The secretary was giving opening remarks about the Obama administration's request for congressional authorization for the campaign when a protester said: "The American people are speaking out, Mr. Secretary! We're tired of an endless war!" The protester was holding a sign that said, "Another Useless Military Fiasco," a play on AUMF — authorization for use of military force. As the protester was led out of the hearing room, he shouted: "Creating more terrorism! Killing more innocent people!" Kerry scoffed. "Killing more innocent people," he said. "I wonder how our journalists who were beheaded, and the pilot who was fighting for freedom who was burned alive, what they would have to say to their efforts to protect innocent people." Read more..
Sky News: Australia's 'Jihadi Jake' In Suicide Attack
A Melbourne teenager who went to Iraq to join Islamic State has reportedly been killed carrying out a suicide bombing. An image from video apparently released by the group, which controls large areas of Iraq and Syria, showed a white four-wheel-drive with an inset image of a young man who looks like Jake Bilardi sat behind the wheel. Another image posted on Twitter showed the 18-year-old sat beneath an IS flag with a caption that suggested the Australian had been involved in a "martyrdom" operation. Militants carried out 13 suicide car bombings on security personnel positions in Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar province on Wednesday. Two soldiers were killed and eight others wounded in the near-simultaneous attacks, Sabah Karhout, head of Anbar's provincial council, said. In a statement posted online, IS said the suicide blats had been carried out by foreign fighters from Australia, Belgium, Syria and Uzbekistan. Read more..
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| U.S.-TRAINED IRAQI TROOPS INVESTIGATED FOR WAR CRIMES & OTHER STORIES FOR THIS THURSDAY MORNING... |
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AP: US To Send Ukraine Drones, More Aid, But No Lethal Weapons
The United States announced Wednesday that it is sending small unarmed drones, armored Humvees and other assistance to Ukraine in its fight against Russian-backed separatists. Lethal weapons were not included, to the dismay of some U.S. lawmakers. The White House said President Barack Obama is still considering whether to send weapons to Ukraine’s military, weighing the risks that such aid could further inflame conflict in which more than 6,000 people have died. “That bloodshed is something that we’re trying to avoid and de-escalate,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest. “So the president is very mindful of the potential risk that’s associated with providing additional lethal military assistance to the Ukrainians.” Read more..
ABC News: 'Dirty Brigades': US-Trained Iraqi Forces Investigated For War Crimes
U.S.-trained and armed Iraqi military units, the key to the American strategy against ISIS, are under investigation for committing some of the same atrocities as the terror group, American and Iraqi officials told ABC News. Some Iraqi units have already been cut off from U.S. assistance over "credible" human rights violations, according to a senior military official on the Pentagon's Joint Staff. The investigation, being conducted by the Iraqi government, was launched after officials were confronted with numerous allegations of “war crimes,” based in part on dozens of ghastly videos and still photos that appear to show uniformed soldiers from some of Iraq's most elite units and militia members massacring civilians, torturing and executing prisoners, and displaying severed heads. Read more..
NYT: Official Raises Doubts on Confession in Nemtsov Case
A member of the Kremlin’s advisory council on human rights said on Wednesday that the main suspect in the shooting death of a high-profile opposition figure was most likely forced to confess under duress, and that his two cousins in detention had been tortured. After visiting the three Chechens, who were among five suspects imprisoned on Sunday in Lefortovo Prison in Moscow, Andrei Babushkin, a rights activist, said that the men had suffered multiple injuries after their arrest. In a summary of the visit posted on the council’s website, Mr. Babushkin also reported that another man arrested at the same time as Zaur S. Dadayev, the main suspect, had disappeared and said that he had asked Russia’s top law enforcement agency to account for his whereabouts. Read more..
WSJ: Saudi Nuclear Deal Raises Stakes For Iran Talks
As U.S. and Iranian diplomats inched toward progress on Tehran’s nuclear program last week, Saudi Arabia quietly signed its own nuclear-cooperation agreement with South Korea. That agreement, along with recent comments from Saudi officials and royals, is raising concerns on Capitol Hill and among U.S. allies that a deal with Iran, rather than stanching the spread of nuclear technologies, risks fueling it. Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal, a member of the royal family, has publicly warned in recent months that Riyadh will seek to match the nuclear capabilities Iran is allowed to maintain as part of any final agreement reached with world powers. This could include the ability to enrich uranium and to harvest the weapons-grade plutonium discharged in a nuclear reactor’s spent fuel. Read more..
NYT: Harper Lee’s Condition Debated By Friends, Fans And Now State Of Alabama
The doubts arose almost immediately when HarperCollins announced last month that it would release a rediscovered book by Harper Lee: Did Ms. Lee — 88, publicity-shy and famously resistant to producing a follow-up to her masterpiece, “To Kill a Mockingbird” — really want to publish a second novel that she wrote and set aside more than a half-century ago? Weeks later, that question remains a matter of passionate debate. Despite reassurances from her publisher, lawyer and literary agent that Ms. Lee has enthusiastically endorsed the publication, the controversy over the new book, “Go Set a Watchman,” has divided some residents of her hometown here, as well as longtime friends who live elsewhere. One faction argues that Ms. Lee’s mental health is too shaky for her to have knowingly authorized the new book, while the other just as vigorously affirms her competence. Now the State of Alabama has been drawn into the debate. Responding to at least one complaint of potential elder abuse related to the publication of “Watchman,” investigators interviewed Ms. Lee last month at the assisted living facility where she resides. Read more..
NBC News: Texas Executes Killer Manuel Vasquez With One of Last Two Doses
Texas used one of its two remaining doses of an execution drug to kill a Mexican Mafia hitman on Wednesday evening. Manuel Vasquez, 46, had been sentenced to die for the 1998 slaying of a woman who balked at paying a gang tax on drug sales. Vasquez, 46, was pronounced dead at 6:32 p.m. CDT (7:32 ET), 17 minutes after the drug began being administered, according to the Associated Press. Vasquez was the first of six death-row inmates slated for execution in the coming weeks, but the state only had enough pentobarbital for two of them. Read more..
NYT: Expulsion Of Two Oklahoma Students Over Video Leads To Free Speech Debate
The University of Oklahoma’s decision to expel two fraternity members who led a racist chant on a bus provoked criticism Wednesday from several legal experts who said that the students’ words, however odious, were protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. “The courts are very clear that hateful, racist speech is protected by the First Amendment,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional scholar and dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine. Read more..
Reuters: 'Blurred Lines' Duo To Contest $7.4 Million Plagiarism Verdict
Recording stars Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams will contest the $7.4 million jury verdict that found they plagiarized Motown soul great Marvin Gaye in creating their hit single "Blurred Lines," the duo's lawyer said on Wednesday. A day after the judgment, attorney Howard King said Thicke and Williams remained adamant that "Blurred Lines" was an original song created solely by them, adding that jurors were apparently convinced otherwise by expert testimony which should have been inadmissible. The U.S. District Court jury in Los Angeles sided with Gaye's heirs on Tuesday in finding that parts of his 1977 hit "Got to Give it Up" were lifted by Thicke and Williams for their 2013 R&B chart-topper. Read more..
AP: ‘Still Alice’ Writer-Director Richard Glatzer Dies At 63
Richard Glatzer, who co-wrote and directed the Alzheimer’s drama “Still Alice” alongside his husband, Wash Westmoreland, while battling ALS, died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 63. Diagnosed in 2011 with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, the pair took on the project of “Still Alice” in a very early stage of Glatzer’s disease. During the 23-day shoot, Glatzer communicated with one finger using a text-to-speech app on his iPad. By the time of the press tour for the film in late 2014, Glatzer was only able to communicate by typing on the device with his big toe. Read more..
New York 4: Child Rescued After Being Buried In Igloo Collapse: FDNY
A child who was buried under about 10 feet of snow and ice following an igloo collapse in Brooklyn has been rescued, the FDNY says. The child was found buried beneath the ice at about 8 p.m. on 42nd Street between 15th and 16th Avenue in Borough Park, authorities say. He was pulled out and taken to Lutheran Hospital where he is listed in serious but stable condition. No further information was immediately available. Read more..
WSJ: Alibaba Invests In Snapchat
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has invested $200 million in U.S.-based Snapchat Inc., according to people familiar with the transaction, in its latest venture into social media. The Chinese e-commerce giant had previously held talks with the mobile-messaging start-up over an investment, but interest had been rekindled recently, one person said. The investment marks Alibaba’s latest bet on Silicon Valley startups, which have included video call app maker TangoMe Inc., mobile search provider Quixey Inc. and ride-hailing service Lyft Inc. It has also invested heavily in social media, including purchasing a stake last year in China’s Weibo Corp. and investing in its own Laiwang social-media app. Read more..
NYT: Goldman Sachs Contributes $2 Million To LaGuardia Community College
Last Friday, Gail O. Mellow, the president of LaGuardia Community College, a two-year institution in Queens with 50,000 students, received an unexpected call. It was Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, who surprised her with the news that the bank was giving the school $2 million. No restrictions applied. Goldman had been involved with LaGuardia for five years through the company’s 10,000 Small Businesses initiative, a program offering management education and support services to new and aspiring entrepreneurs. The gift will nearly double LaGuardia’s small endowment and, Ms. Mellow said, aid the college’s students, many of whom are immigrants and come from families that earn less than $25,000 a year. Read more..
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