Armed robbers steal $30,000 in iPhones, iPads from L.A. store

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - A federal government decision to allow a Wyoming tribe to kill two bald eagles for a religious ceremony is a victory for American Indian sovereignty as well as for long-suppressed religious freedoms, the tribe says.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service granted a permit March 9 to the Northern Arapaho Tribe allowing it either to kill or capture and release two bald eagles this year.

While no one questions the religious sincerity of Northern Arapaho tribal members, spokesmen for some conservation and animal rights groups question why the tribe can't meet its religious needs without killing wild eagles. They say the tribe could raise captive birds, or accept eagle feathers or carcasses already available from a federal repository that collects birds killed by power lines or other causes.

The Northern Arapaho share the Wind River Indian Reservation in central Wyoming with the Eastern Shoshone Tribe. The Northern Arapaho decline to say specifically what they will do with the eagles the federal permit allows them to kill.

"It has been since the beginning of time with us, and we respectfully utilize the eagle in our ceremonies," said Harvey Spoonhunter, a tribal elder and former chairman of the Northern Arapaho Business Council. "We get to utilize the eagle, which we consider a messenger to the Creator."

Bald eagles were removed from the federal list of threatened species in 2007. The birds remain protected under the federal Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. Several Indian tribes have been allowed permits to kill golden eagles for religious purposes.

Suzan Shown Harjo, president of the Morning Star Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based American Indian rights group, notes that only a few tribes still practice ceremonies that require them to kill eagles.

From the 1880s to the 1930s, the federal government enforced so-called "Civilization Regulations" that criminalized traditional ceremonies, including the Northern Arapaho's Sun Dance. Many Indian religious ceremonies were stamped out, Harjo said.

"They've done the correct thing, the proper thing. It's a good step in the direction of the United States trying to make amends for things that they did all too well to suppress Native American religious freedom for so long," Harjo said.

Andy Baldwin, lawyer for the Northern Arapaho Tribe, said the tribe went to court last fall to get the bald eagle permit following the federal prosecution of Winslow Friday, a young tribal member who shot a bald eagle on the Wind River Indian Reservation in 2005 for the Sun Dance. Friday ultimately pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay a fine in tribal court.

"One of the goals of the current suit is to prevent any young men like Winslow Friday from being prosecuted in the future for practicing their traditional religious ceremonies," Baldwin said this week.

The Fish and Wildlife Service says it issued the permit in response to the tribe's application, not the lawsuit it filed against the agency.

Federal lawyers filed a status report in the lawsuit this week saying that the Eastern Shoshone Tribe had opposed the killing of eagles on the reservation the two tribes share. The Northern Arapaho permit specifies the two bald eagles must be killed or captured off the reservation.

Edward Wemytewa, a member of the Zuni Tribe in western New Mexico, said he's happy for the Northern Arapaho.

"The common theme for a lot of indigenous peoples is that the bird, it brings not only strength and courage, it's just one of those creatures that still brings awe to many, many people," he said of eagles.

The Zuni Tribe has a federal permit allowing it to keep live eagles, most of which come from raptor rehabilitation projects while some are caught in the wild. Wemytewa declined to say whether any Zuni practices require killing eagles.

"I think because of ceremonies, our language has survived, our communities have survived, and I think that is one of the keys for endurance of Native American culture," Wemytewa said. "So if again, other tribes harvest birds for sacrifice in the name of ceremony and tradition, and longevity and health, I guess it makes sense."

Reaction to the Northern Arapaho bald eagle permit was muted among some non-Indian groups.

"We hold bald eagles in great esteem as well, and as a humane organization, we don't want to see them killed," said Wayne Pacelle, president of The Humane Society of the United States.

Saying his group understands the importance of many animals in Native American culture, Pacelle said, "in this case, we had hoped they would use feathers and carcasses that they could obtain from trustworthy sources and not resort to direct killing."

Brian Rutledge, vice president for the Rocky Mountain Region of the National Audubon Society, said his group encourages tribes to raise captive birds, rather than killing wild ones.

"But we understand that there are religious decisions that are made here that may not be understandable to all, but are well within the rights of the people acting on them," Rutledge said.

Matt Hogan, assistant regional director for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Denver, said no other applications to kill bald eagles are pending. And Harjo emphasized the Northern Arapaho permit isn't likely to unleash a flood of applications from other tribes.

"This isn't a wholesale run on the bald eagle that would drive them back into an endangered or threatened position," Harjo said. She emphasized that only a few tribes have intact ceremonies involving eagles and said that only a few individuals within those tribes have a religious need to kill wild birds.

On the Wind River Indian Reservation, the Northern Arapaho are preparing for spring. Nelson White, a tribal elder, said his people are listening for this year's first clap of thunder.

"That thunder represents the eagle hollering," White said. "And when that happens, that's when everything is waking up. The grass is coming back up, the birds are coming back, the plants and animals that were in hibernation are coming out. It's a new beginning."

"So in essence, with this decision, with this you might say victory, we say 'ho'hou,' - 'thank you,'" White said.

RT @YahooTicket: #Obama quaffs a pint of Guinness: @OKnox on the president's St. Patrick's Day outing: http://t.co/vzUsYPaD

The Afghan massacre suspect's neighbors in Washington are shocked to hear about the accusations against him: http://t.co/a3pPBP6N

Can your search terms give away your political leanings? Find out and try @yahoosignal's new tool: http://t.co/DbC4t8EX

Article from YAHOO NEWS

U.S. man\'s Iraq release shrouded in mystery

BAGHDAD (AP) - Wearing a U.S. Army uniform and flanked by Iraqi lawmakers, an American citizen announced Saturday that he was being released from more than nine months of imprisonment by a Shiite militia that for years targeted U.S. troops.

The man did not identify himself. But at a bizarre press conference outside the Green Zone in Baghdad, lawmakers showed U.S.-issued military and contractor ID cards that identified him as Randy Michael Hultz.

Speaking calmly and tripping over Arabic names in a monotone voice, Hultz said he was grateful for his release.

"It was explained to me that this is a gift to me, my family and to the American people who oppose the war," he said at the press conference that was held for Iraqi media.

He gave scant details of what he described as a "kidnapping," or how he was treated while captured.

"I was taken inside Baghdad and kept in and around different locations within the city," Hultz said. The kidnappers, he said, were from the Promised Day Brigade, a branch of the Mahdi Army, which is a militia that is controlled by the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Al-Sadr's militia led some of the bloodiest attacks against American troops at the height of the sectarian fighting in Iraq that brought the country to the brink of civil war. Followers of the cleric, who currently is believed to be studying in Iran, led the government's demands for U.S. troops to leave Iraq last December after nearly nine years of war.

Al-Sadr disbanded most of his militia and joined politics although he kept the Promised Day Brigade, a smaller group of fighters who carried out attacks against U.S. troops and facilities.

The Shiite cleric's political wing has 40 lawmakers in parliament, two of whom appeared with Hultz late Saturday.

Hultz was flanked at the press conference by lawmakers Maha al-Douri and Qusay al-Suhail, the deputy speaker of Iraq's parliament. Al-Douri read a statement she said was from the Promised Day Brigade, which said it kidnapped Hultz mainly as "revenge for the beloved Iraqi nation and restrain for the American forces."

Al-Douri said the militia released Hultz without any negotiating or pressure from the government or diplomats. She called the release "a gift to his family" and "to explain the picture of real Islam."

"This is a clear message from the sons of Iraq to the U.S. administration about the good will to liberate Iraq and its complete sovereignty," she said. She said Hultz is 59.

Hultz said he deployed to Iraq in 2003 as an active-duty soldier but left the military after 15 months. At that point, he said, he worked in a "civilian capacity" until his kidnapping on June 18, 2011.

Hultz did not wear any patches on his Amy green digitalized camouflage uniform that would identify his rank or what unit he may have served with. According to the two ID cards displayed at the press conference, he was active-duty military from January 2004 to February 2005, and a U.S. contractor from December 2005 to November 2007.

Sadrist officials said Hultz was taken into the Green Zone immediately after the press conference and turned over to the United Nations mission in Iraq. U.N. spokeswoman Radhia Achouri confirmed that the man was at the mission's compound Saturday night while the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad tried to verify his identity.

He was transferred to the U.S. Embassy late Saturday, spokesman Michael McClellan said.

Even Iraqi security forces were taken aback at the announcement. A senior Iraqi security official said intelligence indicated that the Promised Day Brigade had captured an American, but did not have enough reliable information to confirm it.

The official said two other Americans who worked as contractors for security firms still are being held by militants. He did not elaborate, and spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Hundreds of thousands of contractors, both American and other nationalities, worked alongside American troops and in other support roles throughout the war. Thousands still remain to help train Iraqi security forces on military equipment and to protect the massive U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and its diplomats across Iraq.

Senior Sadrist politician Abdul Hadi al-Mutairi said Hultz is married and has two sons. He "was treated well during his nine month imprisonment," al-Mutairi said, even though he said Hultz contributed in U.S. battles against the Madhi Army in the Sadr City neighborhood in Baghdad and the holy Shiite city of Najaf, south of the capital.

___

Associated Press Writer Robert Burns contributed to this report.

Article from YAHOO NEWS

Sky West pilot forced to make emergency landing

DENVER â€"  A Sky West pilot was forced to make an emergency landing in Denver after a report of smoke in the aircraft.

Denver International Airport officials say the flight with 49 passengers and three crew members on board returned to DIA shortly after takeoff at around noon Saturday. The plane was evacuated and no one was injured.

Sky West says the flight, operated as United Express, was met by emergency vehicles, and passengers were bused back to the concourse.

Article from FOXNEWS

Graphic Tweet Creates Controversy at UN Agency

The United Nations touts the principle of impartiality, but one UN agency is finding itself in the crosshairs of an international scandal because of the political activism of a staff member.

The Israel Mission to the UN has formally requested that the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) fire its national officer in Jerusalem, Khulood Badawi, because of her blatant anti-Israel activism. 

Last week, Badawi used Twitter to send a picture of a bloodied child in her father's arms with a caption: “Palestine is bleeding. Another child killed by Israel. Another father carrying a child into a grave in Gaza.”

The Twitter message, which was a huge hit, claimed that the Palestinian Arab girl had died from an Israeli airstrike the day before. The girl was either a car accident victim or was injured falling off a swing, according to reports. In his letter to OCHA Under-Secretary General Valerie Amos, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor wrote: “The picture was taken and published in 2006 by Reuters, which reported that this child died in an accident. She was not killed by Israeli forces.”

Ambassador Prosor is calling for Badawi‘s immediate dismissal for the inflammatory tweet, writing, “Ms. Badawi stands in complete violation of articles 100 and 101 of the UN Charter.”

The articles state that UN staff “shall refrain from any action which might reflect on their position as international officials responsible only to the Organization.” Prosor claims that Badawi actions not only “violate conduct expected of a UN official,” but that she also “actively engaged in the demonization of Israel, a member state of the United Nations. Such actions contribute to incitement, conflict and, ultimately, violence.”

The Twitter account login that Badawi, an Israeli Arab citizen, uses is “Long live Palestine”. OCHA hired Badawi despite her record of pro-Palestinian activism, while OCHA's own website espouses that “humanitarian actors must not take sides in hostilities or engage in controversies of a political, racial, religious or ideological nature.”

In a response letter to Ambassador Prosor, obtained by Fox News, UN Under-Secretary General Amos wrote: “It is regrettable that an OCHA staff member has posted information on her personal Twitter profile, which is both false and which reflects on issues that are related to her work. The opinions expressed in her tweets in no way reflect the views of OCHA, nor has it been sanctioned by OCHA.” 

When asked what the UN intends to do about the matter, OCHA spokeswoman Amanda Pitt said, Badawi remains fully employed, while an “internal inquiry reviews whether any action needs to be taken on the staff member.”

Amid the Israeli government's call for OCHA to fire Khulood Badawi, several pro-Palestinian websites have come to her defense, including Alternative News, which posts a petition to save her job. Badawi's defenders accuse the Israel government and the pro-Israel camp of launching a campaign to muzzle Badawi's voice for “the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people” and documenting of “human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

Badawi's work as an OCHA field officer gives her the means to report from sensitive locations at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On March 19th, the OCHA Humanitarian Coordinator and the Head of Office in Jerusalem have an appointment to meet with officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel to discuss her activity.

Article from FOXNEWS

Judge bars 17 Chevron executives from leaving Brazil

WASHINGTON (AP) - After a few months of relative peace on the budget front, Democrats and Republicans are readying for a party-defining, election-year fight over trillion dollar-plus deficits and what to do about them.

The focus in the week ahead will be on the conservative-dominated House, where the Budget Committee chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is fashioning a sequel to last year's "Path to Prosperity" manifesto that ignited a firestorm over Medicare.

The upcoming debate gives Republicans a chance to show how they would tackle out-of-control budget deficits and rein in the cost and scope of government. Those are top issues for the conservative supporters counted on by Republicans to turn out in large numbers in the fall to maintain the GOP's control of the House.

President Barack Obama played it safe when he released his spending blueprint last month for the budget year that begins Oct. 1. It calls for tax increases on wealthier earners and modest spending curbs. But it would not address the spiraling costs of Medicare and Medicaid, the health care plan for the poor and disabled.

Last year's GOP measure proposed replacing Medicare fee-for-service payments to doctors and hospitals with a voucher-like program in which the government would subsidize purchases of health insurance on the private market.

Democrats said the subsidies would not keep up with inflation in medical costs and would shift costs to older people, and they accused Republicans of plotting to "end Medicare as we know it." The uproar was an important factor in a special election in which Democrats seized a longstanding GOP-held House seat in upstate New York. Republicans showed less enthusiasm for the plan after that.

Ryan has since come out with a less stringent version of the measure, in concert with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that would keep the traditional Medicare "fee for service" program as an option along with private insurance plans. It features more realistic inflation increases, and less resulting savings for the government, than last year's measure.

"This coming debt crisis is the most predictable crisis we've ever had in this country," Ryan said in a video statement. "This is why we're acting. This is why we're leading. This is why we're proposing - and passing out of the House - a budget to fix this problem: So we can save our country for ourselves and our children's future."

Ryan has yet to disclose the specifics of his plan. But the committee announced Saturday that Ryan would introduce the proposal Tuesday; that would allow his committee to sign off on it by the end of the week.

Pressure from conservative lawmakers has prompted GOP leaders and Ryan to reopen last summer's budget pact and impose further cuts on domestic agencies such as the departments of Education, Energy and Housing and Urban Development.

Last year's deal with Obama set a $1.047 trillion cap on the annual operating budgets of Cabinet departments and other agencies for the upcoming 2013 budget year.

GOP aides say Republican leaders want to cut that figure by $19 billion, or almost 2 percent, leading to protests from Democrats that Republicans are going back on the deal. The move would make it more difficult to pass follow-up spending bills setting agency budgets for new fiscal year.

Tea party lawmakers on the House Budget Committee, such as Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., have pressed for even deeper cuts, leading to a push-and-pull match with the more pragmatic Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee.

The annual budget debate is conducted under arcane rules. The main budget document, called a budget resolution, is a nonbinding measure that sets the parameters for follow-up legislation on spending and taxes. Even though its broader goals usually are not put into place, it is viewed as a statement of party principles.

Democrats controlling the Senate do not want a budget debate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said he will instead rely on language he inserted in a budget pact last year that allows for floor action on the annual spending bills without a budget resolution.

By avoiding a budget debate, Reid protects several vulnerable incumbent Democrats from politically dangerous votes.

Despite the GOP proposal's sharp cuts to agency budgets and Medicaid, and its call to repeal Obama's health care law, it is certain to leave substantial annual deficits over the next decade. That's how bleak the nation's underlying financial picture is.

Democrats and independent budget expert are sure to cite the resulting deficits as proof that new tax revenues are needed as part of any comprehensive answer to the fiscal crisis.

GOP aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss party deliberations, say the measure may include special instructions to other House committees to scrub the programs under their jurisdiction for savings that could be used to forestall about $100 billion in across-the-board spending cuts set to take effect in January.

Those cuts, including $50 billion in defense spending, are punishment for the failure of last year's supercommittee to come up with a new package of $1.2 trillion in deficit cuts over the next decade as part of the deal to let the government keep borrowing.

The GOP plan would bundle the new cuts from various committees and try to pass them as early as this spring. They might include various proposals discussed by the supercommittee and earlier spending cuts that the House considered as a way to pay for a Social Security tax cut without adding to the government's long-term debt.

___

Online:

House Budget Committee: http://budget.house.gov

Article from YAHOO NEWS

Firestorm over Apple report sparks questions about art, truth

NEW YORK (AP) - Mike Daisey, a burly man who makes a living telling stories, has found himself in the middle of a storm of controversy - put there by his own words.

The performer had to admit Friday that much of his latest monologue, in which he describes iPhones and iPads being made in Chinese sweatshops, is a mix of fact and fiction, something he failed to point out during a media blitz promoting his critically acclaimed piece.

"It uses a combination of fact, memoir, and dramatic license to tell its story, and I believe it does so with integrity," Daisey said in a statement posted on his website. He did not answer questions sent to his personal email account and his publicist did not return request for comment Saturday.

The firestorm started after Ira Glass, the host of the popular public radio show "This American Life," aired an interview in which Daisey acknowledged some claims in his one-man show "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" weren't true, and Glass said he couldn't vouch for the truth of a Jan. 6 broadcast based on the show.

The New York Times, The Associated Press and dozens of other media and entertainment outlets, from MSNBC to Bill Maher's show on HBO, also were misled.

The revelations are unlikely to halt scrutiny of Chinese factories that make Apple products since news outlets including the Times have reported dangerous working conditions there, including explosions inside iPad plants where four people were killed and 77 were injured.

But Daisey's career, which had been hot, is likely to take a hit and some of his older monologues might get a second look.

"If he had only chosen to actually utilize what theatre allows you to do - which is to transform fact into something that retains an emotional truth," said Howard Sherman, a former executive director of the American Theatre Wing and a respected arts administrator and producer. He didn't see Daisey's show but said he thought it might "call into question people who do this in the future."

Daisey is just the latest artist to apparently get tripped up by the truth - joining a list that includes James Frey, who admitted that he lied in his memoir "A Million Little Pieces," and Greg Mortenson, who is accused of fabricating key parts of his best-selling book "Three Cups of Tea."

The controversy raised once again the question of the artist's role in society and what his or her responsibility is to the truth. And has Daisey ultimately hurt or harmed the very people he was trying to help?

Terry Teachout, chief theater critic for The Wall Street Journal, called Daisy a talented artist but said the episode was "unforgivable," and Peter Marks, the critic for The Washington Post, tweeted that Daisey's "zeal seems to have gotten the better of his judgment." Chris Jones at the Chicago Tribune suspected Daisey "was seduced by the glare of attention."

Daisey, who performs his monologues seated at a desk and using notes, has previously tackled everything from dysfunctional dot-coms to the international financial crisis. A movie has been made of his monologue "If You See Something Say Something," and in a weird twist, he did a 2006 show called "Truth" about how art and fact mix. In it, Daisey admitted he once fabricated a story because it "connected" with the audience.

Daisey told Glass he felt conflicted about presenting things that he knew weren't true. But he said he felt "trapped" and was afraid people would no longer care about the abuses at the factories if he didn't present things in a dramatic way.

In an interview with the AP last year when his show was first in New York, Daisey's passion for humane treatment of Chinese workers was evident.

"Artists are people who are called to action," he said. "If they're not active then they're probably asleep."

An Apple spokeswoman declined again Saturday to comment on the revelations about the monologue. The company has been rebutting Daisey's allegations for months, to little effect.

Daisey's work, which combines personal insight, historical digressions and gonzo journalism, has propelled him across the world, from the South Pacific island of Tanna to the site in the New Mexico desert where an atomic bomb was tested. His style is pugnacious, but he's also funny and touching.

His latest monologue includes no disclaimer that it's a mishmash of truth and fiction. In it, he describes traveling to the Chinese industrial zone of Shenzhen and interviewing hundreds of workers from Foxconn Technology Group, the world's largest electronics contract manufacturer. Daisey says he stood outside the gate with a translator and met workers as young as 12 and some whose joints were damaged because they performed the same action thousands of times a shift.

"I talk to people whose joints in their hands have disintegrated from working on the line, doing the same motion hundreds and hundreds of thousands of times. It's like carpal tunnel on a scale we can scarcely imagine," he says, according to a transcript of the show. Later in the monologue, he says he met workers poisoned by the chemical hexane, used to clear iPhone screens.

But "This American Life" reported Daisey's Chinese interpreter disputed many of the artist's claims when contacted by Rob Schmitz, a China correspondent for the public radio show "Marketplace." Among them, the translator said guards outside the factory weren't armed, Daisey never met workers from a secret union and he never visited factory dorm rooms.

Daisey told Glass he didn't meet any poisoned workers and guessed at the ages of some he met. He also said some details he used were things he read about happening elsewhere.

"I'm not going to say that I didn't take a few shortcuts in my passion to be heard," he told Glass. "But I stand behind the work. My mistake, the mistake that I truly regret is that I had it on your show as journalism, and it's not journalism. It's theater."

Apple's popularity among consumers and investors alike has only grown while Daisey has been railing against the company. Since Daisey's one-man show hit the stage in the summer of 2010, Apple has sold more than 74 million iPhones, more than 35 million iPads and more than 29 million iPods.

Propelled by the surging sales of Apple's devices, the company stock price has climbed nearly 70 percent to create an additional $220 billion in shareholder wealth. Apple now reigns as the world's richest company, with nearly $100 billion in cash and a market value of $546 billion.

Daisey's embellishments threaten to set back the efforts to improve the working conditions in China and other countries where many trendy gadgets are made, said veteran technology analyst Rob Enderle.

He fears Daisey's tainted credibility will embolden more U.S. companies to turn a blind eye to how the assembly-line workers are being treated in the overseas factories run by their contractors. "It will make it more difficult to correct these labor injustices in China," Enderle said. "Daisey tried to make this out to be an Apple problem, but it really wasn't. It's a China problem."

Daisey - a performer in the vein of Spalding Gray and John Leguizamo - has performed the monologue for more than 50,000 people from Seattle to Washington, D.C. He was expected to take the show on tour after its run at The Public Theater in New York ends Sunday, but that's now in doubt.

In a statement, The Public Theater said the show would be performed this weekend as scheduled.

"Mike is an artist, not a journalist," the theater said. "Nevertheless, we wish he had been more precise with us and our audiences about what was and wasn't his personal experience in the piece."

___

AP Technology Writer Mike Liedtke contributed to this report.

___

Online:

This American Life: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/460/retraction

Mike Daisey: http://mikedaisey.blogspot.com

Article from YAHOO NEWS

GOP Readies for New Budget Battle

WASHINGTON â€"  After a few months of relative peace on the budget front, Democrats and Republicans are readying for a party-defining, election-year fight over trillion dollar-plus deficits and what to do about them. 

The focus in the week ahead will be on the conservative-dominated House, where the Budget Committee chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is fashioning a sequel to last year's "Path to Prosperity" manifesto that ignited a firestorm over Medicare. 

The upcoming debate gives Republicans a chance to show how they would tackle out-of-control budget deficits and rein in the cost and scope of government. Those are top issues for the conservative supporters counted on by Republicans to turn out in large numbers in the fall to maintain the GOP's control of the House. 

President Obama played it safe when he released his spending blueprint last month for the budget year that begins Oct. 1. It calls for tax increases on wealthier earners and modest spending curbs. But it would not address the spiraling costs of Medicare and Medicaid, the health care plan for the poor and disabled. 

Last year's GOP measure proposed replacing Medicare fee-for-service payments to doctors and hospitals with a voucher-like program in which the government would subsidize purchases of health insurance on the private market. 

Democrats said the subsidies would not keep up with inflation in medical costs and would shift costs to older people, and they accused Republicans of plotting to "end Medicare as we know it." The uproar was an important factor in a special election in which Democrats seized a longstanding GOP-held House seat in upstate New York. Republicans showed less enthusiasm for the plan after that. 

Ryan has since come out with a less stringent version of the measure, in concert with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that would keep the traditional Medicare "fee for service" program as an option along with private insurance plans. It features more realistic inflation increases, and less resulting savings for the government, than last year's measure. 

"This coming debt crisis is the most predictable crisis we've ever had in this country," Ryan said in a video statement. "This is why we're acting. This is why we're leading. This is why we're proposing -- and passing out of the House -- a budget to fix this problem: So we can save our country for ourselves and our children's future." 

Ryan has yet to disclose the specifics of his plan. But the committee announced Saturday that Ryan would introduce the proposal Tuesday; that would allow his committee to sign off on it by the end of the week. 

Pressure from conservative lawmakers has prompted GOP leaders and Ryan to reopen last summer's budget pact and impose further cuts on domestic agencies such as the departments of Education, Energy and Housing and Urban Development. 

Last year's deal with Obama set a $1.047 trillion cap on the annual operating budgets of Cabinet departments and other agencies for the upcoming 2013 budget year. 

GOP aides say Republican leaders want to cut that figure by $19 billion, or almost 2 percent, leading to protests from Democrats that Republicans are going back on the deal. The move would make it more difficult to pass follow-up spending bills setting agency budgets for new fiscal year. 

Tea party lawmakers on the House Budget Committee, such as Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., have pressed for even deeper cuts, leading to a push-and-pull match with the more pragmatic Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee. 

The annual budget debate is conducted under arcane rules. The main budget document, called a budget resolution, is a nonbinding measure that sets the parameters for follow-up legislation on spending and taxes. Even though its broader goals usually are not put into place, it is viewed as a statement of party principles. 

Democrats controlling the Senate do not want a budget debate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said he will instead rely on language he inserted in a budget pact last year that allows for floor action on the annual spending bills without a budget resolution. 

By avoiding a budget debate, Reid protects several vulnerable incumbent Democrats from politically dangerous votes. 

Despite the GOP proposal's sharp cuts to agency budgets and Medicaid, and its call to repeal Obama's health care law, it is certain to leave substantial annual deficits over the next decade. 

That's how bleak the nation's underlying financial picture is. 

Democrats and independent budget expert are sure to cite the resulting deficits as proof that new tax revenues are needed as part of any comprehensive answer to the fiscal crisis. 

GOP aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss party deliberations, say the measure may include special instructions to other House committees to scrub the programs under their jurisdiction for savings that could be used to forestall about $100 billion in across-the-board spending cuts set to take effect in January. 

Those cuts, including $50 billion in defense spending, are punishment for the failure of last year's supercommittee to come up with a new package of $1.2 trillion in deficit cuts over the next decade as part of the deal to let the government keep borrowing. 

The GOP plan would bundle the new cuts from various committees and try to pass them as early as this spring. They might include various proposals discussed by the supercommittee and earlier spending cuts that the House considered as a way to pay for a Social Security tax cut without adding to the government's long-term debt.

Article from FOXNEWS

Eagle Kill Permit Victory For Tradition, Tribe Says

CHEYENNE, Wyo. â€"  A federal government decision to allow a Wyoming tribe to kill two bald eagles for a religious ceremony is a victory for American Indian sovereignty as well as for long-suppressed religious freedoms, the tribe says.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service granted a permit March 9 to the Northern Arapaho Tribe allowing it either to kill or capture and release two bald eagles this year.

While no one questions the religious sincerity of Northern Arapaho tribal members, spokesmen for some conservation and animal rights groups question why the tribe can't meet its religious needs without killing wild eagles. They say the tribe could raise captive birds, or accept eagle feathers or carcasses already available from a federal repository that collects birds killed by power lines or other causes.

The Northern Arapaho share the Wind River Indian Reservation in central Wyoming with the Eastern Shoshone Tribe. The Northern Arapaho decline to say specifically what they will do with the eagles the federal permit allows them to kill.

"It has been since the beginning of time with us, and we respectfully utilize the eagle in our ceremonies," said Harvey Spoonhunter, a tribal elder and former chairman of the Northern Arapaho Business Council. "We get to utilize the eagle, which we consider a messenger to the Creator."

Bald eagles were removed from the federal list of threatened species in 2007. The birds remain protected under the federal Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. Several Indian tribes have been allowed permits to kill golden eagles for religious purposes.

Suzan Shown Harjo, president of the Morning Star Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based American Indian rights group, notes that only a few tribes still practice ceremonies that require them to kill eagles.

From the 1880s to the 1930s, the federal government enforced so-called "Civilization Regulations" that criminalized traditional ceremonies, including the Northern Arapaho's Sun Dance. Many Indian religious ceremonies were stamped out, Harjo said.

"They've done the correct thing, the proper thing. It's a good step in the direction of the United States trying to make amends for things that they did all too well to suppress Native American religious freedom for so long," Harjo said.

Andy Baldwin, lawyer for the Northern Arapaho Tribe, said the tribe went to court last fall to get the bald eagle permit following the federal prosecution of Winslow Friday, a young tribal member who shot a bald eagle on the Wind River Indian Reservation in 2005 for the Sun Dance. Friday ultimately pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay a fine in tribal court.

"One of the goals of the current suit is to prevent any young men like Winslow Friday from being prosecuted in the future for practicing their traditional religious ceremonies," Baldwin said this week.

The Fish and Wildlife Service says it issued the permit in response to the tribe's application, not the lawsuit it filed against the agency.

Federal lawyers filed a status report in the lawsuit this week saying that the Eastern Shoshone Tribe had opposed the killing of eagles on the reservation the two tribes share. The Northern Arapaho permit specifies the two bald eagles must be killed or captured off the reservation.

Edward Wemytewa, a member of the Zuni Tribe in western New Mexico, said he's happy for the Northern Arapaho.

"The common theme for a lot of indigenous peoples is that the bird, it brings not only strength and courage, it's just one of those creatures that still brings awe to many, many people," he said of eagles.

The Zuni Tribe has a federal permit allowing it to keep live eagles, most of which come from raptor rehabilitation projects while some are caught in the wild. Wemytewa declined to say whether any Zuni practices require killing eagles.

"I think because of ceremonies, our language has survived, our communities have survived, and I think that is one of the keys for endurance of Native American culture," Wemytewa said. "So if again, other tribes harvest birds for sacrifice in the name of ceremony and tradition, and longevity and health, I guess it makes sense."

Reaction to the Northern Arapaho bald eagle permit was muted among some non-Indian groups.
"We hold bald eagles in great esteem as well, and as a humane organization, we don't want to see them killed," said Wayne Pacelle, president of The Humane Society of the United States.

Saying his group understands the importance of many animals in Native American culture, Pacelle said, "in this case, we had hoped they would use feathers and carcasses that they could obtain from trustworthy sources and not resort to direct killing."

Brian Rutledge, vice president for the Rocky Mountain Region of the National Audubon Society, said his group encourages tribes to raise captive birds, rather than killing wild ones.

"But we understand that there are religious decisions that are made here that may not be understandable to all, but are well within the rights of the people acting on them," Rutledge said.

Matt Hogan, assistant regional director for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Denver, said no other applications to kill bald eagles are pending. And Harjo emphasized the Northern Arapaho permit isn't likely to unleash a flood of applications from other tribes.

"This isn't a wholesale run on the bald eagle that would drive them back into an endangered or threatened position," Harjo said. She emphasized that only a few tribes have intact ceremonies involving eagles and said that only a few individuals within those tribes have a religious need to kill wild birds.

On the Wind River Indian Reservation, the Northern Arapaho are preparing for spring. Nelson White, a tribal elder, said his people are listening for this year's first clap of thunder.

"That thunder represents the eagle hollering," White said. "And when that happens, that's when everything is waking up. The grass is coming back up, the birds are coming back, the plants and animals that were in hibernation are coming out. It's a new beginning."

"So in essence, with this decision, with this you might say victory, we say `ho'hou,' -- `thank you,"' White said.

Article from FOXNEWS

Judge bars 17 Chevron executives from leaving Brazil

NEW YORK (AP) - Chanting and cheering down Wall Street on Saturday to mark six months since the birth of the Occupy movement, some protesters applauded the Goldman Sachs employee who days ago gave the firm a public drubbing, echoing the movement's indictment of a financial system demonstrators say is fueled by reckless greed.

"I kind of like to think that the Occupy movement helped him to say, 'Yeah, I really can't do this anymore,'" retired librarian Connie Bartusis said of the op-ed piece by Goldman Sachs manager Greg Smith, who claimed the company regularly foisted failing products on clients as it sought to make more money.

Carrying a sign with the words "Regulate Regulate Regulate," Bartussis said the loss of governmental checks on the financial system helped create the climate of unfettered self-interest described by Smith in his piece, although Goldman's leadership suggested he had not portrayed the bank's culture accurately.

"Greed is a very powerful force," Bartussis said. "That's what got us in trouble."

On Saturday, six months after the protesters first took over Zuccotti Park near the city's financial district, the protesters gathered there again, drawing slogans in chalk on the pavement and waving flags as they marched through lower Manhattan.

With the barricades that once blocked them from Wall Street now removed, the protesters streamed down the sidewalk and covered the steps of the Federal Hall National Memorial. There, steps from the New York Stock Exchange and standing at the feet of a statue of George Washington, they danced and chanted, "We are unstoppable."

Police say arrests had been made, but they don't have a full count yet.

As always, the protesters focused on a variety of concerns, but for Tom Hagan, his sights were on the giants of finance.

"Wall Street did some terrible things, especially Goldman Sachs, but all of them. Everyone from the banks to the rating agencies, they all knew they were doing wrong. ... But they did it anyway. Because the money was too big," he said.

Dressed in an outfit that might have been more appropriate for the parade going on uptown, the 61-year-old salesman wore a green shamrock cap and carried a sign asking for saintly intervention: "St. Patrick: Drive the snakes out of Wall Street." He, too, praised Smith's editorial and said it came just as the Occupy movement is again gaining ground.

It was a sentiment echoed by others. Stacy Hessler held up a cardboard sign that read, "Spring is coming," a reference, she said, both to the Arab Spring and to the warm weather that is returning to New York City. She said she believes the nicer weather will bring the crowds back to Occupy protests, where numbers have dwindled in recent months since the group's encampment was ousted from Zuccotti Park by authorities in November.

But now, "more and more people are coming out," said the 39-year-old, who left her home in Florida in October to join the Manhattan protesters and stayed through much of the winter. "The next couple of months, things are going to start to grow, like the flowers."

Some have questioned whether the group can regain its momentum. This month, the finance accounting group in New York City reported that just about $119,000 remained in Occupy's bank account - the equivalent of about two weeks' worth of expenses.

But Hessler said the group has remained strong, and she pronounced herself satisfied with what the Occupy protesters have accomplished over the last half year.

"It's changed the language," she said. "It's brought out a lot of issues that people are talking about. ... And that's the start of change."

___

Samantha Gross can be reached at www.twitter.com/samanthagross.

Article from YAHOO NEWS

Chavez makes energetic homecoming after cancer surgery

CAMBRIDGE, England - Margaret Thatcher was so fascinated by U.S. President Ronald Reagan that she snatched and kept a page of his doodles from a G7 summit, the former British prime minister's newly released papers reveal.

The page of ink drawings is among personal papers from 1981 released Saturday by the Thatcher archive at Cambridge University.

Reagan left the piece of paper sitting on a table at the meeting near Ottawa, Canada, in July 1981. It is adorned with a scribbled eye, a man's muscular torso and several heads, including one that looks like a self portrait.

"She told me it was fascinating to see it, and she just grabbed them," said historian Chris Collins of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation. "He just left it on his desk. She snaffled it up, put it in her papers, brought it back to Downing Street and kept it in her flat."

Cary Cooper, a psychologist at Lancaster University in northern England, said Thatcher's souvenir provided an insight into the president's state of mind during the summit - he was bored.

"Here's a body, there's a head separate from the body," Cooper said. "Is he so unenamored with what's going on that he's having an out-of-body experience?

"The eye means I'm watching what's going on, I'm observing, but I'm not altogether there."

The documents confirm the immediate warmth between the two conservative leaders, who forged a strong anti-communist alliance during the 1980s. But they also reveal a lesser-known story - the lengths the U.S. administration went to distance itself from Thatcher's then-unpopular government, which was facing a recession, rising unemployment and inner-city riots.

Thatcher, Britain's prime minister between 1979 and 1990, was the first foreign leader invited to Washington by Reagan for a state visit. The papers reveal she was briefed extensively ahead of the February 1981 trip on how to rebut criticisms coming out of the U.S. administration.

A briefing paper from senior adviser Alfred Sherman, marked "highly confidential," warns Thatcher of "ominous aspects" and "underwater snags" to the upcoming visit because of diverging interests.

On issues like Latin America and the Caribbean, Americans "now expect Britain to see Caribbean problems in terms of America's strategic interest and not in terms of Britain's residual commitments in the area," Sherman wrote.

South Africa was another potential problem. The U.S. administration wanted to maintain a policy of engagement with the apartheid regime, amid growing criticism around the world of the regime's racist policies. Sherman noted that the Reagan administration believed anti-apartheid sentiment was confined largely to "psychologically unbalanced middle class 'liberal' whites."

"In other words, the gap between American and British views is widening," Sherman said.

Sherman also warned that since Reagan's election in November 1980, "Reaganites have quite brutally differentiated themselves from the Conservative government here" - going so far as to brief journalists on differences between U.S. and U.K. economic policy.

"The economic arguments were very serious," Collins said. "It was very embarrassing for her to have the Americans attack her economic policy. And it was very crudely done."

Thatcher addressed the issue head-on in her first phone call with Reagan on Jan. 21, 1981 - the day after his inauguration.

"The newspapers are saying mostly that President Reagan must avoid Mrs. Thatcher's mistakes so I must brief you on the mistakes," she told him.

But the overall tone of the call was warm. "We will lend strength to each other," Reagan said.

And when the two leaders met in Washington, they struck up an immediate rapport. Thatcher considered the visit a triumph.

"The relationship gets warmer and warmer," Collins said. "After the February meeting, she's euphoric."

After the visit, Thatcher wrote to the British ambassador in Washington: "I have great confidence in the President. I believe he will do things he wants to do - and he won't give up."

Soon they were addressing their letters "Ron" and "Margaret"; the rest is history.

___

Online:

Thatcher Papers at the Churchill Archive, Cambridge: http://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/collections/thatcher/thatcher_home.php

___

Jill Lawless can be reached at: http://twitter.com/JillLawless

Article from YAHOO NEWS

GOP preps for budget battle with Democrats, Obama

SAN DIEGO - Jason Russell may be the most public face of Invisible Children, the non-profit group he co-founded to stop African war atrocities. He narrates a 30-minute video on warlord Joseph Kony that went viral on the Internet.

Less than two weeks after the video's smashing success, Invisible Children is facing the prospect of carrying on without Russell - at least for a while. He was briefly detained by police and hospitalized after witnesses saw him running through streets in his underwear, screaming and banging his fists on the pavement.

Danica Russell said late Friday that her husband "did some irrational things brought on by extreme exhaustion and dehydration." She denied that alcohol or drug use triggered the behaviour.

"We thought a few thousand people would see the film, but in less than a week, millions of people around the world saw it. While that attention was great for raising awareness about Joseph Kony, it also brought a lot of attention to Jason and, because of how personal the film is, many of the attacks against it were also very personal, and Jason took them very hard," she said.

"On our end, the focus remains only on his health, and protecting our family. We'll take care of Jason, you take care of the work," her statement continued. "The message of the film remains the same: stop at nothing."

San Diego police dispatcher transcripts show neighbours began calling around 11:30 a.m. Thursday to report that a man was running around in his underwear in the city's Pacific Beach neighbourhood.

"(Subject) is at the corner, banging his hands on the ground, screaming, incoherent," the transcript says. "People are trying to calm him down, he's been stopping traffic."

Police Lt. Andra Brown said a 33-year-old man was taken to a hospital for medical evaluation. He was never arrested, and no charges are planned.

"At this point, the police department's involvement in the matter is done," Brown said.

Russell, a San Diego native and graduate of the University of Southern California's film school, narrates the video, which has been viewed more than 80 million times on YouTube. In the video, Russell talks to his young son, Gavin, about Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army.

Gavin's birth is shown at the beginning of the film. At one point, the boy sums up what his dad does for a living.

"You stop the bad guys from being mean," he says.

At the video's conclusion Russell says, "At the end of my life I want to say that the world we left behind is one Gavin can be proud of, one that doesn't allow Joseph Konys and child soldiers."

Gavin replies: "I'm going to be like you dad. I'm going to come with you to Africa."

The video's overnight success has brought heightened scrutiny to the San Diego-based non-profit over its tactics, governance and spending practices.

The group has been criticized for not spending enough directly on the people it intends to help and for oversimplifying the 26-year-old conflict involving the LRA and its leader, Kony, a bush fighter wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

The group acknowledged the video overlooked many nuances but said it was a "first entry point" that puts the conflict "in an easily understandable format."

Ben Keesey, chief executive officer, released a video on Monday to respond to questions about the group's finances, including the amount of money it spends on travel and operations. He said money that directly benefits the cause accounted for more than 80 per cent of its spending from 2007 to 2011.

"I understand why a lot of people are wondering, 'Is this just some slick, kind of fly-by-night, slacktivist thing?' when actually it's not at all," Keesey said. "It's connected to a really deep, thoughtful, very intentional and strategic campaign."

Charity Navigator gives Invisible Children two out of four stars for accountability and transparency. The watchdog group says organizations should have at least five independent members on their boards of directors. Invisible Children has four, though it plans to add one this year.

Russell co-founded Invisible Children in 2005 and is its highest-paid employee, making $89,669 a year. He is also on the six-member board of directors, with Keesey.

Keesey, who oversees the business side of the organization while Russell makes films, said Friday that the last two weeks have taken a "severe emotional toll on all of us, Jason especially."

"Jason's passion and his work have done so much to help so many, and we are devastated to see him dealing with this personal health issue," Keesey said.

Article from YAHOO NEWS

Occupy Wall Street celebrates 6 months since start

WASHINGTON (AP) - After a few months of relative peace on the budget front, Democrats and Republicans are readying for a party-defining, election-year fight over trillion dollar-plus deficits and what to do about them.

The focus in the week ahead will be on the conservative-dominated House, where the Budget Committee chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is fashioning a sequel to last year's "Path to Prosperity" manifesto that ignited a firestorm over Medicare.

The upcoming debate gives Republicans a chance to show how they would tackle out-of-control budget deficits and rein in the cost and scope of government. Those are top issues for the conservative supporters counted on by Republicans to turn out in large numbers in the fall to maintain the GOP's control of the House.

President Barack Obama played it safe when he released his spending blueprint last month for the budget year that begins Oct. 1. It calls for tax increases on wealthier earners and modest spending curbs. But it would not address the spiraling costs of Medicare and Medicaid, the health care plan for the poor and disabled.

Last year's GOP measure proposed replacing Medicare fee-for-service payments to doctors and hospitals with a voucher-like program in which the government would subsidize purchases of health insurance on the private market.

Democrats said the subsidies would not keep up with inflation in medical costs and would shift costs to older people, and they accused Republicans of plotting to "end Medicare as we know it." The uproar was an important factor in a special election in which Democrats seized a longstanding GOP-held House seat in upstate New York. Republicans showed less enthusiasm for the plan after that.

Ryan has since come out with a less stringent version of the measure, in concert with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that would keep the traditional Medicare "fee for service" program as an option along with private insurance plans. It features more realistic inflation increases, and less resulting savings for the government, than last year's measure.

"This coming debt crisis is the most predictable crisis we've ever had in this country," Ryan said in a video statement. "This is why we're acting. This is why we're leading. This is why we're proposing - and passing out of the House - a budget to fix this problem: So we can save our country for ourselves and our children's future."

Ryan has yet to disclose the specifics of his plan. But the committee announced Saturday that Ryan would introduce the proposal Tuesday; that would allow his committee to sign off on it by the end of the week.

Pressure from conservative lawmakers has prompted GOP leaders and Ryan to reopen last summer's budget pact and impose further cuts on domestic agencies such as the departments of Education, Energy and Housing and Urban Development.

Last year's deal with Obama set a $1.047 trillion cap on the annual operating budgets of Cabinet departments and other agencies for the upcoming 2013 budget year.

GOP aides say Republican leaders want to cut that figure by $19 billion, or almost 2 percent, leading to protests from Democrats that Republicans are going back on the deal. The move would make it more difficult to pass follow-up spending bills setting agency budgets for new fiscal year.

Tea party lawmakers on the House Budget Committee, such as Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., have pressed for even deeper cuts, leading to a push-and-pull match with the more pragmatic Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee.

The annual budget debate is conducted under arcane rules. The main budget document, called a budget resolution, is a nonbinding measure that sets the parameters for follow-up legislation on spending and taxes. Even though its broader goals usually are not put into place, it is viewed as a statement of party principles.

Democrats controlling the Senate do not want a budget debate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said he will instead rely on language he inserted in a budget pact last year that allows for floor action on the annual spending bills without a budget resolution.

By avoiding a budget debate, Reid protects several vulnerable incumbent Democrats from politically dangerous votes.

Despite the GOP proposal's sharp cuts to agency budgets and Medicaid, and its call to repeal Obama's health care law, it is certain to leave substantial annual deficits over the next decade. That's how bleak the nation's underlying financial picture is.

Democrats and independent budget expert are sure to cite the resulting deficits as proof that new tax revenues are needed as part of any comprehensive answer to the fiscal crisis.

GOP aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss party deliberations, say the measure may include special instructions to other House committees to scrub the programs under their jurisdiction for savings that could be used to forestall about $100 billion in across-the-board spending cuts set to take effect in January.

Those cuts, including $50 billion in defense spending, are punishment for the failure of last year's supercommittee to come up with a new package of $1.2 trillion in deficit cuts over the next decade as part of the deal to let the government keep borrowing.

The GOP plan would bundle the new cuts from various committees and try to pass them as early as this spring. They might include various proposals discussed by the supercommittee and earlier spending cuts that the House considered as a way to pay for a Social Security tax cut without adding to the government's long-term debt.

___

Online:

House Budget Committee: http://budget.house.gov

Article from YAHOO NEWS

Twin suicide blasts kill dozens in Syrian capital

BAYAMON, Puerto Rico (AP) - Mitt Romney is courting voters in Puerto Rico ahead of the island's primary as he looks toward voting in Illinois next week.

Romney on Saturday shopped for tropical fruit and told a small crowd he would support statehood for the island if that option wins the Nov. 6 referendum on Puerto Rico's political status. Puerto Rico is currently a U.S. territory.

Romney said former President Ronald Reagan was a proponent of Puerto Rican statehood. He praised the island's culture and its residents' willingness to serve in the U.S. military. Romney campaigned with Puerto Rican Gov. Luis Fortuno.

Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, but they don't pay taxes and they can't vote in presidential elections. They can vote in nominating contests, and Republicans hold their primary here Sunday.

Article from YAHOO NEWS

Ukraine rape case sparks protests over investigation

LAKE TAPPS, Wash. (AP) - On a winding road of wood-frame homes tucked amid towering pines, Robert Bales was the father who joined his two young children for playtime in the yard, a career soldier who greeted neighbors warmly but was guarded when talking about the years he spent away at war.

"When I heard him talk, he said ... 'Yeah, that's my job. That's what I do'," said Kassie Holland, a next-door neighbor to the soldier who is now suspected of killing 16 Afghan civilians. "He never expressed a lot of emotion toward it."

Speaking to his fellow soldiers, though, Bales could exult in the role. Plunged into battle in Iraq, he told an interviewer for a base newspaper in 2009 that he and his comrades proved "the real difference between being an American as opposed to being a bad guy."

As reporters swarmed Bales' neighborhood late Friday, Holland and other neighbors shook their heads, trying but failing to reconcile the man they thought they knew with the allegations against him. Military officials say that at about 3 a.m. last Sunday, the 38-year-old staff sergeant crept away from the Army base where he was stationed in southern Afghanistan, entered two slumbering villages and unleashed a massacre, shooting his victims and setting many of the bodies on fire. Eleven of those killed belonged to one family. Nine were children.

"I can't believe it was him," said Holland, recalling a kind-hearted neighbor. "There were no signs. It's really sad. I don't want to believe that he did it."

Until Friday, military officials had kept Bales' identity secret and what little was known about him remained sketchy. But with the release of his name, a still-incomplete, but sharply conflicting portrait of the man comes into focus. Part of it reveals the father and husband neighbors recall, and a soldier quietly proud of his 11-year record of service, including three tours in Iraq.

But it also shows Bales had previous brushes with trouble. In 2002, records show, he was arrested at a Tacoma, Wash., hotel for assault on a girlfriend. Bales pleaded not guilty and was required to undergo 20 hours of anger management counseling, after which the case was dismissed. A separate hit-and-run charge was dismissed in a nearby town's municipal court three years ago, according to records.

Bales has not yet been charged in the killings in Afghanistan. He was flown Friday from Kuwait to the military's only maximum-security prison, at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. When the Air Force cargo jet with the soldier aboard arrived at Kansas City International Airport, about an hour from the military prison, security was very tight, with the terminal completely blocked off. It marked the tragic end of Bales' fourth tour of duty in a war zone, one his lawyer said he had hoped to avoid.

"He wasn't thrilled about going on another deployment," said the attorney, John Henry Browne of Seattle. "He was told he wasn't going back, and then he was told he was going."

A neighbor, Paul Wohlberg, recalled that when he last saw Bales in November the two men talked briefly about the soldier's imminent departure for Afghanistan.

"I just told him to be safe. He said, 'I will. See you when I get back," said Wohlberg, who recalled attending barbeques at the Bales' homes.

Wohlberg described Bales as a man who clearly loved his country.

"I'm sure he still does," he said.

Bales told neighbors little about his brigade's three tours of duty to Iraq. But in a 2009 article published in Fort Lewis' Northwest Guardian, Bales told the interviewer about finding many dead and wounded when his unit was sent to recover a downed Apache helicopter in Iraq.

"I've never been more proud to be a part of this unit than that day, for the simple fact that we discriminated between the bad guys and the noncombatants and then afterward we ended up helping the people that three or four hours before were trying to kill us, " Bales said.

After returning from his second deployment to Iraq, Bales was elevated to staff sergeant. In three tours of duty, Browne says his client was injured twice. One of those injuries required the surgical removal of part of one foot. In a vehicle accident, Bales suffered a concussion, the lawyer said.

But by last year, the soldier had reached a disappointing juncture. Bales received more than 20 awards and commendations, including three Army Good Conduct medals. But military files show a largely unremarkable service record, absent the Purple Heart awards that would be expected following a significant injury or wound in combat.

Then he was passed over for a promotion, according to a posting by his wife on her blog, The Bales Family Adventures.

"It is very disappointed after all of the work Bob has done and all the sacrifices he has made for his love of his country, family and friends," Karilyn Bales wrote early last year on the blog, which could not be independently verified. "I am sad and disappointed too, but I am also relieved, we can finally move on to the next phase of our lives."

The best case scenario for that next phase, Karilyn Bales wrote, would be an Army assignment in an adventurous location like Germany, Italy or Hawaii, and barring that, possibly an assignment in Georgia, where her husband could become a sniper instructor.

"We are hoping that if we are proactive and ask to go to a location that the Army will allow us to have some control over where we go next," Karilyn Bailey wrote.

By late last year, Bales was training to be an Army recruiter, Bales' lawyer said. When he learned he would be dispatched to Afghanistan, Bales and his family were very disappointed. Still, the staff sergeant's family saw no indication sign of undue anger, Browne said.

"They were totally shocked," by accounts of the massacre, Browne said. "He's never said anything antagonistic about Muslims. He's in general very mild-mannered."

Bales departed with his unit on Dec. 3 and was assigned about six weeks ago to a base in the Panjwai District, near Kandahar, to work with a village stability force pairing special operations troops with villagers to help provide neighborhood security.

On Saturday, the day before the shooting spree, Browne said, the soldier saw his friend's leg blown off. Browne said his client's family provided him with that information, which has not been verified.

On Friday, a senior U.S. defense official said Bales was drinking in the hours before the attack on Afghan villagers, violating a U.S. military order banning alcohol in war zones. The official discussed the matter on condition of anonymity because charges have not yet been filed.

Browne said his client's family told him they were not aware of any drinking problem - not necessarily a contradiction. Pressed on the issue in interviews with news organizations, Browne said he did not know if his client had been drinking the night of the massacre.

Then, in the middle of the night last Sunday, shots rang out in a pair of villages within walking distance of the base. Soon after, a surveillance camera mounted to a blimp captured an image of a soldier the Army identifies as Bales returning in the dark. A traditional Afghan shawl was draped over the gun in his hands. As he reached the gates of the base, the man in uniform lay the weapon down. He raised his arms in surrender.

Browne said he did not know if his client had been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, but said it could be an issue at trial if experts believe it's relevant. Experts on PTSD said witnessing the injury of a fellow soldier and the soldier's own previous injuries put him at risk.

"We've known ever since the Vietnam war that the unfortunate phenomenon of abusive violence often closely follows the injury or death of a buddy in combat," said Dr. Roger Pitman, a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist who heads the PTSD Research Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital. "The injury or death of a buddy creates a kind of a blind rage."

On Friday evening, Bales' neighbors said they did not know what to think. They gazed toward the soldier's home, where overflowing boxes were piled on the front porch and a U.S. flag leaned against the siding.

"I just can't believe Bob's the guy who did this," Wohlberg said. "A good guy got put in the wrong place at the wrong time."

___

Associated Press writer Rachel La Corte reported from Lake Tapps, Wash. and AP National Writer Adam Geller reported from New York. AP writers Gene Johnson in Seattle, National Security Writer Robert Burns in Washington, Phuong Le in Seattle, Haven Daley and Manuel Valdes in Lake Tapps, Wash. Lisa Cornwell in Evendale, Ohio, Dana Fields in Kansas City, Mo., and John Milburn in Lawrence, Kan. contributed to this story.

RT @YahooTicket: #Obama quaffs a pint of Guinness: @OKnox on the president's St. Patrick's Day outing: http://t.co/vzUsYPaD

The Afghan massacre suspect's neighbors in Washington are shocked to hear about the accusations against him: http://t.co/a3pPBP6N

Can your search terms give away your political leanings? Find out and try @yahoosignal's new tool: http://t.co/DbC4t8EX

Article from YAHOO NEWS

Santorum claims delegate race is closer than reported

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama is calling anew on Congress to end tax subsidies for the oil and gas industry, saying the nation needs to develop alternative sources of energy in the face of rising gasoline prices.

Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address that he expected Congress to consider in the next few weeks halting $4 billion in tax subsidies, something he hasn't been able to get through Congress throughout his presidency. He said the vote would put lawmakers on record on whether they "stand up for oil companies" or "stand up for the American people."

"They can either place their bets on a fossil fuel from the last century or they can place their bets on America's future," Obama said.

Industry officials and many Republicans in Congress have argued that cutting the tax breaks would lead to higher fuel prices, raising costs on oil companies and affecting their investments in exploration and production. The measure is considered a long shot in Congress, given that Obama couldn't end the subsidies when Democrats controlled Congress earlier in his term.

Republican presidential candidates have accused Obama of delaying drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico and in a national wildlife refuge in Alaska and faulted him for not advancing the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas Gulf Coast refineries. They have also criticized policies pursued by the Environmental Protection Agency as inhibiting energy development.

Obama said there is no quick fix to high gas prices, which climbed to $3.83 on Friday according to AAA, but he pushed back against critics who say he is opposed to more drilling. He said the U.S. is producing more oil than at any time in the past eight years and has quadrupled the number of operating oil rigs.

"If we're truly going to make sure we're not at the mercy of spikes in gas prices every year, the answer isn't just to drill more - because we're already drilling more," Obama said. He said his administration was trying to develop wind and solar power, biofuels and usher in more fuel-efficient vehicles to make the nation less dependent on oil.

In the weekly Republican address, Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., said his constituents have been hard hit by an increase in gasoline prices and were "fed up with the way the president is handling this issue, and rightfully so. The most forceful thing the president has done about high gas prices is try to explain that he's against them."

Gardner said the $800 billion stimulus spending sought by Obama promoted energy companies that went bankrupt, wasting taxpayer money.

"After spending money we don't have on what won't work - and overregulating what would - is it any wonder gas prices have more than doubled on the president's watch? Make no mistake, high gas prices are a symptom of his failed 'stimulus' policies," Gardner said.

Obama is expected to keep up a drumbeat on energy this week, traveling to four states over two days to push his administration's "all of the above" energy strategy. The trip includes stops in Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Ohio.

___

Obama address: www.whitehouse.gov

GOP address: www.youtube.com/HouseConference

Article from YAHOO NEWS

Self-made Thai billionaire who created Red Bull dies

BAGHDAD (AP) - The United Nations mission in Iraq said it took custody late Saturday of a man who was described as a U.S. citizen, who had been held by an Iraqi militia for about nine months.

U.S. officials said the man appeared to be an American contractor.

U.N. spokeswoman Radhia Achouri did not identify the man, whom she said was staying at the U.N. compound in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad also could not immediately identify the man.

Achouri said he was handed over by two Shiite lawmakers who represent the hardline followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. She did not provide any details.

In an interview with The Associated Press, senior Sadrist official Abdul Hadi al-Mutairi said the man was a U.S. soldier named Michael Hill who was captured June 18.

Al-Mutairi said the man was wearing an American military uniform when he was delivered to the U.N.

Several U.S. officials said he is a private contractor, not an active-duty soldier, although he may have previously served in the U.S. military.

Hundreds of thousands of contractors, both American and other nationalities, worked alongside American troops and in other support roles throughout the war.

Al-Mutairi said the man was released without any negotiation "as a good will initiative toward the American society and to (his) family."

He said the man, whom he said is married and has two sons, was treated well during his nine month imprisonment, "even though he contributed in the battles in Sadr City and in Najaf."

Al-Sadr is the spiritual leader of the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia that targeted U.S. troops throughout the nine-year war in Iraq.

___

Associated Press Writer Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report.

Article from YAHOO NEWS

Pope of Egypt\'s Coptic Christian Church dies

CAIRO, Egypt -- Pope Shenouda III, the patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church who led Egypt's Christian minority for 40 years during a time of increasing tensions with Muslims, has died. He was 88.

The state news agency MENA said Shenouda died Saturday after battling liver and lung problems from several years. A Coptic Church TV station ran a picture of the pope, with a running feed reading, "The Coptic Church prays to God that he rest in peace between the arms of saints."

The patriarch, known in Arabic as Baba Shenouda, headed one of the most ancient churches in the world, which traced it founding to St. Mark, who is said to have brought Christianity to Egypt in the 1st Century during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero.

For Egypt's estimated 10 million Coptic Christians, he was a religious thinker and a charismatic leader, known for his sense of humor -- his smiling portrait was hung in many Coptic homes and shops.

Above all, many Copts saw him as the guardian of their minority living amid a majority Muslim population in this country of more than 80 million people.

Shenouda sought to do so by striking a conservative balance. During the rule of President Hosni Mubarak, he gave strong support to his government, while avoiding pressing Coptic demands too vocally in public to prevent a backlash from Muslim conservatives.

After Mubarak's fall a year ago, Christians grew increasingly worried over the rising power of Muslim conservatives. Islamic hard-liners carried out a string of attacks on churches, and their clerics gave increasingly dire warnings that Christians were hoarding weapons and seeking to take over the country. Christian anger over the violence was further stoked when troops harshly put down a Christian protest in Cairo, killing 27 people.

In an unprecedented move aimed at showing unity, leaders from the Muslim Brotherhood along with top generals from the ruling military joined Shenouda for services for Orthodox Christmas in January at Cairo's main cathedral.

"For the first time in the history of the cathedral, it is packed with all types of Islamist leaders in Egypt," Shenouda told the gathering. "They all agree ... on the stability of this country and in loving it, and working for it and to work with the Copts as one hand for the sake of Egypt."

Still, a sector of Christians -- particularly among youth who supported the revolution against Mubarak -- grew critical of Shenouda, saying his conservative approach was not doing enough to stem what they saw as growing anti-Christian violence and discrimination against their community.

In recent years, the aging patriarch traveled repeatedly to the United States for treatment. Yasser Ghobrial, a physician who worked at a Cairo hospital when the pope was treated there in 2007, said he suffered from prostate cancer that spread to his colon and lungs.

The pope, who rose to his position in 1971, clashed significantly with the government once: In 1981 then-President Anwar Sadat sent him into internal exile in the desert monastery of Wadi Natrun, north of Cairo, after Shenouda accused the government of failing to rein in Muslim extremists. Sadat, who was assassinated later that year by Islamic militants, accused Shenouda of fomenting sectarianism. Mubarak ended Shenouda's exile in 1985, allowing him to return to Cairo.

But the incident illustrated the bind of Egypt's Christians. When they press too hard for more influence, some in the Muslim majority accuse them of causing sectarian splits. Many Copts saw Mubarak as their best protection against Islamic fundamentalists and the Muslim Brotherhood -- but at the same time, his government often made concessions to conservative Muslims to keep their support.

During the 1990s, Islamic militants launched a campaign of violence, centered in southern Egypt, targeting foreign tourists, police and Christians until they were put down by a heavy crackdown. Pope Shenouda managed to contain the Coptic community's anger over the killings.

But in the past six years, Muslim-Christian violence has flared repeatedly. On the eve of New Year's 2000, sectarian battles killed 21 Copts and a Muslim in the southern village of el-Kusheh.

The northern city of Alexandria twice saw sectarian bloodshed recently -- in 2005 when Muslims rioted over an anti-Islamic play put on in a church, and again in early 2006 when Christians rioted over a series of knife attacks at Coptic Christian churches.

Shenouda largely worked to contain anger among Copts. But in one 2004 incident, he stepped aside to allow Coptic protests in an effort to win concessions from the government.

The protests were sparked when Wafa Constantine, the wife of a Coptic priest, fled her home to convert to Islam. Many Christians accused police of encouraging Christians to convert -- or even kidnapping them and forcing them to do so.

While Copts protested, Shenouda isolated himself at the Saint Bishoy monastery north of Cairo until the government intervened to ensure Constantine returned home. She was later quoted as saying she converted to Islam because she wanted a divorce from her husband, which is banned by the Coptic Church.

For other Coptic demands, Shenouda has preferred back-channel efforts with the government -- but has met limited success. Copts have pressed for a greater representation in government, but their numbers remain small.

At the same time, Christian emigration has increased tremendously, fueled chiefly by the growing influence of conservative Islam in Egyptian society. Coptic immigrants in the United States, Canada, and Australia number an estimated 1.5 million, and the number of Coptic churches abroad has grown from two to more than 100, according to the pope's official Web site.

At home, Shenouda has been challenged by secular Copts who call for reform in the church and reducing the role of clergymen in Christians' life. Many secularists argue that the clergy's dominance over every single aspect of Christians lives has fed their sense of separation from Egypt's Muslims, just as Islamic clerics have on the other side of the divide.

Shenouda has kept a strict line on church doctrine -- including the ban on divorce, except in cases of adultery.

The big remaining question is with the absence of the charismatic pope, who will be able to fill the vacuum.

A church insider said that an internal power struggle have been looming over the church, between of the top archbishops and close Pope assistants: Archbishop Bishoy and Johannes; both of them are rallying supporters to win more votes in the election of the new Pope.

Shenouda was born Nazeer Gayed on Aug. 3, 1923, in the southern city of Assiut. After entering the priesthood, he became an activist in the Sunday School movement, which was launched to revive Christian religious education. At the age of 31, Gayed became a monk, taking the name Antonious El-Syriani and spending six years in the monastery of St. Anthony. After the death of Pope Cyrilos VI, he was elected to the papacy and took the name Shenouda.

He is an author of many books, and over the past three decades he has kept the custom of giving a Wednesday lecture. Throughout, he insisted on the Copts' place in Egypt, where they lived before the advent of Islam.

"Egypt is not a country we live in but a country that lives within us," he often said.

Article from FOXNEWS

Daycare owner locked baby in crawl space, cops say

WATERBURY, Conn. -- A Connecticut daycare center owner was arrested after allegedly locking a baby girl in a crawl space for four hours, the Connecticut Post reported.

Catalina Reyes strapped the six-month-old infant into a car seat and hid her in a basement crawl space so inspectors would not see that the center was over its capacity, police in Waterbury, Conn., said.

The 54-year-old was arrested Wednesday after a public health inspector heard the baby crying and found her in the car seat, in a crawl space behind a locked door, according to the newspaper.

Authorities believe the baby was confined in the small space for up to four hours, with no supervision, food or drink.

Reyes, who was reportedly running the daycare center out of her Waterbury home, was charged with risk of injury to a minor and released on $5,000 bail.

None of the children at the center were injured in the incident.

Click here for more on this story from the Connecticut Post. 

Article from FOXNEWS

Asian Allies Could Face US Sanctions Over Iran Oil

The U.S. could be compelled to sanction one of its closest Asian allies -- India -- unless the country makes significant progress by summer on cutting back on Iranian oil. 

Under sanctions approved by Congress late last year, the United States is supposed to penalize any country that does business through Iran's central bank, which processes much of the country's oil transactions. Countries would be specifically penalized for oil purchases if they do not make a serious effort to curtail those Iranian imports. 

Where exactly India stands in that effort is unclear. Earlier this year, Indian's finance minister said "it is not possible" to drastically reduce Iranian oil imports and that they're too vital to India's developing economy. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, though, testified last month that India and other countries are doing more to comply "than perhaps their public statements might lead you to believe." 

India technically is in the same boat as any other country when it comes to the U.S. sanctions. Come June, any country not in compliance could see their financial accounts in the U.S. shut down. 

But India, the world's largest democracy, received additional attention this past week following a Bloomberg report that quoted unnamed officials saying India so far has not cut back on Iranian oil purchases -- and could be sanctioned. 

Because of the country's fondness for Iranian oil, it is one of the most vulnerable to sanctions among U.S. allies. 

According to data from the Energy Information Administration, the country is the third-biggest importer of Iranian crude oil -- averaging 328,000 barrels a day as of early 2011. China is the biggest importer, followed by Japan, another U.S. ally. South Korea and Turkey are also top importers. 

A Treasury Department official told FoxNews.com on Friday that the administration is in the process of "talking to all countries" engaged in trade with Iran. 

"We are working with our partners to significantly reduce their imports of Iranian crude and to isolate the Central Bank of Iran so as to limit the risks it can pose to the international financial system," the official said. "High level delegations from the Departments of the Treasury, State and Energy have already been traveling across the globe to consult with their counterparts on these issues." 

Clinton was asked about those efforts -- particularly concerning India, China and Turkey -- during a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month. The secretary said the administration has held "very intense and very blunt conversations" with them on the issue, and suggested they could all avoid sanctions. 

"I think that there are a number of steps that we are pointing out to them that we believe they can and should make," Clinton said. "I also can tell you that in a number of cases, both on their government side and on their business side, they are taking actions that go further and deeper than perhaps their public statements might lead you to believe. And we're going to continue to keep an absolute foot on the pedal in terms of our accelerated, aggressive outreach to them." 

Bloomberg reported earlier in the week that India, despite public statements, is looking to start reducing Iranian imports in April. 

Japan and South Korea also reportedly are looking at ways to reduce their imports, and avoid the sanctions. 

President Obama since taking office has aggressively tried to build ties with Asian allies, at a time when China is rising. The administration's relationship with India has been far more trouble-free than its alliance with India's chief adversary, Pakistan, and the administration surely wants to avoid slapping on sanctions if possible. 

Not only is the U.S.-India relationship important in terms of global politics, the business relationship between the two nations is a critical one. Late last year, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and dozens other officials went on a trade mission to India, resulting in millions of dollars in new contracts signed between the two countries. The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry also plans to open a joint center in Maryland, though the location has not yet been chosen. 

Sanctions at this stage would be awkward, considering Obama tried to invigorate a new wave of U.S.-India relations when he visited the country in 2010. 

In an implicit rebuke to China, Obama used that visit to back India's bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. 

Capital News Service's Varun Saxena contributed to this report.

Article from FOXNEWS