Sunday, September 21, 2014
100,000 Syrians pour into Turkey telling of atrocities as Islamic State group advances
KUCUK KENDIRCILER, Turkey (AP) — The 19-year-old Kurdish militant, who has been fighting the Islamic State group in Syria, brought his family across the border into Turkey to safety Sunday. But in the tranquility of a Turkish tea garden just miles from the frontier, Dalil Boras vowed to head back after nightfall to continue the fight.
Pulling a wad of Syrian bills from his pocket, the young fighter — who has already lost a 17-year-old brother to the Islamic militants' brutal advance — said that if the Turkish border guards tried to stop him, money would persuade them.
Boras and his relatives are among some 100,000 Syrians, mostly Kurds, who have flooded into Turkey since Thursday, escaping an Islamic State offensive that has pushed the conflict nearly within eyeshot of the Turkish border.
The al-Qaida breakaway group, which has established an Islamic state, or caliphate, ruled by its harsh version of Islamic law in territory it captured straddling the Syria-Iraq border, has in recent days advanced into Kurdish regions of Syria that border Turkey, where fleeing refugees on Sunday reported atrocities that included stonings, beheadings and the torching of homes.
On Sunday, heavy clashes broke out between the Islamic State militants and Kurdish fighters only miles from the Syrian border town of Kobani, where the Islamic State group was bombarding villagers with tanks, artillery and multiple rocket launchers, said Nasser Haj Mansour, a defense official in Syria's Kurdish region.
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Relatives: Veteran accused of sneaking into White House needs help, wouldn't have hurt anyone
MIDLAND, Texas (AP) — An Iraq war veteran accused of scaling a fence and making it into the White House before the Secret Service stopped him posed no threat to anyone and needs counseling instead of prosecution, members of his family said Sunday.
Omar Gonzalez, 42, was arrested Friday and is expected in federal court Monday to face charges of unlawfully entering a restricted building or grounds while carrying a deadly or dangerous weapon — a small folding knife in this case.
Jerry Murphy, whose mother was married to Gonzalez for several years, said Gonzalez suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and that he needs treatment. He said Gonzalez has been driving around the country and living out of his truck for the past couple of years, and that he always carries his knife.
"I know he's got heavy artillery, you know?" Murphy added. "He's got all kinds of weapons and he was trained to use them. I believe if he wanted to make a scene or cause problems, he very well could have. But it's clear that he didn't."
The Secret Service has come under heavy criticism since the embarrassing security breach, which happened when the first family wasn't at the White House. Secret Service Director Julia Pierson ordered increased surveillance and more officer patrols at the White House, as the agency investigates what went wrong.
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10 Things to Know for Monday
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Monday:
1. 100,000 SYRIANS FLOOD INTO TURKEY
The refugees, most of them Kurdish, are fleeing Islamic State militants who are reportedly carrying out stonings, beheadings and other atrocities.
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Police say rifle left in woods by ambush suspect was found, believe they're hot on his trail
CANADENSIS, Pa. (AP) — Nine days after a gunman went on a deadly ambush at a state police barracks, authorities said Sunday they have recovered one of the weapons he was carrying and believe they are hot on his trail as he travels on foot through rugged forests in northeastern Pennsylvania.
Investigators said they believe the suspect they describe as a self-taught survivalist had been planning a confrontation with law enforcement for months, if not years.
State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens revealed a few more details about the manhunt for Eric Frein, saying trackers have discovered items he hid or abandoned in the woods — including an AK-47 assault rifle and ammunition they believe he had been carrying while on the run.
"We are pushing him hard, he is no longer safe and I am confident that he will be apprehended," Bivens said.
Authorities did not yet know if the weapon had been used in the ambush, he said. Still, police believe Frein remains dangerous and possibly armed with a .308 rifle with a scope that police say was missing from the family home along with the AK-47.
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NASA's Maven explorer arrives at Mars after voyage of nearly a year, enters red planet's orbit
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA's Maven spacecraft arrived at Mars late Sunday after a 442 million-mile journey that began nearly a year ago.
The robotic explorer fired its brakes and successfully slipped into orbit around the red planet, officials confirmed.
"This is such an incredible night," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's chief for science missions.
Now the real work begins for the $671 million mission, the first dedicated to studying Mars' upper atmosphere.
Flight controllers in Colorado will spend the next six weeks adjusting Maven's altitude and checking its science instruments. Then Maven will start probing the upper atmosphere of Mars. The spacecraft will conduct its observations from orbit; it's not meant to land.
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Tens of thousands around the world march to draw attention to global warming
NEW YORK (AP) — Tens of thousands of activists walked through Manhattan on Sunday, warning that climate change is destroying the Earth — in stride with demonstrators around the world who urged policymakers to take quick action.
Starting along Central Park West, most came on foot, others with bicycles and walkers, and some even in wheelchairs. Many wore costumes and marched to drumbeats. One woman played the accordion.
But their message was not entertaining:
"We're going to lose our planet in the next generation if things continue this way," said Bert Garskof, 81, as a family member pushed his wheelchair through Times Square.
He had first heard about global warming in 1967, "when no one was paying much attention," said Garskof, a native New Yorker and professor of psychology at Connecticut's Quinnipiac University.
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Despite disappointment, backers of civil rights 'cold case' law want it expanded
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — There has only been one prosecution under the Emmett Till Act, even though the law was passed with the promise of $135 million for police work and an army of federal agents to investigate unsolved killings from the civil rights era. Some deaths aren't even under review because of a quirk in the law.
Still, proponents are laying the groundwork to extend and expand the act in hopes it's not too late for some families to get justice.
In nearly six years since the signing of the law, named for a black Chicago teenager killed after flirting with a white woman in Mississippi in 1955, only one person has been prosecuted: A former Alabama trooper who pleaded guilty in 2010 to killing a black protester in 1965.
The government has closed the books on all but 20 of the 126 deaths it investigated under the law, finding many were too old to prosecute because suspects and witnesses had died and memories had faded. And Congress hasn't appropriated millions of dollars in grant money that was meant to help states fund their own investigations.
Perhaps most frustrating, an unknown number of slayings haven't even gotten a look because the law doesn't cover any killings after 1969. That saddens people like Gloria Green-McCray, whose brother James Earl Green was shot to death on May 14, 1970 by police during a student demonstration at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi.
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Police departments cited for civil rights violations can still get surplus military weapons
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Pentagon program that distributes military surplus gear to local law enforcement allows even departments that the Justice Department has censured for civil rights violations to apply for and get lethal weaponry.
That lack of communication between two Cabinet agencies adds to questions about a program under review in the aftermath of the militarized police response to protesters in Ferguson, Missouri.
The Pentagon, which provides the free surplus military equipment, says its consultation with the Justice Department will be looked at as the government reviews how to prevent high-powered weaponry from flowing to the untrustworthy.
The Justice Department has opened civil rights investigations into the practices of some 20 police departments in the past five years, with the Ferguson force the latest. The investigations sometimes end in negotiated settlements known as consent decrees that mandate reforms. Yet being flagged as problematic by Washington does not bar a police department from participating in the program.
"Given the fact that they're under a consent decree it would make sense that the Department of Defense and Department of Justice coordinate on any such requests, (but) that is currently not the state," said Jim Bueermann, who heads the nonprofit Police Foundation.
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Afghanistan names new president after power-sharing deal, but vote total kept hidden
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Ending months of vote-related tension, Afghanistan's election commission named a new president Sunday only hours after the leading candidates signed a power-sharing deal that names one of them as the country's new chief executive.
The commission named Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai as the winner and next president and noted that his one-time rival, Abdullah Abdullah, will fill the newly created position of chief executive, a post akin to prime minister. But it pointedly did not release final vote totals amid concerns that doing so could inflame tensions.
The deal brings to a close an election season that began in April, when millions of Afghans first went to the polls despite threats from Taliban militants, and ended when the two leading candidates signed a national unity government agreement and embraced in a hug. In between, the Abdullah camp alleged that its cause was cheated by massive vote fraud.
A nation long tired of election bluffs and threats seemed to accept the electoral deal with a shrug. There were no mass celebrations in the streets of Kabul, and Afghan journalists reacted angrily when the election commission declined to release final results, abruptly ending a brief news conference without taking questions.
The United States applauded the deal and the White House said that "respect for the democratic process" is the only viable path forward for Afghanistan. But to many here, the next Afghan government appeared to be more a product of negotiation than vote tallies, especially given the fact a final count wasn't even released.
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Marshawn Lynch scores on 1st drive of overtime, Seahawks hold off Broncos 26-20
SEATTLE (AP) — Once Peyton Manning had completed a frantic fourth-quarter rally to force overtime, Russell Wilson could admit to being a little selfish.
Wilson wanted the spotlight himself — to put together one final drive, keeping Manning sitting on the sideline as a spectator and making sure the Super Bowl rematch went in favor of the champions.
"I can't wait for those moments, those big-time moments and have guys to continue to believe in what we do," Wilson said. "That was a great experience tonight."
Wilson kept Manning and the Denver Broncos from seeing the ball in overtime. He led Seattle on an 80-yard drive on the first possession of the extra session, capped by Marshawn Lynch's 6-yard touchdown run for a 26-20 victory over the Broncos on Sunday.
The Super Bowl rematch lived up to the billing of what everyone expected in February and never transpired. The 43-8 blowout by Seattle (2-1) was replaced this time by Denver (2-1) rallying from a 17-3 fourth-quarter deficit to force overtime by going 80 yards against the best defense in the NFL in the final minute of regulation.
