SAN DIEGO (AP) — A tunnel designed to smuggle drugs from Tijuana, Mexico, to San Diego is equipped with electricity, ventilation and a rail system, U.S. authorities said Thursday, making it one of the more sophisticated secret passages discovered along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Authorities seized more than 8 tons of marijuana and 325 pounds of cocaine in connection with the discovery, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said. Three suspects were in U.S. custody.
The tunnel links warehouses in Tijuana and San Diego's Otay Mesa industrial area. The area is filled with nondescript warehouses, making it easier to conceal trucks being loaded with drugs.
The tunnel was found Wednesday and completed only recently, ICE said. Authorities did not say exactly when it was built or whether drugs are believed to have gotten through undetected.
As U.S. border security has heightened on land, Mexican drug cartels have turned to ultralight aircraft, small fishing boats and tunnels. More than 75 underground passages have been discovered along the border since 2008, designed largely to smuggle marijuana.
The tunnels are concentrated along the border in California and Arizona. San Diego is popular because its clay-like soil is easy to dig. In Nogales, Ariz., smugglers tap into vast underground drainage canals.
The tunnel is the eighth major passage discovered in San Diego since 2006, a period during which Mexico's Sinaloa cartel has solidified its hold on the prized smuggling corridor. ICE said Wednesday's tunnel was the first in the San Diego area that was found to be used for cocaine.
U.S. and Mexican authorities did not disclose the dimensions of the tunnel.
In November 2011, authorities found a 600-yard tunnel that resulted in seizures of 32 tons of marijuana on both sides of the border, with 26 tons found on the U.S. side, accounting for one of the largest pot busts in U.S. history. The tunnel was equipped with electric rail cars, lighting and ventilation. Wooden planks lined the floor.
On Thanksgiving Day of 2010, authorities found a roughly 700-yard passage equipped with rail tracks that extended from the kitchen of a Tijuana home to two San Diego warehouses, netting about 22 tons of marijuana on both sides of the border.
Los Angeles (AFP) - US and Mexican authorities have unearthed another sophisticated "supertunnel" used to smuggle drugs beneath their common border, the third since 2011, officials said Thursday.
Zig-zagging for a third of a mile beneath the border between San Diego and Tijuana, the newly-constructed tunnel was equipped with an electric-powered rail system to carry the drugs, as well as ventilation.
For the first time, agents seized cocaine intended to be smuggled through the tunnel as well as more than eight tons of marijuana, indicating that Mexican drug cartels are getting increasingly "desperate," they said.
"These cartels are foolish to think they're shoveling under the radar," said US Attorney for Southern California Laura Duffy at a press conference outside the San Diego warehouse where the US end of the tunnel was found Wednesday.
Investigators released video footage of the tunnel, which they stressed was uncovered before it had been been used.
In a message to drug smugglers including notably Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, Duffy vowed: "If you continue to build and attempt to use these tunnels, we are determined to make this a big waste of your dirty money."
Three people were arrested and authorities seized the huge marijuana haul as well as 325 pounds of cocaine, which is usually transported in smaller quantities and does not come through tunnels.
"Their traditional routes are failing at this point. They're very desperate. They'll do anything they can to get into the US," said Bill Sherman, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)'s San Diego office.
As with two other "supertunnels" discovered in 2011, agents pounced before it had even become operational. "They did not move one gram of narcotics thru that tunnel," said Sherman.
Law enforcement authorities were increasingly seeing attempts to bring narcotics including cocaine and methamphetamines over the border through tunnels, or micro-light aircraft.
"Those are acts of desperation," he said.
The tunnel was built at an average depth of 35 feet, and was 4 feet high by 3 feet wide, said Derek Benner of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
Construction likely took a year or more, officials said, adding that it was the work of "engineers and architects." It included hydraulically-controlled steel doors.
Of the three arrested, two were detained in connection with the cocaine seized, and one, a Mexican national, was held over the marijuana haul. All face a maximum of 10 years to life in jail, officials said.
In Tijuana, a Mexican security source said the tunnel was accessed at the southern end by a metal stairway down to a depth of 20 meters, from a building about 80 meters from the border fence.
Discoveries of such underground passageways along the US-Mexico border are not uncommon and authorities say they are used by organized crime groups to traffick drugs and people into the United States.
The tunnel was the eighth large scale such structure discovered since 2006, and the fifth intercepted since 2010.
Over 77,000 people have died in drug-linked violence since 2006, when troops were deployed to battle drug cartels, including under ex president Felipe Calderon and his successor Enrique Pena Nieto, who took office last year.
NIH scientists develop candidate vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Anne A. Oplinger aoplinger@niaid.nih.gov 301-402-1663 NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Structure-based design may be key to successful vaccine for common childhood illness
An experimental vaccine to protect against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a leading cause of illness and hospitalization among very young children, elicited high levels of RSV-specific antibodies when tested in animals, according to a report in the journal Science.
Early-stage human clinical trials of the candidate vaccine are planned. Scientists from the Vaccine Research Center (VRC), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, built on their previous findings about the structure of a critical viral protein to design the vaccine. The team was led by Peter D. Kwong, Ph.D., and Barney S. Graham, M.D., Ph.D.
In the United States, RSV infection is the most common cause of bronchiolitis (inflammation of small airways in the lungs) and pneumonia in children less than one year old and the most common cause for hospitalization in children under five. Worldwide, it is estimated that RSV is responsible for nearly 7 percent of deaths in babies aged 1 month to 1 year; only malaria kills more children in this age group. Others at risk for severe disease following RSV infection include adults over age 65 and those with compromised immune systems.
Many common diseases of childhood are now vaccine-preventable, but a vaccine against RSV infection has eluded us for decades, said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. This work marks a major step forward. Not only does the experimental vaccine developed by our scientists elicit strong RSV-neutralizing activity in animals, but, more broadly, this technique of using structural information to inform vaccine design is being applied to other viral diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
Earlier this year, the VRC team obtained atomic-level details of an RSV proteincalled the fusion (F) glycoproteinbound to a broadly neutralizing human RSV antibody. The protein-antibody complex gave scientists their first look at the F glycoprotein as it appears before it fuses with a human cell. In this pre-fusion shape, F glycoprotein contains a region vulnerable to attack by broadly neutralizing antibodies (antibodies able to block infection from the common strains of RSV).
Once RSV fuses with a cell, this vulnerable area, named antigenic site zero by the researchers, is no longer present on the rearranged F protein. In natural RSV infection, the immune system produces antibodies against both the pre-fusion and post-fusion forms of F glycoprotein, but the antibodies to antigenic site zero, which is only present on the pre-fusion form, have much stronger neutralizing activity. Therefore, a vaccine against RSV would have greater chance of success by eliciting antibodies directed at F glycoprotein in its pre-fusion configuration.
In their current publication, Drs. Kwong and Graham describe how they used this structural information to design and engineer F glycoprotein variants that retained antigenic site zero even when no antibody was bound to it. The goal was to create stable variants that could serve as the foundation for a vaccine capable of eliciting a potent antibody response. The researchers designed more than 100 variants; of these, 3 were shown by X-ray crystallography to retain the desired structure. The engineered variants were then used as vaccines in a series of experiments in mice and rhesus macaques.
In both mice and macaques, the researchers found that the more stable the protein, the higher the levels of neutralizing antibodies elicited by vaccination. The levels of antibody made in response to one of the engineered F glycoproteins were more than 10 times higher than those produced following vaccination with post-fusion F glycoprotein and well above levels needed to protect against RSV infection.
Here is a case in which information gained from structural biology has provided the insight needed to solve an immunological puzzle and apply the findings to address a real-world public health problem, said Dr. Graham. He and the VRC scientists are continuing to refine the engineered F glycoproteins and hope to launch early-stage human clinical trials of a candidate RSV vaccine as soon as clinical grade material can be manufactured, a process that takes about 18 to 24 months to complete.
Previously, structure-based vaccine design held promise at a conceptual level, said Dr. Kwong. This advance delivers on that promise and sets the stage for similar applications of structure-guided design to effective vaccines against other pathogens.
Dr. Fauci added, This latest advance underscores the advantages of the VRCs organizational design, where experts in RSV virology, vaccinology and clinical studies, such as Dr. Graham, are in daily contact with Dr. Kwong and others who are experts in structural biology. Such close collaboration across disciplines allows for rapid testing of new approaches to a given problem.
###
NIAID conducts and supports researchat NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwideto study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID Web site at http://www.niaid.nih.gov.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
NIH...Turning Discovery Into Health
References: JS McLellan et al. Structure-based design of a fusion glycoprotein vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus. Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1243283 (2013).
JS McLellan et al. Structure of RSV fusion glycoprotein trimer bound to a prefusion-specific neutralizing antibody. Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1234914 (2013).
NIH scientists develop candidate vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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]
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Contact: Anne A. Oplinger aoplinger@niaid.nih.gov 301-402-1663 NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Structure-based design may be key to successful vaccine for common childhood illness
An experimental vaccine to protect against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a leading cause of illness and hospitalization among very young children, elicited high levels of RSV-specific antibodies when tested in animals, according to a report in the journal Science.
Early-stage human clinical trials of the candidate vaccine are planned. Scientists from the Vaccine Research Center (VRC), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, built on their previous findings about the structure of a critical viral protein to design the vaccine. The team was led by Peter D. Kwong, Ph.D., and Barney S. Graham, M.D., Ph.D.
In the United States, RSV infection is the most common cause of bronchiolitis (inflammation of small airways in the lungs) and pneumonia in children less than one year old and the most common cause for hospitalization in children under five. Worldwide, it is estimated that RSV is responsible for nearly 7 percent of deaths in babies aged 1 month to 1 year; only malaria kills more children in this age group. Others at risk for severe disease following RSV infection include adults over age 65 and those with compromised immune systems.
Many common diseases of childhood are now vaccine-preventable, but a vaccine against RSV infection has eluded us for decades, said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. This work marks a major step forward. Not only does the experimental vaccine developed by our scientists elicit strong RSV-neutralizing activity in animals, but, more broadly, this technique of using structural information to inform vaccine design is being applied to other viral diseases, including HIV/AIDS.
Earlier this year, the VRC team obtained atomic-level details of an RSV proteincalled the fusion (F) glycoproteinbound to a broadly neutralizing human RSV antibody. The protein-antibody complex gave scientists their first look at the F glycoprotein as it appears before it fuses with a human cell. In this pre-fusion shape, F glycoprotein contains a region vulnerable to attack by broadly neutralizing antibodies (antibodies able to block infection from the common strains of RSV).
Once RSV fuses with a cell, this vulnerable area, named antigenic site zero by the researchers, is no longer present on the rearranged F protein. In natural RSV infection, the immune system produces antibodies against both the pre-fusion and post-fusion forms of F glycoprotein, but the antibodies to antigenic site zero, which is only present on the pre-fusion form, have much stronger neutralizing activity. Therefore, a vaccine against RSV would have greater chance of success by eliciting antibodies directed at F glycoprotein in its pre-fusion configuration.
In their current publication, Drs. Kwong and Graham describe how they used this structural information to design and engineer F glycoprotein variants that retained antigenic site zero even when no antibody was bound to it. The goal was to create stable variants that could serve as the foundation for a vaccine capable of eliciting a potent antibody response. The researchers designed more than 100 variants; of these, 3 were shown by X-ray crystallography to retain the desired structure. The engineered variants were then used as vaccines in a series of experiments in mice and rhesus macaques.
In both mice and macaques, the researchers found that the more stable the protein, the higher the levels of neutralizing antibodies elicited by vaccination. The levels of antibody made in response to one of the engineered F glycoproteins were more than 10 times higher than those produced following vaccination with post-fusion F glycoprotein and well above levels needed to protect against RSV infection.
Here is a case in which information gained from structural biology has provided the insight needed to solve an immunological puzzle and apply the findings to address a real-world public health problem, said Dr. Graham. He and the VRC scientists are continuing to refine the engineered F glycoproteins and hope to launch early-stage human clinical trials of a candidate RSV vaccine as soon as clinical grade material can be manufactured, a process that takes about 18 to 24 months to complete.
Previously, structure-based vaccine design held promise at a conceptual level, said Dr. Kwong. This advance delivers on that promise and sets the stage for similar applications of structure-guided design to effective vaccines against other pathogens.
Dr. Fauci added, This latest advance underscores the advantages of the VRCs organizational design, where experts in RSV virology, vaccinology and clinical studies, such as Dr. Graham, are in daily contact with Dr. Kwong and others who are experts in structural biology. Such close collaboration across disciplines allows for rapid testing of new approaches to a given problem.
###
NIAID conducts and supports researchat NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwideto study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID Web site at http://www.niaid.nih.gov.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
NIH...Turning Discovery Into Health
References: JS McLellan et al. Structure-based design of a fusion glycoprotein vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus. Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1243283 (2013).
JS McLellan et al. Structure of RSV fusion glycoprotein trimer bound to a prefusion-specific neutralizing antibody. Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1234914 (2013).
According to a recent article on Smithsonian.com, the notion that poison candy is routinely distributed to unsuspecting children on Halloween is a myth perpetrated by advice columnists Dear Abby and Ann Landers in the 1980s and ’90s. But historically, candy meant for young consumers has sported poisonous-sounding, WTF wrappers and packages that most self-respecting 2013 parents would be dismayed to see dumped out of their children’s trick-or-treat bags. [CandyWrapperMuseum.com, Collecting Candy.com, CandyWrapperArchive.com, and Pez.com.]
Complete spec listings for Google and LG's five-inch Nexus phone
The Nexus 5 is finally official, bringing a top-level smartphone hardware paired with stock Android 4.4 KitKat at an affordable price point. Though pre-release leaks have told us a great deal about what's lurking beneath the Nexus 5's hood, it's worth taking a glance down the spec sheet now that everything's official, announced and finalized.
The short version: 5-inch 1080p screen, Snapdragon 800, 2GB of RAM, 16 or 32GB of storage, an 8-megapixel camera and 4G LTE connectivity over a whole bunch of different bands.
Last year, Google unveiled a new wireless charging pad alongside the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10, and the company has taken advantage of 2013 to come up with another one. This new charging pad has been announced in tandem with the Nexus 5, and will include support for it and the Nexus 7. It's supposed to ...
Television cameras were allowed for the first time in one of Britain's highest courts Thursday after a partial lifting of a nearly 90-year ban on filming in courts. The landmark shift comes after years of campaigning from broadcasters such as the BBC, Sky News and ITN.
James Harding, the BBC's director of news, said broadcasting proceedings at the Court of Appeal will help viewers understand how the justice system works. In the first broadcast case, a man lost his appeal of a 7-year sentence for counterfeiting.
Lawyers' arguments, judges' comments and sentencing remarks may be filmed, but victims, witnesses and defendants may not.
Some cases will be broadcast with a 70-second delay.
MOSCOW (AP) — Anatoly Kucherena, a lawyer for former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden, says his client has found a technical support job at a Russian website.
Kucherena told the RIA Novosti news agency Thursday that Snowden starts his new job on Friday. Kucherena declined to name the company that has hired Snowden but says it's a major Russian website.
Snowden was granted asylum in Russia in August after being stuck at a Moscow airport for more than a month after flying there from Hong Kong. His whereabouts in Russia remain secret.
The 30-year-old faces espionage charges in the U.S for uncovering a mass surveillance scheme at the National Security Agency.
Kucherena was unavailable for comment when contacted by the AP.
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, center, walks with Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., right, and Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, before their meeting. Earlier, the prime minister met with Vice President Joe Biden. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, center, walks with Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., right, and Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, before their meeting. Earlier, the prime minister met with Vice President Joe Biden. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki listens during a meeting with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., and the committee's ranking Democrat Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, left, talks with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., right, during a luncheon meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)
Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, left, is greeted by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., center, and the committee's ranking Democrat Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, during a luncheon meeting. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A bloody resurgence of al-Qaida in Iraq is prompting Baghdad to ask the U.S. for more weapons, training and manpower, two years after pushing American troops out of the country.
The request will be discussed during a White House meeting Friday between Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Barack Obama in what Baghdad hopes will be a fresh start in a complicated relationship that has been marked both by victories and frustrations for each side.
Al-Maliki will discuss Iraq's plight in a public speech Thursday at the U.S. Institute for Peace in Washington.
"We know we have major challenges of our own capabilities being up to the standard. They currently are not," Lukman Faily, the Iraqi ambassador to the U.S., told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday. "We need to gear up, to deal with that threat more seriously. We need support and we need help."
He added, "We have said to the Americans we'd be more than happy to discuss all the options short of boots on the ground."
"Boots on the ground" means military forces. The U.S. withdrew all but a few hundred of its troops from Iraq in December 2011 after Baghdad refused to renew a security agreement to extend legal immunity for Americans forces, which would have let more stay.
At the time, the withdrawal was hailed as a victory for the Obama administration, which campaigned on ending the Iraq war and had little appetite for pushing Baghdad into a new security agreement. But within months, violence began creeping up in the capital and across the country as Sunni Muslim insurgents, angered by a widespread belief that Sunnis have been sidelined by the Shiite-led government, lashed out, with no U.S. troops to keep them in check.
More than 5,000 Iraqis have been killed in attacks since April, and suicide bombers launched 38 strikes in the last month alone.
Al-Maliki is expected to ask Obama for new assistance to bolster its military and fight al-Qaida. Faily said that could include everything from speeding up the delivery of U.S. aircraft, missiles, interceptors and other weapons, to improving national intelligence systems. And when asked, he did not rule out the possibility of asking the U.S. to send military special forces or additional CIA advisers to Iraq to help train and assist counterterror troops.
If the U.S. does not commit to providing the weapons or other aid quickly, "we will go elsewhere," Faily said. That means Iraq will step up diplomacy with nations like China or Russia that would be more than happy to increase their influence in Baghdad at U.S. expense.
The two leaders also will discuss how Iraq can improve its fractious government, which so often is divided among sectarian or ethnic lines, to give it more confidence with a bitter and traumatized public.
The ambassador said no new security agreement would be needed to give immunity to additional U.S. advisers or trainers in Iraq — the main sticking point that led to U.S. withdrawal. And he said Iraq would pay for the additional weapons or other assistance.
A senior Obama administration official said Wednesday that U.S. officials were not planning to send U.S. trainers to Iraq and that Baghdad had not asked for them. The administration official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters by name.
U.S. officials were prepared to help Iraq with an across-the-board approach that did not focus just on military or security gaps, the administration official said. The aid under consideration might include more weapons for Iraqi troops who do not have necessary equipment to battle al-Qaida insurgents, he said.
Administration officials consider the insurgency, which has rebranded itself as the Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant, a major and increasing threat both to Iraq and the U.S., the official said.
U.S. and Iraqi officials see a possible solution in trying to persuade insurgents to join forces with Iraqi troops and move away from al-Qaida, following a pattern set by so-called Awakening Councils in western Iraq that marked a turning point in the war. Faily said much of the additional aid — including weapons and training — would go toward this effort.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who opposed the U.S. troop withdrawal in 2011, said Iraq likely would not get the aid until al-Maliki, a Shiite, makes strides in making the government more inclusive to Sunnis.
"If he expects the kind of assistance that he's asking for, we need a strategy and we need to know exactly how that's going to be employed, and we need to see some changes in Iraq," McCain said Wednesday after a tense meeting on Capitol Hill with al-Maliki. "The situation is deteriorating and it's unraveling, and he's got to turn it around."
Al-Maliki's plea for aid is somewhat ironic, given that he refused to budge in 2011 on letting U.S. troops stay in Iraq with legal immunity Washington said they must have to defend themselves in the volatile country. But it was a fiercely unpopular political position in Iraq, which was unable to prosecute Blackwater Worldwide security contractors who opened fire in a Baghdad square in 2007, killing at least 13 passersby.
James F. Jeffrey, who was the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad when the U.S. troops left, called it a "turnabout" by al-Maliki. He said Iraq desperately needs teams of U.S. advisers, trainers, intelligence and counterterror experts to beat back al-Qaida.
"We have those people," said Jeffrey, who retired from the State Department after leaving Baghdad last year. "We had plans to get them in after 2011. They can be under embassy privileges and immunities. They will cost the American people almost nothing. They will, by and large, not be in any more danger than our State Department civilians. And they could mean all the difference between losing an Iraq that 4,500 Americans gave their lives for."
Nearly 4,500 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq between the 2003 invasion and the 2011 withdrawal. More than 100,000 Iraqi were killed in that time.
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Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/larajakesAP
In this Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, file photo, a man is reflected in paneling as he speaks on his phone at the Mobile World Congress, the world's largest mobile phone trade show, in Barcelona, Spain. A Spanish newspaper published a document Monday that it said shows the U.S. National Security Agency spied on more than 60 million phone calls in Spain in one month alone — the latest revelation about alleged massive U.S. spying on allies. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez, File)
In this Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, file photo, a man is reflected in paneling as he speaks on his phone at the Mobile World Congress, the world's largest mobile phone trade show, in Barcelona, Spain. A Spanish newspaper published a document Monday that it said shows the U.S. National Security Agency spied on more than 60 million phone calls in Spain in one month alone — the latest revelation about alleged massive U.S. spying on allies. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez, File)
FILE - In this Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013, file photo, a man speaks on a cell phone in the business district of Madrid. A Spanish newspaper published a document Monday, Oct. 28, 2013, that it said shows the U.S. National Security Agency spied on more than 60 million phone calls in Spain in one month alone — the latest revelation about alleged massive U.S. spying on allies. (AP Photo/Paul White, File)
Graphic shows country-by-country look allegations of spying by the U.S. National Security Agency and reaction; 3c x 5 inches; 146 mm x 127 mm;
WASHINGTON (AP) — Faced with a flood of revelations about U.S. spying, President Barack Obama and key lawmakers say it's time to look closely at surveillance programs that may have gone too far. The White House is considering ending eavesdropping on friendly foreign leaders, a senior administration official said.
The administration is trying to tamp down damage from the months-long spying scandal — including the most recent disclosure that the National Security Agency monitored the communications of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. A final decision about listening in on allies has not been made, the official said.
The White House also faces complaints at home about the NSA collecting millions of Americans' phone records and sweeping up Internet traffic and email. The House Intelligence Committee was to examine tightening the rules on those anti-terror programs in a hearing later Tuesday.
Asked about the reports of eavesdropping on world leaders, President Barack Obama said in a television interview that the U.S. government is conducting "a complete review of how our intelligence operates outside the country." Obama declined to discuss specifics or say when he learned about the spying operations.
"What we've seen over the last several years is their capacities continue to develop and expand, and that's why I'm initiating now a review to make sure that what they're able to do doesn't necessarily mean what they should be doing," he said Monday on the new TV network Fusion.
On Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner said there should be a thorough review, bearing in mind the responsibility to keep Americans safe from terrorism and the nation's obligations to allies.
"We have to find the right balance here," said Boehner, R-Ohio. "And clearly, we're imbalanced."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called Monday for a "total review of all intelligence programs" following the Merkel allegations. In a statement, the California Democrat said the White House had informed her that "collection on our allies will not continue."
The administration official said that statement was not accurate, but added that some unspecified changes already had been made and more were being considered, including terminating the collection of communications from friendly heads of state.
The official was not authorized to discuss the review by name and insisted on anonymity.
Reports based on new leaks from former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden indicate that the NSA listened in on Merkel and 34 other foreign leaders.
"With respect to NSA collection of intelligence on leaders of U.S. allies — including France, Spain, Mexico and Germany — let me state unequivocally: I am totally opposed," Feinstein said. She added that the U.S. should not be "collecting phone calls or emails of friendly presidents and prime ministers" unless in an emergency with approval of the president.
In response to the revelations, German officials said Monday that the U.S. could lose access to an important law enforcement tool used to track terrorist money flows.
Other longtime allies have also expressed their displeasure about the U.S. spying on their leaders. Spain's prosecutor's office said Tuesday it has opened a preliminary inquiry to determine whether a crime was committed by NSA surveillance.
Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo's office on Tuesday confirmed a report in De Standaard that at his most sensitive meetings, the premier is asking government ministers to leave their mobile phones out of the room.
As possible leverage, German authorities cited last week's non-binding resolution by the European Parliament to suspend a post-9/11 agreement allowing the Americans access to bank transfer data to track the flow of terrorist money. A top German official said Monday she believed the Americans were using the information to gather economic intelligence apart from terrorism and said the agreement, known as the SWIFT agreement, should be suspended.
European Union officials who are in Washington to meet with lawmakers ahead of White House talks said U.S. surveillance of their people could affect negotiations over a U.S.-Europe trade agreement. They said European privacy must be better protected.
Many officials in Germany and other European governments have made clear, however, that they don't favor suspending the U.S.-EU trade talks which began last summer because both sides stand to gain so much through the proposed deal.
Amid tensions with European allies, the top U.S. intelligence official declassified dozens of pages of top-secret documents in an apparent bid to show the NSA was acting legally when it gathered millions of Americans' phone records.
Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper said he was following the president's direction to make public as much information as possible about how U.S. intelligence agencies spy under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The document release is part of an administration-wide effort to preserve the NSA's ability to collect bulk data. The administration says the spying is key to tracking terror suspects. Privacy activists say is a breach of the Constitution's ban on unreasonable search and seizure of evidence from innocent Americans.
The documents support administration testimony that the NSA worked to operate within the law and fix errors when they or their systems overreached. One of the documents shows the NSA admitting to the House Intelligence Committee that one of its automated systems picked up too much telephone metadata. The February 2009 document indicates the problem was fixed.
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Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC and Kimberly Dozier at http://twitter.com/kimberlydozier
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Associated Press writers Ted Bridis, Jack Gillum and Connie Cass in Washington, Frank Jordan, Geir Moulson and Robert H. Reid in Berlin, Juergen Baetz in Brussels, Ciaran Giles, Jorge Sainz and Alan Clendenning in Madrid and Sarah DiLorenzo in Paris contributed to this report.
NEW YORK (AP) — The secretive British graffiti artist Banksy is at it again.
After buying a painting of a pastoral scene for $50, Banksy donated it back to the thrift shop where he bought it Tuesday — but only after reworking it, adding a Nazi soldier to the scene.
As he does with all his works, Banksy posted the image on his website. He titled it "The banality of the banality of evil." He also included a photograph that shows the painting in the thrift shop's front window.
The 23rd Street Housing Works store is auctioning the painting. By Wednesday morning, bidding reached $211,000. The auction ends Thursday.
It'll benefit Housing Works' homelessness and AIDS initiatives.
On Sunday, Banksy's posted an essay that called the design of the World Trade Center a "disaster."
Congolese army soldiers march into Kibumba town after recapturing it from M23 rebels over the weekend, around 25km from the provincial capital Goma, in eastern Congo Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. The Congolese army, who just one year ago abandoned their posts and fled in the face of an advancing rebel army, succeeded on Monday in taking back a fifth rebel-held town, the city of Rumangabo, in what appears to be a turning point in the conflict. (AP Photo/Joseph Kay)
Congolese army soldiers march into Kibumba town after recapturing it from M23 rebels over the weekend, around 25km from the provincial capital Goma, in eastern Congo Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. The Congolese army, who just one year ago abandoned their posts and fled in the face of an advancing rebel army, succeeded on Monday in taking back a fifth rebel-held town, the city of Rumangabo, in what appears to be a turning point in the conflict. (AP Photo/Joseph Kay)
Congolese army soldiers are cheered by residents as they march through Rugare after recapturing it from M23 rebels over the weekend, towards Rumangabo, around 30km (19 miles) from the provincial capital Goma, in eastern Congo Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. The Congolese army, who just one year ago abandoned their posts and fled in the face of an advancing rebel army, succeeded on Monday in taking back a fifth rebel-held town, the city of Rumangabo, in what appears to be a turning point in the conflict. (AP Photo/Joseph Kay)
Congolese army soldiers march through Rugare after recapturing it from M23 rebels over the weekend, towards Rumangabo, around 30km (19 miles) from the provincial capital Goma, in eastern Congo Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. The Congolese army, who just one year ago abandoned their posts and fled in the face of an advancing rebel army, succeeded on Monday in taking back a fifth rebel-held town, the city of Rumangabo, in what appears to be a turning point in the conflict. (AP Photo/Joseph Kay)
Residents cheer as Congolese army soldiers pass through Rugare after recapturing it from M23 rebels over the weekend, towards Rumangabo, around 30km (19 miles) from the provincial capital Goma, in eastern Congo Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. The Congolese army, who just one year ago abandoned their posts and fled in the face of an advancing rebel army, succeeded on Monday in taking back a fifth rebel-held town, the city of Rumangabo, in what appears to be a turning point in the conflict. (AP Photo/Joseph Kay)
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Congolese officials said the army has seized one of the M23 rebels' last remaining strongholds on Wednesday as more than 10,000 refugees poured into neighboring Uganda.
The fall of Bunagana came as the political chief of M23, Bertrand Bisimwa, also crossed into Uganda and was believed to be heading toward the Ugandan capital, Kampala. Congolese government spokesman Lambert Mende called on Ugandan authorities to turn over Bisimwa.
But Bisimwa does not face arrest in Uganda, said Uganda Lt. Col. Paddy Ankunda. Uganda has been hosting peace talks between the Congolese government and M23 since December. Those talks stalled earlier this month, right before clashes resumed between United Nations-backed Congolese forces and the rebels.
The Congolese military has been battling the M23 rebels, who are allegedly backed by Rwanda, for 18 months. The rebels' high-water mark perhaps came in November when they briefly held the city of Goma, which lies along the Rwandan border.
M23's setbacks on the battlefield don't necessarily spell the end of the group, nor of violence in mineral-rich eastern Congo where myriad insurgent groups have operated, fighting for the spoils from the mining of copper, cobalt, tungsten and other minerals and metals which lie under the ground.
Julien Paluku, the governor of Congo's North Kivu province, said that Bunagana is back in the hands of the military after the rebels retreated from the town on the Ugandan border. Mende also confirmed the fall of Bunagana, hours after humanitarian workers in Uganda had reported hearing heavy gunfire. The Associated Press could not immediately independently verify the claim.
Lucy Beck, a spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency in Uganda, said the Congolese crossing the border are now "too many to count." The number of Congolese seeking refuge in Uganda rose from 5,000 to more than 10,000 within hours Wednesday, she said.
The M23 movement emerged in April 2012, the latest incarnation of an ethnic Tutsi rebel group dissatisfied with the Congolese government. Neighboring Rwanda, whose president is also an ethnic Tutsi, is widely believed to have provided weapons, recruits and training to M23. Rwanda's government denies the allegations, saying Congo's government has failed to police its vast territory.
M23 briefly overtook Goma — a city of 1 million people — last November but has been substantially weakened in the past year by internal divisions and waning Rwandan support, according to a United Nations group of experts.
The Congolese military has capitalized on these rebel setbacks by pushing ahead with new offensives beginning in August that have been supported by the most powerful U.N. force yet. After years of only protecting civilians, the U.N. is now actively aiding Congolese soldiers in pursuing their enemy.
In the last week, Congo has scored a series of successes and taken back half a dozen towns from rebel control to the cheers of local residents waving palm leaves and running alongside their vehicles.
Mende insisted Uganda not provide a haven for the M23's political chief.
"Bisimwa crossed the border today with official vehicles that were stolen in November in Goma," Mende said. "We are counting on the cooperation of our neighbors."
Rihanna went to great lengths for her newest ink. The "Pour It Up" singer, 25, flew tattoo artists Keith "Bang Bang" McCurdy and Cally Jo from New York City to the Dominican Republic to cover up the Maori tattoo she got recently in New Zealand, a source confirms to Us Weekly. (E! News was first to report the unusual travel arrangements.)
The new tat -- a henna-inspired design on the Barbados-born star's right hand -- "goes over the knuckles and wrist," Bang Bang tells Us. "It was made to complement what was already there. It looks like a henna tattoo, but it's the real deal. She's a champ."
Rihanna with Bang Bang McCurdy and Cally Jo after getting her henna-inspired hand tattoo Credit: Bang Bang NYC
Indeed she is. As seen in a video of Rihanna posted to YouTube earlier this month, the "Diamonds" singer first got her hand tattooed with a chisel and mallet in New Zealand. The painful method, known as Ta moko, is traditional to the Maori culture. Rihanna remained silent throughout the process, but her hand was left bloodied and bruised after.
The ink-loving star has several other tattoos, as well. Among them? A trail of stars down the back of her neck, a handgun near her armpit, a falcon on her right foot, the Egyptian goddess Isis on her chest, and her best friend's birthday on her shoulder.
"I like hanging out in tattoo shops," Rihanna told Atlanta Peach magazine back in 2007. "Sometimes I get dressed and go to the tattoo parlors in SoHo and hang out. I am so intrigued by tattoos. It's an entire culture, and I study it."
PARIS (AP) — French oil company Total said Thursday that net income fell 10 percent in the July-to-September period, partially due to poor refining margins amid a sluggish European economy.
The company said that net profit was 2.8 billion euros ($3.9 billion) in the quarter, the first in its fiscal year. Revenue was 46.7 billion euros, a drop of 6 percent. Still, both figures were above consensus expectations of analysts surveyed by FactSet.
While Brent crude oil prices were fairly stable in the quarter, refining margins — the profit from converting oil into useable fuel — plummeted 79 percent, as a poor economy cut into energy demands.
The company said its profit was also hit by higher exploration costs as part of a more active drilling program.
Investors were disappointed. In early trading on the Paris bourse, Total's share dropped 1 percent to 44.78 euros.
President Barack Obama shakes hands with supporters after speaking at Boston's historic Faneuil Hall about the federal health care law, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. Faneuil Hall is where former Massachusetts Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, Obama's rival in the 2012 presidential election, signed the state's landmark health care law in 2006 (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)
President Barack Obama shakes hands with supporters after speaking at Boston's historic Faneuil Hall about the federal health care law, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. Faneuil Hall is where former Massachusetts Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, Obama's rival in the 2012 presidential election, signed the state's landmark health care law in 2006 (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's soothing promise that Americans happy with their health insurance could simply keep it was doomed from the start, and everyone familiar with the market seemed to recognize that except the president. Even his aides said four years ago, early in the huge push for his health care law, that he wasn't to be taken literally on that point.
But he kept making the promise, literally and forcefully, through the long debate about the overhaul, after it became law and directly to voters in the campaign for the 2012 election. The words sometimes varied but the message didn't: Not only was a better day coming for people with no insurance or bad insurance — but everyone else could just relax.
Now his assurance is proving empty for people who are getting cancellation notices in the individual or small-business insurance marketplace and for workers who are beginning to see jarring changes in their employer-provided plans. Although they are a minority of the insured, they are adding up to millions of people.
Obama said Wednesday that those who are seeing individual policies canceled should "just shop around" and get another one.
That's a striking departure from his vow stretching back to 2009: "No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what."
And from the final months of the 2012 campaign: "If you're one of the more than 250 million Americans who already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance. This law will only make it more secure and more affordable."
It's possible that the shakeout will leave Americans in a better place overall with their health care. It will take a while to know if that is so. People can no longer be denied insurance because they've been sick, insurance subsidies are becoming available for many and choices are expanding in new markets despite a stumbling debut that the Obama administration is still trying to set right.
It was never convincing, though, to claim that an overhaul of this magnitude could be dropped like a rock into a pond without waves washing over the system — happy campers among them.
Health policy experts, including some who favored the law, said then that Obama had no standing to make such a promise, as did fact-checkers. "If he was a king, he would deliver that, but he's not king," Dallas Salisbury, head of the Employee Benefit Research Institute, told The Associated Press in 2009.
The promise stretched credulity a number of ways:
—It's practically baked into the law that some policies are going to disappear. Insurance must meet certain standards, and coverage that falls short cannot be sold except through a grandfathering process that insurance administrators say is untenable. So healthy young people or others who were happy enough with bare-bones coverage may be losing access to those plans, and face requirements under the law to replace them. "Nobody is forcing you to shift," Obama previously said. Shift they must.
—The law does not stop employers from changing plans or carriers, or from dropping coverage altogether. Larger companies will face a fine for terminating insurance but in some cases that could be cheaper for them than continuing their coverage. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the number of workers getting employer-based coverage could drop by several million as companies pull back and steer workers to the new individual insurance options instead.
—Cost-control measures in the law are certain to drive changes for people with generous workplace plans. It's happening already.
___
Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.
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Last year, Google unveiled a new wireless charging pad alongside the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10, and the company has taken advantage of 2013 to come up with another one. This new charging pad has been announced in tandem with the Nexus 5, and will include support for it and the Nexus 7. It's supposed to ...
