Erika no longer a tropical storm, loses steam over Cuba

GNN - Erika, a tropical storm that was losing strength as it hit Haiti with heavy rains and strong winds, fell apart on Saturday over eastern Cuba, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

"Erika has degenerated into a trough of low pressure," the Miami-based hurricane center said in a Saturday morning forecast advisory.

Erika's maximum sustained winds had dropped to 35 mph (56 kph), just below the tropical storm threshold.

Dominica in the eastern Caribbean was the island worst-affected by Erika, with 20 killed and some still missing.

Still posing a threat of wind gusts and flash floods, the remnants of Erika were now expected to move over central Cuba, potentially providing welcome relief from a drought, before heading out into the Gulf of Mexico and skirting South Florida.

The NHC said the weather system could still regenerate into a tropical storm before reaching the northwest Florida Panhandle.

Florida Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency on Friday, noting the storm could travel "up the spine of Florida." He planned to give an update on its potential impact later on Saturday.

Forecasters have described Erika, the fifth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, as unusually hard to predict due to disruption from wind patterns and interaction with mountainous terrain.

Meteorologist Jeff Masters with the private U.S. forecaster, Weather Underground, said the island of Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, "has saved us so many times in the past", thanks to its 10,000-feet (3,000-meter) peaks.

"It's probably saved thousands of lives in South Florida over the years," he said.

Impoverished Haiti also appeared to have dodged a bullet as Erika's sustained winds dropped to 45 mph (72 kph) as it moved over the capital, Port-au-Prince, on Friday night, the NHC said.

Haiti is acutely vulnerable to landslides due to widespread deforestation of its hillsides.

After a rainy night, the city woke up Saturday to clear skies and no signs of serious damage. Normally dust-covered trees were a lush green as bulldozers cleared mud from Route 1, the main road north out of the capital.

Dominica's prime minister, Roosevelt Skerrit confirmed in a Friday night address that 20 people had died from swollen rivers and rain-triggered landslides that swept away homes, roads and bridges.

He described the loss of life and economic damage as "monumental", with some communities cut off on the small, mountainous island with a population of about 72,000.

(Reporting by David Adams in Miami and Peter Granitz in Port-au-Prince; Editing by Alison Williams)

Yemen's Houthis seize central Aden district, presidential site

(GNN) - Yemeni Houthi fighters and their allies seized a central Aden district on Thursday, striking a heavy blow against the Saudi-led coalition which has waged a week of air strikes to try to stem advances by the Iran-allied Shi'ite group.

Hours after the Houthis took over Aden's central Crater neighborhood, they marked another symbolic victory by fighting their way into a presidential residence overlooking the neighborhood, residents said.

The southern city has been the last major holdout of fighters loyal to the Saudi-backed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who fled Aden a week ago and has watched from Riyadh as the vestiges of his authority have crumbled.

By nightfall the Iran-allied Shi'ite fighters had reached the edge of Aden's port district of Mualla, they said.

The Houthis and their supporters swept into the heart of Aden despite an eight-day air campaign led by Riyadh trying to stem their advances and ultimately return Hadi to power.

By midday on Thursday they were in control of Crater neighborhood, deploying tanks and foot patrols through its otherwise empty streets after heavy fighting in the morning.

It was the first time fighting on the ground had reached so deeply into central Aden. Crater is home to the local branch of Yemen's central bank and many commercial businesses.

"People are afraid and terrified by the bombardment," one resident, Farouq Abdu, told Reuters by telephone from Crater. "No one is on the streets - it's like a curfew".

Hadi loyalists had few heavy weapons to halt the Houthi advance, although the remains of one smoldering tank in Crater showed they had put up a staunch defense in some places.

Aden residents reported three air strikes against a Houthi position north of Crater on Thursday, and a fourth at the presidential residence shortly after they took control of it.

Another resident said Houthi snipers deployed on a mountain overlooking Crater and fired on the streets below. Several houses caught fire after being struck by rockets, and messages relayed on loudspeakers urged residents to move out to safer parts of the city, he said.

After the advance in Crater, unidentified armed men disembarked from a vessel off Mualla. A port official said they were armed guards from a Chinese warship taking evacuees from the city. Yemeni and Saudi officials said there was no coalition ground operation in Aden.

China's Xinhua news agency said a Chinese missile frigate evacuated 225 people, all non-Chinese nationals, from Aden on Thursday to Djibouti.

"ADEN WEAK POINT"

The Houthis, who took over the capital Sanaa six months ago in alliance with supporters of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, turned on Aden last month.

A diplomat in Riyadh said the city had come to symbolize Hadi's fading authority, meaning that Saudi Arabia could not afford to allow it to fall completely under Houthi control. But he said Riyadh's air campaign was so far geared more toward a slow war of attrition than an effective defense.

"Saleh and the Houthis are keeping the pressure on Aden, which is the weak point in Saudi strategy," he said. "I think the Saudis would put ground forces into Aden to recapture it if it falls. It is a red line for them."

The war on the Houthis is now the biggest of multiple conflicts being fought out in the Arabian Peninsula's poorest state, also grappling with a southern secessionist movement, tribal unrest and a powerful regional wing of al Qaeda.

The fighting has forced Washington to evacuate U.S. personnel from the country, one of the main battlefields in the secret American drone war against al Qaeda.

Huge street demonstrations in 2011 linked to wider Arab uprisings forced veteran leader Saleh to step down, but he has re-emerged as an influential force by allying himself with the Houthis, his former enemies.

The Houthis are drawn from a Zaidi Shi'ite minority that ruled a thousand-year kingdom in northern Yemen until 1962. Saleh himself is a member of the sect but fought to crush the Houthis as president.

Coalition jets struck a military base controlled by Houthi and pro-Saleh fighters in the Bab el-Mandeb strait, at the entrance to the Red Sea on Thursday, officials said.

In the Arabian Sea port of Mukalla, 500 km (300 miles) east of Aden, suspected al Qaeda fighters stormed the central prison and freed 150 prisoners, some of them al Qaeda detainees, sources in the local police and administration said.

They named one of the escapees as Khaled Batarfi, a provincial al Qaeda leader who was arrested four years ago. Soldiers loyal to Hadi clashed with the suspected al Qaeda fighters in Mukalla early on Thursday, residents said.

In Dhalea, 100 km (60 miles) north of Aden, where militia fighters from the south have battled Houthis for several days, residents said the militia were in control of the town but Houthis were sniping from rooftops.

Residents also reported air strikes overnight on the coastal town of Shaqra, which is under Houthi control and lies on the coast between Aden and Mukalla.

(Reuters)(Additional reporting by Mohammed Ghobari in Cairo, Angus McDowall in Riyadh, Amena Bakr in Dubai, Emily Stephenson in Washington and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Writing by Dominic Evans, Editing by William Maclean and Angus MacSwan)

Full U.S. text on preliminary nuclear accord with Iran

(GNN) - Following is the full text of a U.S. "fact sheet" released after Washington and other major powers reached a framework agreement on Thursday on curbing Iran's nuclear program for at least a decade after eight days of marathon talks in Switzerland.

Below are the key parameters of a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear program that were decided in Lausanne, Switzerland. These elements form the foundation upon which the final text of the JCPOA will be written between now and June 30, and reflect the significant progress that has been made in discussions between the P5+1, the European Union, and Iran.

Important implementation details are still subject to negotiation, and nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. We will work to conclude the

JCPOA based on these parameters over the coming months.

Enrichment

• Iran has agreed to reduce by approximately two-thirds its installed centrifuges. Iran will go from having about 19,000 installed today to 6,104 installed under the deal, with only 5,060 of these enriching uranium for 10 years. All 6,104 centrifuges will be IR-1s, Iran’s first-generation centrifuge.

• Iran has agreed to not enrich uranium over 3.67 percent for at least 15 years.

• Iran has agreed to reduce its current stockpile of about 10,000 kg of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to 300 kg of 3.67 percent LEU for 15 years.

• All excess centrifuges and enrichment infrastructure will be placed in IAEA monitored storage and will be used only as replacements for operating centrifuges and equipment.

• Iran has agreed to not build any new facilities for the purpose of enriching uranium for 15 years.

• Iran’s breakout timeline – the time that it would take for Iran to acquire enough fissile material for one weapon – is currently assessed to be 2 to 3 months. That timeline will be extended to at least one year, for a duration of at least ten years, under this framework.

Iran will convert its facility at Fordow so that it is no longer used to enrich uranium

• Iran has agreed to not enrich uranium at its Fordow facility for at least 15 years.

• Iran has agreed to convert its Fordow facility so that it is used for peaceful purposes only – into a nuclear, physics, technology, research center.

• Iran has agreed to not conduct research and development associated with uranium enrichment at Fordow for 15 years.

• Iran will not have any fissile material at Fordow for 15 years.

• Almost two-thirds of Fordow’s centrifuges and infrastructure will be removed. The remaining centrifuges will not enrich uranium. All centrifuges and related infrastructure will be placed under IAEA monitoring.

Iran will only enrich uranium at the Natanz facility, with only 5,060 IR-1 first-generation centrifuges for ten years.

• Iran has agreed to only enrich uranium using its first generation (IR-1 models) centrifuges at Natanz for ten years, removing its more advanced centrifuges.

• Iran will remove the 1,000 IR-2M centrifuges currently installed at Natanz and place them in IAEA monitored storage for ten years.

• Iran will not use its IR-2, IR-4, IR-5, IR-6, or IR-8 models to produce enriched uranium for at least ten years. Iran will engage in limited research and development with its advanced centrifuges, according to a schedule and parameters which have been agreed to by the P5+1.

• For ten years, enrichment and enrichment research and development will be limited to ensure a breakout timeline of at least 1 year. Beyond 10 years, Iran will abide by its

enrichment and enrichment R&D plan submitted to the IAEA, and pursuant to the JCPOA, under the Additional Protocol resulting in certain limitations on enrichment capacity.

Inspections and Transparency

• The IAEA will have regular access to all of Iran’s nuclear facilities, including to Iran’s enrichment facility at Natanz and its former enrichment facility at Fordow, and including the use of the most up-to-date, modern monitoring technologies.

• Inspectors will have access to the supply chain that supports Iran’s nuclear program. The new transparency and inspections mechanisms will closely monitor materials and/or components to prevent diversion to a secret program.

• Inspectors will have access to uranium mines and continuous surveillance at uranium mills, where Iran produces yellowcake, for 25 years.

• Inspectors will have continuous surveillance of Iran’s centrifuge rotors and bellows production and storage facilities for 20 years. Iran’s centrifuge manufacturing base will

be frozen and under continuous surveillance.

• All centrifuges and enrichment infrastructure removed from Fordow and Natanz will be placed under continuous monitoring by the IAEA.

• A dedicated procurement channel for Iran’s nuclear program will be established to monitor and approve, on a case by case basis, the supply, sale, or transfer to Iran of 3 certain nuclear-related and dual use materials and technology – an additional transparency measure.

• Iran has agreed to implement the Additional Protocol of the IAEA, providing the IAEA much greater access and information regarding Iran’s nuclear program, including both declared and undeclared facilities.

• Iran will be required to grant access to the IAEA to investigate suspicious sites or allegations of a covert enrichment facility, conversion facility, centrifuge production

facility, or yellowcake production facility anywhere in the country.

• Iran has agreed to implement Modified Code 3.1 requiring early notification of construction of new facilities.

• Iran will implement an agreed set of measures to address the IAEA’s concerns regarding the Possible Military Dimensions (PMD) of its program.

Reactors and Reprocessing

• Iran has agreed to redesign and rebuild a heavy water research reactor in Arak, based on a design that is agreed to by the P5+1, which will not produce weapons grade plutonium, and which will support peaceful nuclear research and radioisotope production.

• The original core of the reactor, which would have enabled the production of significant quantities of weapons-grade plutonium, will be destroyed or removed from the country.

• Iran will ship all of its spent fuel from the reactor out of the country for the reactor’s lifetime.

• Iran has committed indefinitely to not conduct reprocessing or reprocessing research and development on spent nuclear fuel.

• Iran will not accumulate heavy water in excess of the needs of the modified Arak reactor, and will sell any remaining heavy water on the international market for 15 years.

• Iran will not build any additional heavy water reactors for 15 years.

Sanctions

• Iran will receive sanctions relief, if it verifiably abides by its commitments.

• U.S. and E.U. nuclear-related sanctions will be suspended after the IAEA has verified that Iran has taken all of its key nuclear-related steps. If at any time Iran fails to fulfill its commitments, these sanctions will snap back into place.

• The architecture of U.S. nuclear-related sanctions on Iran will be retained for much of the duration of the deal and allow for snap-back of sanctions in the event of significant

non-performance.

• All past UN Security Council resolutions on the Iran nuclear issue will be lifted simultaneous with the completion, by Iran, of nuclear-related actions addressing all key concerns (enrichment, Fordow, Arak, PMD, and transparency).

• However, core provisions in the UN Security Council resolutions – those that deal with transfers of sensitive technologies and activities – will be re-established by a new UN

Security Council resolution that will endorse the JCPOA and urge its full implementation. It will also create the procurement channel mentioned above, which will serve as a key transparency measure. Important restrictions on conventional arms and

ballistic missiles, as well as provisions that allow for related cargo inspections and asset freezes, will also be incorporated by this new resolution.

• A dispute resolution process will be specified, which enables any JCPOA participant, to seek to resolve disagreements about the performance of JCPOA commitments.

• If an issue of significant non-performance cannot be resolved through that process, then all previous UN sanctions could be re-imposed.

• U.S. sanctions on Iran for terrorism, human rights abuses, and ballistic missiles will remain in place under the deal.

Phasing

• For ten years, Iran will limit domestic enrichment capacity and research and development – ensuring a breakout timeline of at least one year. Beyond that, Iran will be bound by its

longer-term enrichment and enrichment research and development plan it shared with the P5+1.

• For fifteen years, Iran will limit additional elements of its program. For instance, Iran will not build new enrichment facilities or heavy water reactors and will limit its stockpile of enriched uranium and accept enhanced transparency procedures.

• Important inspections and transparency measures will continue well beyond 15 years. Iran’s adherence to the Additional Protocol of the IAEA is permanent, including its significant access and transparency obligations. The robust inspections of Iran’s uranium supply chain will last for 25 years.

• Even after the period of the most stringent limitations on Iran’s nuclear program, Iran will remain a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which prohibits Iran’s

development or acquisition of nuclear weapons and requires IAEA safeguards on its nuclear program.

(Reuters)(Reporting By Paul Grant)

U.S. Air Force overstepped bounds in SpaceX certification: report

(GNN) - The U.S. Air Force overstepped its bounds as it worked to certify privately held SpaceX to launch military satellites, undermining the benefit of working with a commercial provider, an independent review showed on Thursday.

The report cited a "stark disconnect" between the Air Force and SpaceX, or Space Exploration Technologies, about the purpose of the certification process and recommended changes.

Air Force Secretary Deborah James ordered the review after the service missed a December deadline for certifying SpaceX to compete for some launches now carried out solely by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co.

The Pentagon is eager to certify SpaceX as a second launch provider, given mounting concerns in Congress about ULA's use of a Russian-built engine to power its Atlas 5 rocket.

The Air Force said on Monday it was revamping the certification process, but did not release the report on the review until Thursday and hoped to complete the work by June.

The report, prepared by former Air Force Chief of Staff General Larry Welch, said the Air Force treated the process like a detailed design review, dictating changes in SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and even the company's organizational structure.

That approach resulted in over 400 issues that needed to be resolved, which was "counterproductive" to a national policy aimed at encouraging competition in the sector.

In fact, the process was intended to show that SpaceX met overall requirements to launch military satellites, not carry out the more detailed review required for each launch on a case-by-case basis, he said.

Welch faulted SpaceX for assuming its experience launching other Falcon 9 rockets would suffice to be certified, and not expecting to have to resolve any issues at all.

"The result to date has been ... the worst of all worlds, pressing the Falcon 9 commercially oriented approach into a comfortable government mold that eliminates or significantly reduces the expected benefits to the government of the commercial approach. Both teams need to adjust," he said.

He urged the Air Force's Space and Missiles Systems Center to "embrace SpaceX innovation and practices," while SpaceX needed to understand the Air Force's need to mitigate risks, and be more open to benefiting from the government's experience.

(Reuters)(Reporting by Andrea Shalal. Editing by Andre Grenon)

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Mourners throng funeral of seven Jewish children killed in New York fire

(GNN) - The funeral of seven Orthodox Jewish children who perished in one of New York's deadliest fires in years drew a sea of mourners on Sunday to a Brooklyn neighborhood where the blaze has raised concerns about the safety of Sabbath cooking practices.

Around the corner from the home where only the mother and one of her eight children survived the early Saturday blaze, the Fire Department of New York handed out pamphlets titled "Fire Safety for Jewish Observances" as well as smoke alarms and batteries.

The fire department blamed a malfunctioning electric hotplate for the fire that raced through the home at around 12:30 a.m. on Saturday, killing the children, ages 5 to 16. The blaze critically injured their 15-year-old sister, Siporah, and mother, Gayle Sassoon, 45. The father was at a religious conference when the fire broke out.

Crowd-control barricades were set up outside the Shomrei Hadas Chapels in Brooklyn, where a rabbi was to lead services for the children, laid out in seven coffins in front of men and women, sitting on separate sides of the room. After the service, the children's bodies were to be flown to Israel for burial, the funeral home said.

Jewish rules in observance of the Sabbath day of rest, which lasts from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, prohibit turning on and off electric appliances and prohibit all other forms of what is considered work, said state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who represents the heavily Jewish district.

"A lot of people use these hotplates to keep food warm for the next day," Hikind said. "They put them on Friday and they are left on for the entire Sabbath, 25 hours."

An online version of the FDNY pamphlet about dangers during the Sabbath and Jewish holidays tops the list with the warning: "Stay in the kitchen - don't leave cooking food unattended."

Hikind said he uses a water-filled urn that he heats up before the Sabbath starts at sundown every Friday night.

"I called my own daughter, who has six kids, to tell her to stop using that hot plate," he said.

It was the city's fourth deadly fire in 15 years sparked by hotplates or use of ritual candles, according to the Jewish Forward newspaper, including a 2000 fire in Williamsburg that killed the granddaugther of the Satmar Grand Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum and her 5-month old baby.

Hikind said that scam artists immediately launched a phony fundraising scheme in the Sassoon family's name, and he warned followers on Twitter not to contribute.

"People's heart aches - Jew and non-Jew alike. They want to help. We don't want you to waste your money," he later told Reuters.

Although smoke alarms are required on every floor of a home, according to a fire department spokesman, The New York Times reported the Sassoon home only had a smoke alarm in basement.

The fire department did not immediately respond to questions about the home's smoke alarms or about previous deadly fires tied to religious observances.

(Reuters)(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Leslie Adler)

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Helicopter crashes into Florida home, starting fire

(GNN) - A helicopter crashed into a home in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday, sparking a fire that sent smoke billowing over the area, emergency officials said.

Orlando fire officials said they could not confirm injuries to the pilot or whether there were any passengers, and it was unclear if anyone was inside the home at the time of the crash.

The helicopter went down around 2:15 p.m., igniting a ground fire that was contained within minutes by firefighters, fire officials said.

Wreckage of the helicopter littered the residential street not far from downtown, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

"It blew up, and part of the rotor landed in a neighbor's backyard and knocked down a fence, three houses away," Ben Brown told the newspaper.

Aerial photos showed large plumes of smoke streaming from the crash site.

(Reuters)(Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere; Editing by Frank McGurty, Jonathan Oatis and Leslie Adler)

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Confederate flag license plate battle reaches U.S. Supreme Court

(GNN) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday takes up a free speech case on whether Texas was wrong in rejecting a specialty vehicle license plate displaying the Confederate flag - to some an emblem of Southern pride and to others a symbol of racism.

The nine justices will hear a one-hour oral argument in a case that raises the issue of how states can allow or reject politically divisive messages on license plates without violating free speech rights. States can generate revenue by allowing outside groups to propose specialty license plates that people then pay a fee to put on their vehicle.

The group Sons of Confederate Veterans says its aim is to preserve the "history and legacy" of soldiers who fought for the pro-slavery Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War. Its proposed design featured a Confederate battle flag surrounded by the words "Sons of Confederate Veterans 1896." The flag is a blue cross inlaid with white stars over a red background.

The group's Texas chapter said its members' free speech rights were violated when the state rejected the plate. Several other states have approved similar plates.

When Texas rejected the proposal in 2010, the state said it had received public comments that suggested "many members of the general public find the design offensive" in large part due to the Confederacy being synonymous with the institution of slavery.

A black Texas Democratic state senator, Royce West, said in 2011, "Ill-intended or not, why would African Americans want to be reminded of a legalized system of involuntary servitude, dehumanization, rape and mass murder?"

The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Texas officials did not have grounds to reject the plate, prompting the state to seek high court review.

The legal issue is in part whether messages on state-issued license plates represent speech by the government or an endorsement of a private message. If determined to be private speech, the state's rejection could violate the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment free speech guarantee.

Steven Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which backs the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said although the flag "served as a banner for those who supported slavery and segregation ... Texas cannot pick and choose the plates it approves on ideological grounds."

A ruling is expected by the end of June.

The case is Walker v. Sons of Confederate Veterans, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 14-144.

(Reuters)(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

Exclusive: U.S. Navy wish list has 12 Boeing jets, eight F-35s - sources

(GNN) - The U.S. Navy included 12 Boeing Co F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets and eight Lockheed Martin Corp F-35s on a list of "unfunded priorities" prepared for Congress, defense officials and other sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The Navy's list was reviewed by senior Pentagon officials and the Joint Chiefs of Staff this week, and should be sent to U.S. lawmakers in coming days, said the sources, who asked not to be named because the vetting is still under way.

Top Pentagon officials are skeptical about the weapons wish lists, and worry they help lawmakers "cherry pick" specific weapons programs to fund, while crowding out bigger priorities. However, they say they will not stand in the way of the military services complying with requests from lawmakers.

The total value of the additional 12 Boeing jets is around $1 billion, while the eight extra Lockheed jets would be just over $1 billion, the sources said.

A decision by Congress to fund the extra Boeing jets as part of the Navy's fiscal 2016 budget would help the company extend its St. Louis production line beyond the end of 2017, although it was not immediately clear for how long.

Company officials have said they must decide this summer whether to start shutting down the line or bet their own money to buy titanium and other supplies that take a long time to deliver, before Congress finalize the 2016 budget.

There is great uncertainty about fiscal 2016 funding levels - and any programs on the "unfunded" list - since Congress remains deadlocked over whether to lift budget caps that would cut $35 billion from the Pentagon's base budget plan.

The Navy had hoped to include the Boeing and Lockheed jets in its base budget request, but gave up that funding to protect shipbuilding programs deemed more critical.

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert told Congress the Navy faces a possible shortfall of two to three squadrons of F/A-18 strike fighters, or up to 36 aircraft, given delays in extending the life of older model F/A-18 aircraft, also called legacy Hornets.

Ordering Super Hornets now would also preserve the option of ordering additional EA-18G electronic attack aircraft, or Growlers, which are built at the same facility, if needed by other military services.

Representative Randy Forbes, a Virginia Republican and key member of the House Armed Services Committee, told Reuters this week that lawmakers needed the lists to better understand the tradeoffs that went into shaping the overall Pentagon budget.

Boeing has said it needs to build two jets a month at the facility to maintain current pricing, which means funding for a dozen more jets would extend production through mid-2018.

Analysts say the company is also chasing a possible order from Kuwait that could keep the factory running through the end of 2018.

(Reuters)(Reporting by Andrea Shalal, Editing by Soyoung Kim and Andre Grenon)

Bloody arrest of black Virginia student spurs second day of protests

(GNN) - The bloody arrest of an African-American student from the University of Virginia spurred a second day of protests on Friday with the same slogans used in demonstrations against law enforcement's treatment of minority groups in other states.

Martese Johnson, 20, was arrested on Wednesday and in video and photos on social media can be seen bleeding and lying on a sidewalk after a confrontation with state Alcohol Beverage Control agents outside a Charlottesville tavern.

The head of Virginia ABC, Brian Moran, met with about 350 students on campus on Friday but 200 black students stormed out, saying their questions were not being answered, local media said.

Video showed them marching outside and chanting “Black Lives Matter,” a slogan popularized during recent protests against the killing of unarmed black men by white police officers in Missouri, New York and other places.


African-American legislators in Virginia on Friday criticized the arrest.

“These actions by the ABC officers are appalling and totally unacceptable,” the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus said in a statement.

On Thursday, Donald McEachin, an African-American who chairs the state Senate’s Democratic caucus, said the legislature should remove the arrest powers of ABC agents. That same day Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe ordered the state police to investigate.

“So the question becomes, 'Why is this young man prostrate on a Charlottesville sidewalk beaten like a dog?'" McEachin said on Thursday.

The video shows Johnson being held down by what appear to be three white officers.

"His head is bleeding," a voice yells.  

Earlier in the day, Black Dot, a black rights student advocacy group at the university, posted a comment on the university’s website about Johnson’s arrest saying, “We must put an end to this Jeffersonian tradition of racial injustice.”

Thomas Jefferson, a founding father of the United States, also was the founder of the University of Virginia, and a slave owner.

“No longer will we accept complacency with the status quo. We will not allow for the university to continue to operate under the erroneous presumption that race is no longer an issue,” the student advocacy group said in its posting.

Johnson is scheduled to appear in court next week on two misdemeanor charges related to his arrest.

(Reuters)(Reporting by Gary Robertson; Editing by Frank McGurty and Lisa Shumaker)

Spring arrives in winter-weary U.S. Northeast but more snow forecast

(GNN) - Spring arrives in the winter-weary U.S. Northeast on Friday but the weather forecast was for more of the same: another half-foot of snow for parts of the region, prompting widespread flight cancellations and early school dismissals.

After blanketing the Washington, D.C., region, the snowstorm headed north to the New York City metropolitan area, which was expected to get up to 6 inches (15 cm) of the wet, heavy winter souvenir, said National Weather Service meteorologist Frank Pereira.

The worst of the weather was expected to snarl the evening rush hour commute, arriving just in time for the Vernal Equinox, at 6:45 p.m. EDT that marks the start of spring.

"I will admit it's getting late in the season," Pereira said. "I'm sure a lot of folks are ready for spring."

Winter-weary Bostonians are probably at the top of list. The Boston area is expected to get another inch of the white stuff after the city this week broke the record for the most seasonal snow in its history at 108.6 inches (275.8 cm).

The fierce winter drained snow removal and road safety budgets in towns and cities throughout the Northeast.

"We are over budget right now," New York City Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia told WCBS Radio, as the city readied plows for yet another round of street clearing and salting.

As the storm took aim at New York, it left behind the deepest snow in the western Maryland town of Cascade, which recorded 4 inches on Friday.

Poor visibility made travel treacherous and schools in Maryland and Virginia either opened later or were closed for the day. As the weather system moved north, schools in New Jersey, Connecticut and New York dismissed students early.

Nearly 1,000 U.S. flights were canceled, with the heaviest hit airports in the New York area, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., according to FlightAware.com.

Even after the storm ends late Friday, a weather pattern from the Great Lakes is expected to aim for northern New England. Mountain ranges in upstate New York, Vermont and Maine could see as much as 6 inches of snow late Saturday into Sunday, Pereira said.

"For folks who like skiing, this will lengthen the season a bit," Pereira said.

(Reuters)(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Frank McGurty and Lisa Lambert)

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U.S. sets first major fracking rules on federal lands

(GNN) - The Obama administration's new rules governing fracking on federal lands drew swift criticism from all sides on Friday, with green groups calling the measures "toothless" and the energy industry slamming "unnecessary" regulation of a drilling process that has brought the United States to the cusp of oil and gas self-sufficiency.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a controversial technique that involves pumping water, sand and chemicals into a well to extract oil or gas. The new federal rules include beefed-up measures to protect ground water, one of the main health and safety concerns arising from the drilling process.

Within minutes of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposal being released, the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) and Western Energy Alliance filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Wyoming on grounds that the rulemaking was based on "unsubstantiated concerns" over safety.

The rules also require energy companies to reinforce boreholes to prevent water leakage, and to reveal chemical ingredients that are injected into the ground under high pressure to extract crude oil and gas.

Although only about 10 percent of fracking occurs on federal lands, the Obama administration is hoping the rules will become a model for industry standards, especially in states that so far lack fracking rules.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said the standards were a long-overdue update to U.S. rules for drilling on federal lands, outmoded since the widespread emergence of horizontal drilling in the past 10 years. She said they were "good for the public and good for industry."

The administration has characterized the BLM action as a step towards balancing public health and safety concerns with regulatory certainty that should allow energy companies to proceed with responsible production.

Industry groups and Republicans warned the rules would slow down the U.S. "energy renaissance."

The new standards require companies to submit detailed information about every proposed operation, including the location of faults and fractures, the depths of all usable water and the depth of estimated volume of fluid to be used.

Companies would disclose the components of the fracking fluids they use on an industry-run website called FracFocus.

“A duplicative layer of new federal regulation is unnecessary," said Eric Milito, a director at industry lobby group the American Petroleum Institute. "We urge the BLM to work carefully with the states to minimize costs and delays created by the new rules to ensure that public lands can still be a source of job creation and economic growth."

Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso called the BLM rules "a solution looking for a problem" since his and other western states already have regulations.

'TOOTHLESS'

Madeleine Foot, a policy analyst at The League of Conservation Voters, praised some safety requirements in the rules, but said telling companies to use the industry-run website FracFocus failed to increase transparency about fracking practices.

Other environmentalists contended the rules failed to match administration rhetoric on combating the high-carbon industries that contribute to carbon change.

"Today's toothless fracking rules are just the latest sign that 'one step forward, two steps back' is beginning to cement as President Obama's historical legacy on climate change," said Karthik Ganapathy, a spokesman for 350.org, an environmental activist network.

Both 350.org and the Sierra Club, one of the country's largest green groups, have argued for the government to eliminate fracking on federal lands.

Jewell said the BLM had received comments for the standards from over 1.5 million groups and individuals. The rules have been in the works for nearly four years.

Brian Deese, Obama's special adviser on climate change and the environment, said the federal government has an obligation to set "rules of the road" regarding fracking.

"But ultimately this is an issue that is going to be decided in state capitals and in localities as well as in the industry. "We’re going to see ... a conversation that will play out across the country, where it should be," Deese said.

(Reuters)(Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner and Patrick Rucker; Editing by Bruce Wallace, Toni Reinhold)

BNSF Railway faces fines in Washington state over hazardous spills

(GNN) - Washington state regulators have recommended BNSF Railway be fined $700,000 for not properly disclosing that its trains had spilled crude oil and other hazardous materials on 14 occasions over four months, officials said on Friday.

BNSF rail cars leaked hazardous material in 16 separate incidents between November and March but in only two cases were the spills reported to state officials correctly, according to a formal complaint by the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission.

In eight incidents, the leaks were not reported at all, commission spokeswoman Amanda Maxwell said.

The list of materials spilled from BNSF trains includes crude oil, lube oil, diesel fuel and hazardous solid waste, according to the complaint.

State safety rules require railroads make a telephone report of the release of a hazardous material within 30 minutes of learning of the incident in order to assess environmental impact and ensure public safety but the railroad did not meet that deadline in several spills, the commission said.

BNSF, the largest railroad company operating in Washington, had been repeatedly reminded of the rules since last fall, Maxwell said. BNSF said it was reviewing the complaint and updating its notification guidelines.

"There is nothing more important to us than safely transporting all of the commodities we carry," spokesman Gus Melonas said in a statement. "We believed we were complying in good faith with the requirements from our agency partners."

The $700,000 fine was the recommendation of the staff of Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission and must be approved by the board before it is levied.

The complaint against BNSF comes amid a heightened national focus on rail safety following a series of derailments involving trains hauling crude oil that resulted in explosions and fires.

Washington state has seen a rapid spike in trains hauling oil in the past four years, with as many as 19 unit trains carrying as much as 3 million gallons of Bakken crude now rolling through the state each week.

(Reuters)(Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Bill Trott)

Obama to sign order cutting U.S. government greenhouse gas emissions

(GNN) - U.S. President Barack Obama will sign an executive order on Thursday that sets a goal for the U.S. government to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2025, the White House said.

Although the federal government accounts for only 0.7 percent of net U.S. emissions, it is the single largest energy consumer in the United States, according to the White House.

Meeting the goal would cut 21 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from 2008 levels, it said.


Several large private-sector partners, including IBM, General Electric and Honeywell, also committed to cutting a combined 5 million metric tons.

Obama has made fighting climate change a top priority in his final two years in office. The White House sees it as critical to his legacy.

In November, Obama reached an agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping that set a goal of reducing overall U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. China agreed to begin lowering its carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, with the intention of trying to do so earlier.

White House senior adviser Brian Deese said the federal government's share of greenhouse gas emissions in the overall U.S. economy is "modest," but said the announcement is significant.

"The potential from this announcement, however, is significant both because we can drive substantial reductions across the entire federal footprint and because our efforts to do that leverage both innovation and investment in the private sector," Deese said on a call with reporters.

The Environmental Protection Agency last year offered a Clean Power Plan that set deadlines for states to submit proposals to meet power plant carbon emission reduction goals.

A dozen states, including Kentucky, West Virginia, Indiana and Wyoming, sued the EPA last August, soon after the plan was unveiled, saying its use of a certain section of the Clean Air Act was illegal. The federal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the case on April 16.

Obama's budget proposal for fiscal 2015, released last month, called for a 7 percent boost in funding for clean energy and a $4 billion fund to encourage U.S. states to make faster and deeper cuts to emissions from power plants. It also called for the permanent extension of tax credits used by the wind and solar power industries.

(Reuters)(Additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Dan Grebler)

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No relief in sight for Western drought in NOAA spring outlook

(GNN) - Drought pressures will increase in California and western areas of the United States this spring even as the dry season begins, the government’s Climate Prediction Center said on Thursday.

“Periods of record warmth in the West and not enough precipitation during the rainy season cut short drought relief in California this winter and prospects for above-average temperatures this spring may make the situation worse,” Jon Gottschalck, chief of the Operational Prediction Branch at the Climate Prediction Center, said in issuing its spring outlook.

The center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also said rivers in western New York and eastern New England have the greatest risk of spring flooding in part because of heavy snowpack coupled with possible spring rain.

The western United States is expected to see the multi-year drought continue and intensify in 2015 and extend into the northern Plains, the outlook said.

Drought is forecast to persist in California, Nevada, and Oregon through June with the onset of the dry season in April.

"I see nothing that would indicate much improvement, if any improvement, in the overall situation for field crops for 2015," said Brad Rippey, meteorologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, noting he expects to see a significant drop in field crops again this year in California.

“Drought is also forecast to develop in remaining areas of Oregon and western Washington. Drought is also likely to continue in parts of the southern Plains,” NOAA said.

But forecasters expect drought improvement in the Southwest, southern Rockies, southern Plains and Gulf Coast while drought is likely in the northern Plains, upper Mississippi Valley and western Great Lakes.

Above-average temperatures are favored this spring across the Far West, northern Rockies, and northern Plains eastward to include parts of the western Great Lakes, and for all of Alaska. Below-normal temperatures are most likely this spring for Texas and nearby areas of New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma, the outlook said.

In the Midwest crop belt, a lack of snowfall in the northern states will mean an early planting season and little to no flooding, Rippey said. In contrast, the southern crop belt is wet and has already seen minor to moderate flooding.

"I would expect planting to go a little better in the upper Midwest this spring than it will in the Ohio Valley," Rippey added at the presentation of the outlook.

(Reuters)(Reporting by Christine Stebbins; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Obama joins millions in U.S. college basketball madness

(GNN) - March Madness gripped the White House and lots of other workplaces on Wednesday as President Barack Obama joined an estimated 60 million Americans scrambling to make their predictions for the annual tournament to crown a collegiate basketball champion.

Obama, appearing on the ESPN cable network to pick winners round by round, selected undefeated Kentucky to beat Villanova in the April 6 finals of the NCAA Tournament that begins in earnest on Thursday.

Despite being a self-proclaimed basketball junkie, history is not on Obama's side. He has correctly picked only one champion since he began making his tournament selections public in 2009.

"I think Kentucky is going to take it," Obama told a Cleveland audience later in the day. "But, you know, I haven’t won since my first year in office. ... So I wouldn’t necessarily take my bracket and copy it, although I suspect I’m not the only person picking Kentucky."

The commander-in-chief leads legions in slacking off for "March Madness."

"We live in an age of distractions. There are many things that our employers have to fight in the workplace today but there's nothing that compares to the unique event that is March Madness," said Andy Challenger, vice president of business development at global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

U.S. companies will lose an estimated $1.9 billion in wages to employees being unproductive during work hours, he said, between researching, filling out brackets, organizing pools and watching games.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll this week showed 23 percent of Americans will fill out at least one bracket and of those, nearly 40 percent will bet more than $10.

In terms of Las Vegas betting, the NCAA tournament rivals the NFL's Super Bowl, which attracted $116 million in wagers for the New England Patriots' victory over the Seattle Seahawks in February.

"Whoever coined the phrase 'March Madness' got it correct," said Jay Kornegay, vice president of race and sports operations at the Westgate Las Vegas (Nevada) SuperBook.

Kornegay said unlike the Super Bowl, which attracts men and women equally in Las Vegas, NCAA Tournament bettors are "99 percent guys, period."

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush, a potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate, selected the University of Virginia to win. He drew some criticism on social media, with skeptics noting that Virginia is a darkhorse but the school is located in a state Bush likely needs to reach the Oval Office like his brother and father.

(Reuters)(Editing by Mary Milliken and Will Dunham)

New York charges Narco Freedom executives in alleged Medicaid fraud scheme

(GNN) - Leaders of a Bronx nonprofit that provides drug and alcohol treatment to tens of thousands of New Yorkers have been indicted over an alleged scheme to plunder the charity and defraud Medicaid of more than $27 million, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said.

The indictment announced Wednesday expands Schneiderman's criminal case announced last October against Narco Freedom Inc, its founder Alan Brand and his son Jason Brand.

It also adds new criminal charges against the nonprofit's chief executive, Gerald Bethea, Controller Richard Gross, Alan Brand's son Jonathan Brand and employee John Cornachio.

Schneiderman said Narco Freedom cheated Medicaid by submitting claims for excessive services, operating unregulated treatment programs and coercing patients who live in its Freedom Houses to remain in treatment.

The Brands and Cornachio have also been accused of misusing funds to support lavish spending habits, including vehicles such as a Tesla, a Porsche 911 Carrera, a Range Rover and a vintage Corvette.

"Criminal enterprises that use non-profits to steal millions in public funds poison New York's charitable sector," Schneiderman said in a statement.

The defendants face from one to 25 criminal counts each, including enterprise corruption, grand larceny and insurance fraud, Schneiderman said. Narco Freedom faces 18 counts.

Michael Bachner, a lawyer for Alan Brand, said his client "continues to vigorously deny any wrongdoing in connection with these charges, and will be vindicated after trial."

Narco Freedom and a lawyer for the nonprofit did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A lawyer for Bethea could not immediately be identified. Lawyers for the remaining defendants were not immediately available for comment.

Founded in 1971, Narco Freedom provides substance abuse, medical, mental health and social services to more than 36,500 people, including patients and family members, according to its website.

Schneiderman said the charity receives nearly $40 million annually in Medicaid reimbursements.

In October, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan filed civil charges accusing Narco Freedom of cheating Medicaid through kickbacks.

(Reuters)(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Dan Grebler)

U.S. begins destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles at Colorado depot

(GNN) - The destruction of 2,600 tons of World War Two-era mustard agent weapons banned by international treaty began on Wednesday at a U.S. Army depot in southern Colorado, officials said.

The first mortar shells or projectiles containing the blistering chemical were moved into a specially designed chamber within a building at the Pueblo Chemical Depot to be neutralized, said spokesman Thomas Schultz.

"Crews out here are very excited,” Schultz said. "We've been waiting a very long time."

Mustard agent is a carcinogen that if exposed to skin causes inflammation and blistering to tissue and in larger doses can be lethal, according to the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternative program, or ACWA, the federal agency charged with destroying America’s chemical weapons stockpile.

Mustard gas was used extensively in World War One but outlawed by the Geneva Protocol of 1925. The mustard gas now being destroyed has been in storage for decades.

The U.S. military stockpiled tons of chemical weapons beginning in the 1940s through the Cold War era. But under terms of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, all nations that were signatories to the pact agreed to destroy chemical munitions within their own country.

“The Pueblo team is ready to play its part in meeting our nation’s commitment to the 100 percent destruction of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile,” Conrad F. Whyne, ACWA’s executive officer, said in a statement.

The agency said 1,300 “problematic” mortars – shells that were either breached for past testing or those that have leaked minute amounts of vapor – are the first munitions scheduled for destruction at the Pueblo depot.

Crews employ an elaborate Explosive Destruction System, which the Army said has been used at other similar operations across the country to render the weapons safe.

The process entails placing a shell inside a stainless steel vessel, where a small charge is detonated to eliminate the explosive capability of the mortar. Chemicals that neutralize the mustard agent are then added.

The Pueblo facility houses 8 percent of the country’s original chemical weapons stockpile and contains the nation’s largest store of mustard weapons.

Another 523 tons of nerve and blister agents are stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky where a similar destruction program is set to begin next year, Schultz said. He said 90 percent of chemical weapons in the U.S. arsenal already have been destroyed.

Once the mustard agents are destroyed, crews will begin destroying the remaining munitions at the Pueblo facility, with full de-commissioning of the plant set for 2019, officials said.

(Reuters)(Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Bill Trott)

U.S. Presbyterian Church close to accepting same-sex marriage

(GNN) - The U.S. Presbyterian Church was close on Tuesday to approving a change in the wording of its constitution to include same-sex marriage, a move which threatens to further splinter one of the largest U.S. mainline Protestant denominations.

The 171 regional "presbyteries" or local leadership bodies of the church have been voting on whether to change the wording to call marriage a contract "between a woman and a man" to being "between two people, traditionally a man and a woman."

The definition under debate is contained in the Louisville, Kentucky-based church's "Book of Order," part of its constitution. The change requires a simple majority of 86 votes, and only one more vote is needed, according to the Presbyterian Lay Committee, a conservative group which opposes the change. The vote could come by Tuesday night.

The church has more than 1.7 million members.

A gathering of elders and ministers of the church voted last June to allow clergy to perform same-sex weddings. The move gave clergy the choice of whether to preside over same-sex marriages in states where they are legal.

In 2012, the church's General Assembly narrowly voted to reject a proposal to redefine marriage as a union between "two people."

The church, also known as PCUSA, has lost more than 500,000 members over the past decade. Some church leaders have expressed concern that endorsement of same-sex marriage could cause an exodus of parishioners who see it as incompatible with biblical teachings.

"These are indeed difficult days for folks both within the PCUSA and other denominations that have made these same choices in the past," said Carmen Fowler LaBerge, president of the Lay Committee, in a conference call on Tuesday.

Clergy will not be compelled to perform same-sex marriage if the wording is changed.

David Gushee, a professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University in Atlanta, said that as with other denominations like the United Church of Christ that have changed policy on gay and lesbian issues, some congregants will be lost, but others will be gained.

"All across Christianity, we see the dominoes falling of abandoning the historic stigma and rejection of gay people and gay relationships," Gushee said.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed this year to take up the issue of whether states can ban gay marriage, which is now allowed by 36 states and the District of Columbia.

(Reuters)(Editing by Eric Walsh)