World/Nation Briefs 6.27.2012
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By -
WASHINGTON (AP) — Saving its biggest case for last, the Supreme Court is expected to announce its verdict Thursday on President Barack Obama’s health care law. The outcome is likely to be a factor in the presidential campaign and help define John Roberts’ legacy as chief justice. But the court’s ruling almost certainly will not be the last word on America’s tangled efforts to address health care woes. The problems of high medical costs, widespread waste and tens of millions of people without insurance will require Congress and the president to keep looking for answers, whether or not the Affordable Care Act passes the test of constitutionality.
A look at potential outcomes:
———
Q: What if the Supreme Court upholds the law and finds Congress was within its authority to require most people to have health insurance or pay a penalty?
A: That would settle the legal argument, but not the political battle.
———
Syria: Gunmen attack pro-government TV station, killing 7 employees
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Gunmen raided the headquarters of a pro-government Syrian TV station early Wednesday, killing seven employees, kidnapping others and demolishing buildings, officials said. They denounced what they called a ‘‘massacre against the freedom of the press’’ and held it up as an example of rebel atrocities.
Al-Ikhbariya is privately-owned but strongly supports President Bashar Assad’s regime. Pro-government journalists have been attacked on several previous occasions during the country’s 15-month uprising, although such incidents are comparatively rare.
Rebels deny they target the media. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group confirmed the raid and the deaths of several employees, but had no other information.
Information Minister Omran al-Zoebi told reporters that gunmen stormed the station compound in the town of Drousha, about 20 kilometers (14 miles) south of the capital Damascus, placed explosives and then detonated them. He said the attackers killed seven people and kidnapped others.
‘‘What happened today is a massacre, a massacre against the freedom of the press,’’ al-Zoebi said in comments broadcast on state-run Syrian TV. ‘‘They carried out a terrifying massacre by executing the employees.’’
———
Matt Sandusky’s birth mother tells AP: Court system ignored my concerns about Jerry
Nearly two decades before Matt Sandusky’s blockbuster allegation that he was sexually abused by his adoptive father, his biological mother raised questions about their relationship.
Debra Long fought the court system over her son’s placement in the home of the famed Penn State assistant football coach, who was convicted Friday of sexually abusing 10 boys.
Her objections, which she discussed in a December interview with The Associated Press, add a new dimension to the grim trial testimony that illustrated how Sandusky wooed the victims he culled from his charity for at-risk youth.
Prosecutors said Sandusky used gifts, trips and access to Penn State’s vaunted football program to attract and abuse vulnerable boys he met through the charity, The Second Mile.
‘‘If they’d have listened, these boys didn’t have to be abused,’’ Long said. ‘‘They would have found the problem back then, and a whole lot of kids wouldn’t be victims now.’’
———
London Olympics stir massive security operation, experts from US, UK unite in terror hotspot
LONDON (AP) — Fighter jets thunder above the English countryside. Missiles stand ready. And Big Brother is watching like never before.
The London Olympics are no ordinary games. Not since World War II have Britain and the United States teamed up for such a massive security operation on British soil.
Hundreds of American intelligence, security and law enforcement officials are flying across the Atlantic for the games that begin July 27. Some will even be embedded with their British counterparts, sharing critical intelligence and troubleshooting potential risks. Dozens of Interpol officers will also be deployed.
The unique collaboration is rooted in common threats the partners have faced since the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the U.S. and Britain’s own deadly suicide bombings in 2005.
Britain was America’s closest ally in Afghanistan and Iraq, making it a prime target of Islamic terror groups. And dozens of recent terror plots, including the 2006 plot to blow up nearly a dozen trans-Atlantic airliners, have been hatched within Britain’s sizeable Muslim population, more than 1 million of whom have ties to Pakistan.
———
Nora Ephron, successful in movies and journalism, dies at 71; was known for devastating wit
NEW YORK (AP) — Nora Ephron, the essayist, author and filmmaker who thrived in the male-dominated worlds of movies and journalism, has died. She was 71.
She died of leukemia Tuesday night at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, her family said in a statement.
‘‘She was so, so alive,’’ said her friend Carrie Fisher. ‘‘It makes no sense to me that she isn’t alive anymore.’’
Born into a family of screenwriters, Ephron was a top journalist in her 20s and 30s, then a best-selling author and successful director. Loved, respected and feared for her devastating and diverting wit, she was among the most quotable and influential writers of her generation.
She wrote and directed such favorites as ‘‘Julie & Julia’’ and ‘‘Sleepless in Seattle,’’ and her books included the novel ‘‘Heartburn,’’ a roman a clef about her marriage to Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein; and the popular essay collections ‘‘I Feel Bad About My Neck’’ and ‘‘I Remember Nothing.’’
———
Oklahoma congressman loses to tea party newcomer but Hatch wins primary in Utah
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Republican divisions resurfaced in congressional primaries, with five-term Rep. John Sullivan falling to a tea party backed opponent in Oklahoma while Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch easily defeated another candidate backed by the insurgent group. It was Hatch’s first primary challenge since his election to the Senate in 1976.
Jim Bridenstine, a Navy pilot and the former director of a Tulsa space museum, defeated Sullivan on Tuesday, making him the fourth incumbent congressman to lose in primaries this year. Bridenstine labeled Sullivan a career politician and criticized his votes to rescue financial firms during the height of the 2008 economic downtown and to increase the debt ceiling last year.
Sullivan seemed to be caught off guard by the closeness of the race. He had won his five previous elections with an increasingly larger percentage of the vote.
Hatch, 78, had been bracing for a tough re-election battle, but he breezed to victory. Former state Sen. Dan Liljenquist, who survived a 2008 plane crash in Guatemala that killed 11 of 14 on board, won just enough support at the state GOP’s nominating convention to advance to the primary.
But Liljenquist faced an overwhelming financial and organizational disadvantage in the primary. Hatch, learning from the defeat two years ago of his Senate colleague Robert Bennett, spent about $10 million blanketing the airwaves and building a campaign operation unlike anything Utah had seen before.
———
Hand of peace: Queen, former IRA commander plan symbolic first meeting, but media kept out
BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II and a former Irish Republican Army commander are about to meet for the first time in a symbolic milestone for Northern Ireland’s peace process, but journalists wanting to record the moment are being kept at bay.
The Wednesday’s event will feature a handshake between the monarch and Martin McGuinness, whose Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein long has refused all contact with British royals. McGuinness is the senior Irish Catholic in Northern Ireland’s 5-year-old unity government.
British officials say only two photographers are being admitted to record the occasion.
The queen is coming to Belfast as part of United Kingdom-wide celebrations of her 60th year on the throne. She is scheduled to see the city’s Titanic exhibition and attend an open-air party involving 20,000 locals at Stormont, the hilltop base for the power-sharing government.
IRA die-hards opposed to the group’s 2005 decision to renounce violence and disarm sought to express their disapproval of the queen’s visit before she arrived.
———
Towering Colorado wildfire devours homes, forces partial closure of Air Force Academy
WOODLAND PARK, Colo. (AP) — A stubborn and towering wildfire jumped firefighters’ perimeter lines in the hills overlooking Colorado Springs, forcing frantic mandatory evacuation notices for more than 9,000 residents, destroying an unknown number of homes and partially closing the grounds of the sprawling U.S. Air Force Academy.
Heavy smoke and ash billowed from the mountain foothills west of the city. Bright yellow and orange flames flared in the night, often signaling another home lost to the Waldo Canyon Fire, the No. 1 priority for the nation’s firefighters.
Interstate 25, which runs through Colorado Springs, was briefly closed to southbound traffic Tuesday. All told, officials said, evacuation orders affected as many as 32,000 residents.
‘‘It was like looking at the worst movie set you could imagine,’’ Gov. John Hickenlooper said after flying over the 9-square-mile fire late Tuesday. ‘‘It’s almost surreal. You look at that, and it’s like nothing I’ve seen before.’’
With flames cresting a ridge high above its breathtaking, 28-square-mile campus, the Air Force Academy told more than 2,100 residents to evacuate 600 households. There was no immediate word on whether a new class of 1,045 cadets would report as scheduled on Thursday.
———
European leaders are weighing urgent moves to resolve debt crisis as summit nears
BRUSSELS (AP) — When they meet Thursday and Friday in Brussels, leaders of the 27 countries in the European Union will face a daunting task: Find a solution to a debt crisis that’s spread misery across Europe, raised doubts about the euro currency, rattled investors and threatened global growth.
Investors have driven up interest rates on Spanish and Italian debt to unsustainable levels, raising the risk those big countries will need a bailout the rest of Europe can’t afford. Unemployment in the 17 countries that use the euro is 11 percent, the highest since the euro was adopted in 1999.
A $125 billion plan to bail out Spanish banks has failed to calm financial markets. Even an election that brought a pro-euro-alliance Greek government to power failed to reassure investors that Greece would continue to pay its bills, keep using the euro and avoid a financial crackup that could set off a worldwide panic.
The EU leaders will consider plans to:
—Tackle Europe’s government debt problems.
———
Questions and answers on the new 4-team college football playoff
A committee of university presidents approved a plan for a four-team college football playoff, starting in 2014.
Here’s what you need to know about the new postseason format put together by the commissioners of the 11 major college football conferences and Notre Dame’s athletic director.
HOW WILL THE TEAMS BE CHOSEN? A selection committee will pick the four teams, using guidelines such as strength of schedule, head-to-head results and won-loss record, after the regular season. The committee will give preference to conference champions. The makeup of the committee is to be determined, but it will likely be about 20 conference commissioners and college athletic directors.
WHERE WILL THE GAMES BE PLAYED? The two semifinals will rotate among six sites. The current BCS games are the Rose Bowl (Pasadena, Calif.), Sugar Bowl (New Orleans), Fiesta Bowl (Glendale, Ariz.) and Orange Bowl (Miami). The Cotton Bowl, now played at the state-of-the-art Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, has to be considered a front-runner to land one of the other two spots. Candidates for the other one? Try Atlanta and Jacksonville, Fla.
The championship game will become college football’s Super Bowl. Any city can bid on it, even ones that host the semifinals and those that have not been traditional bowl sites. Expect most to be played in dome stadiums or warm weather sites.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Saving its biggest case for last, the Supreme Court is expected to announce its verdict Thursday on President Barack Obama’s health care law. The outcome is likely to be a factor in the presidential campaign and help define John Roberts’ legacy as chief justice. But the court’s ruling almost certainly will not be the last word on America’s tangled efforts to address health care woes. The problems of high medical costs, widespread waste and tens of millions of people without insurance will require Congress and the president to keep looking for answers, whether or not the Affordable Care Act passes the test of constitutionality.
A look at potential outcomes:
———
Q: What if the Supreme Court upholds the law and finds Congress was within its authority to require most people to have health insurance or pay a penalty?
A: That would settle the legal argument, but not the political battle.
———
Syria: Gunmen attack pro-government TV station, killing 7 employees
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Gunmen raided the headquarters of a pro-government Syrian TV station early Wednesday, killing seven employees, kidnapping others and demolishing buildings, officials said. They denounced what they called a ‘‘massacre against the freedom of the press’’ and held it up as an example of rebel atrocities.
Al-Ikhbariya is privately-owned but strongly supports President Bashar Assad’s regime. Pro-government journalists have been attacked on several previous occasions during the country’s 15-month uprising, although such incidents are comparatively rare.
Rebels deny they target the media. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights activist group confirmed the raid and the deaths of several employees, but had no other information.
Information Minister Omran al-Zoebi told reporters that gunmen stormed the station compound in the town of Drousha, about 20 kilometers (14 miles) south of the capital Damascus, placed explosives and then detonated them. He said the attackers killed seven people and kidnapped others.
‘‘What happened today is a massacre, a massacre against the freedom of the press,’’ al-Zoebi said in comments broadcast on state-run Syrian TV. ‘‘They carried out a terrifying massacre by executing the employees.’’
———
Matt Sandusky’s birth mother tells AP: Court system ignored my concerns about Jerry
Nearly two decades before Matt Sandusky’s blockbuster allegation that he was sexually abused by his adoptive father, his biological mother raised questions about their relationship.
Debra Long fought the court system over her son’s placement in the home of the famed Penn State assistant football coach, who was convicted Friday of sexually abusing 10 boys.
Her objections, which she discussed in a December interview with The Associated Press, add a new dimension to the grim trial testimony that illustrated how Sandusky wooed the victims he culled from his charity for at-risk youth.
Prosecutors said Sandusky used gifts, trips and access to Penn State’s vaunted football program to attract and abuse vulnerable boys he met through the charity, The Second Mile.
‘‘If they’d have listened, these boys didn’t have to be abused,’’ Long said. ‘‘They would have found the problem back then, and a whole lot of kids wouldn’t be victims now.’’
———
London Olympics stir massive security operation, experts from US, UK unite in terror hotspot
LONDON (AP) — Fighter jets thunder above the English countryside. Missiles stand ready. And Big Brother is watching like never before.
The London Olympics are no ordinary games. Not since World War II have Britain and the United States teamed up for such a massive security operation on British soil.
Hundreds of American intelligence, security and law enforcement officials are flying across the Atlantic for the games that begin July 27. Some will even be embedded with their British counterparts, sharing critical intelligence and troubleshooting potential risks. Dozens of Interpol officers will also be deployed.
The unique collaboration is rooted in common threats the partners have faced since the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the U.S. and Britain’s own deadly suicide bombings in 2005.
Britain was America’s closest ally in Afghanistan and Iraq, making it a prime target of Islamic terror groups. And dozens of recent terror plots, including the 2006 plot to blow up nearly a dozen trans-Atlantic airliners, have been hatched within Britain’s sizeable Muslim population, more than 1 million of whom have ties to Pakistan.
———
Nora Ephron, successful in movies and journalism, dies at 71; was known for devastating wit
NEW YORK (AP) — Nora Ephron, the essayist, author and filmmaker who thrived in the male-dominated worlds of movies and journalism, has died. She was 71.
She died of leukemia Tuesday night at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, her family said in a statement.
‘‘She was so, so alive,’’ said her friend Carrie Fisher. ‘‘It makes no sense to me that she isn’t alive anymore.’’
Born into a family of screenwriters, Ephron was a top journalist in her 20s and 30s, then a best-selling author and successful director. Loved, respected and feared for her devastating and diverting wit, she was among the most quotable and influential writers of her generation.
She wrote and directed such favorites as ‘‘Julie & Julia’’ and ‘‘Sleepless in Seattle,’’ and her books included the novel ‘‘Heartburn,’’ a roman a clef about her marriage to Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein; and the popular essay collections ‘‘I Feel Bad About My Neck’’ and ‘‘I Remember Nothing.’’
———
Oklahoma congressman loses to tea party newcomer but Hatch wins primary in Utah
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Republican divisions resurfaced in congressional primaries, with five-term Rep. John Sullivan falling to a tea party backed opponent in Oklahoma while Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch easily defeated another candidate backed by the insurgent group. It was Hatch’s first primary challenge since his election to the Senate in 1976.
Jim Bridenstine, a Navy pilot and the former director of a Tulsa space museum, defeated Sullivan on Tuesday, making him the fourth incumbent congressman to lose in primaries this year. Bridenstine labeled Sullivan a career politician and criticized his votes to rescue financial firms during the height of the 2008 economic downtown and to increase the debt ceiling last year.
Sullivan seemed to be caught off guard by the closeness of the race. He had won his five previous elections with an increasingly larger percentage of the vote.
Hatch, 78, had been bracing for a tough re-election battle, but he breezed to victory. Former state Sen. Dan Liljenquist, who survived a 2008 plane crash in Guatemala that killed 11 of 14 on board, won just enough support at the state GOP’s nominating convention to advance to the primary.
But Liljenquist faced an overwhelming financial and organizational disadvantage in the primary. Hatch, learning from the defeat two years ago of his Senate colleague Robert Bennett, spent about $10 million blanketing the airwaves and building a campaign operation unlike anything Utah had seen before.
———
Hand of peace: Queen, former IRA commander plan symbolic first meeting, but media kept out
BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — Queen Elizabeth II and a former Irish Republican Army commander are about to meet for the first time in a symbolic milestone for Northern Ireland’s peace process, but journalists wanting to record the moment are being kept at bay.
The Wednesday’s event will feature a handshake between the monarch and Martin McGuinness, whose Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein long has refused all contact with British royals. McGuinness is the senior Irish Catholic in Northern Ireland’s 5-year-old unity government.
British officials say only two photographers are being admitted to record the occasion.
The queen is coming to Belfast as part of United Kingdom-wide celebrations of her 60th year on the throne. She is scheduled to see the city’s Titanic exhibition and attend an open-air party involving 20,000 locals at Stormont, the hilltop base for the power-sharing government.
IRA die-hards opposed to the group’s 2005 decision to renounce violence and disarm sought to express their disapproval of the queen’s visit before she arrived.
———
Towering Colorado wildfire devours homes, forces partial closure of Air Force Academy
WOODLAND PARK, Colo. (AP) — A stubborn and towering wildfire jumped firefighters’ perimeter lines in the hills overlooking Colorado Springs, forcing frantic mandatory evacuation notices for more than 9,000 residents, destroying an unknown number of homes and partially closing the grounds of the sprawling U.S. Air Force Academy.
Heavy smoke and ash billowed from the mountain foothills west of the city. Bright yellow and orange flames flared in the night, often signaling another home lost to the Waldo Canyon Fire, the No. 1 priority for the nation’s firefighters.
Interstate 25, which runs through Colorado Springs, was briefly closed to southbound traffic Tuesday. All told, officials said, evacuation orders affected as many as 32,000 residents.
‘‘It was like looking at the worst movie set you could imagine,’’ Gov. John Hickenlooper said after flying over the 9-square-mile fire late Tuesday. ‘‘It’s almost surreal. You look at that, and it’s like nothing I’ve seen before.’’
With flames cresting a ridge high above its breathtaking, 28-square-mile campus, the Air Force Academy told more than 2,100 residents to evacuate 600 households. There was no immediate word on whether a new class of 1,045 cadets would report as scheduled on Thursday.
———
European leaders are weighing urgent moves to resolve debt crisis as summit nears
BRUSSELS (AP) — When they meet Thursday and Friday in Brussels, leaders of the 27 countries in the European Union will face a daunting task: Find a solution to a debt crisis that’s spread misery across Europe, raised doubts about the euro currency, rattled investors and threatened global growth.
Investors have driven up interest rates on Spanish and Italian debt to unsustainable levels, raising the risk those big countries will need a bailout the rest of Europe can’t afford. Unemployment in the 17 countries that use the euro is 11 percent, the highest since the euro was adopted in 1999.
A $125 billion plan to bail out Spanish banks has failed to calm financial markets. Even an election that brought a pro-euro-alliance Greek government to power failed to reassure investors that Greece would continue to pay its bills, keep using the euro and avoid a financial crackup that could set off a worldwide panic.
The EU leaders will consider plans to:
—Tackle Europe’s government debt problems.
———
Questions and answers on the new 4-team college football playoff
A committee of university presidents approved a plan for a four-team college football playoff, starting in 2014.
Here’s what you need to know about the new postseason format put together by the commissioners of the 11 major college football conferences and Notre Dame’s athletic director.
HOW WILL THE TEAMS BE CHOSEN? A selection committee will pick the four teams, using guidelines such as strength of schedule, head-to-head results and won-loss record, after the regular season. The committee will give preference to conference champions. The makeup of the committee is to be determined, but it will likely be about 20 conference commissioners and college athletic directors.
WHERE WILL THE GAMES BE PLAYED? The two semifinals will rotate among six sites. The current BCS games are the Rose Bowl (Pasadena, Calif.), Sugar Bowl (New Orleans), Fiesta Bowl (Glendale, Ariz.) and Orange Bowl (Miami). The Cotton Bowl, now played at the state-of-the-art Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, has to be considered a front-runner to land one of the other two spots. Candidates for the other one? Try Atlanta and Jacksonville, Fla.
The championship game will become college football’s Super Bowl. Any city can bid on it, even ones that host the semifinals and those that have not been traditional bowl sites. Expect most to be played in dome stadiums or warm weather sites.
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