CHRISTIAN NEWS FROM RAY
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News selected and edited by Ray Mossholder
CHRISTIAN NEWS FROM RAY, MORNING EDITION
April 1, 2014
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An 8.2-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Chile sparked tsunami warnings throughout the Pacific, including in Peru and Ecuador and as far as Hawaii. Waves crashed into a coastal town in Chile, and at least two were reported dead.
At least five people died and three were injured after a massive earthquake struck off of Chile late Tuesday, officials said, sending waves crashing into coastal towns in the country, prompting evacuations across Latin America’s Pacific coast and warnings as far away as Hawaii.
Officials rescinded their initial blanket warnings late on Tuesday after fears of a potential tsunami had sparked alerts throughout countries across the Pacific coastline and put officials thousands of miles away in Hawaii on standby. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) had initially extended tsunami warnings to five countries following the quake, but as of late Tuesday night, only Chile and Peru remained on the list.
Warnings of a tsunami began circulating after the 8.2 magnitude earthquake struck 61 miles off the port city of Iquique in Chile’s northern mining region. The United States Geological Survey recorded the earthquake at 8:46 p.m. local time some 12 miles below the seabed. Waves as high as 7 ft. reportedly hit Iquique in the quake’s wake.
Chile’s Interior Minister Rodrigo Peñailillo said 300 inmates had escaped from the women’s prison in Iquique after the facility was damaged. Peñailillo told a Chilean national broadcaster that security officials had been deployed to the city.
As areas in coastal Chile were evacuated and residents relocated to higher ground, there were early reports that landslides were blocking roads and making it harder for residents to evacuate. However, there were no reports of major damage or serious injuries caused by the quake.
The Iquique area of Chile experienced numerous tremors last month following a relatively powerful 6.7-magnitude quake that hit on March 16, heightening fears that a larger earthquake might strike, Reuters reports.
Chile was devastated by an 8.8-magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami in 2010.
This huge and violent earthquake and tsunami are shaking not only these Latin American countries but also he nerves of many Los Angeles residents. That’s because in recent days they have experienced similar earthquakes to that which preceded this one. Though there may be no connection at all between Chili’s earthquake and the City of Angels, even the thought sends chills.
IT ONLY TAKES A SPARK TO START A WORLD WAR
Wars begin like dry brushfires. Someone strikes a match and a whole field is on fire. Wars usually take a little longer at the start, but not so long as you might hope. If Russia forces its way further into Ukraine, the whole world could go up in flames before it’s over. Of course, someone else could easily start the War. At this present minute there are 33 wars being fought throughout the world.
PUTIN TAKES BACK HIS BLINK
Vladimir Putin said on Monday that he would withdraw an unspecified number of troops from its border with Ukraine. But the Kremlin continued to play hardball on Tuesday with Western powers seeking to defuse the crisis, and upped the ante in the confrontation considerably when the state energy company Gazprom announced it was hiking the price it charges Ukraine for natural gas.
The signs of a slight pullback came in the form of a phone call from Russian President Vladimir Putin to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, German officials said, and in reports from Ukrainian security officials. But officials in Ukraine warned that the move may be more akin to the regular rotation of troops rather than a larger withdrawal.
“The number has definitely dropped, and [the situation] has calmed down,” Ukrainian Major General Oleksandr Rozmaznin told reporters on Monday, according to Reuters. “We won’t rejoice and shout ‘Hurray.’ It doesn’t matter how many of them there are, we just need to make sure our defenses are strong.”
Russia had massed by some counts 100,000 troops along the border, with tens of thousands of soldiers reportedly on alert. Moscow has maintained that the troops are merely conducting training exercises. But analysts and American officials worry they could be used to take control of more territory in western Ukraine that is home to a large ethnic-Russian population, following the annexation of the Crimea region from Ukraine last month. While U.S. officials on Monday said they were unable to confirm reports of troop withdrawals, the State Department continued to speak out against what it called Russian provocation near Ukraine and urged the Kremlin to ease tensions in the region by engaging with the new pro-Western government in Kiev.
“Obviously, if these reports were true that some were being pulled back from the border region, it would be a welcome preliminary step,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters on Monday. “Obviously, we would call on Russia to accelerate this process and to pull back more troops.”
“But let’s also be clear that this isn’t anywhere close to the sum total of what needs to be done here and what we need to see. We would continue to urge Russia to engage in a dialogue with the government in Kiev to de-escalate the situation while respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. So if this is true, good first step, need to see more of it.”
Despite word of the withdrawal, Russia continued to engage in a confrontational war of words with the West and Ukraine. To Kiev’s chagrin, Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev attended a Cabinet meeting in Crimea, the latest sign of Moscow’s consolidation of power in the peninsula it annexed from Ukraine. In a move that could carry considerably more risk of escalation, state energy giant Gazprom said it was increasing the price of natural gas for Ukraine from $268.50 per 1,000 cubic meters to $385.50, CNN reports.
According to a report in the Russian state media, Moscow refused to participate in an informal meeting at the U.N. Security Council that representatives from Crimea’s Tatar (Muslim) minority were scheduled to attend.
“We categorically refuse to associate with the Security Council the propaganda show sponsored by Lithuania and involving odious personalities,” the country’s U.N. mission said in a statement. “A get-together of this kind cannot provide whatever unbiased information on the situation in Crimea, a constituent territory of the Russian Federation.”
Russian officials also announced through the state press that the country’s legislature was considering introducing a new law that would provide a fast track for ethnic Russians to receive the Russian citizenship.
— With reporting by Michael Crowley / Washington
KERRY AND LAVROV GET NOWHERE OVER UKRAINE
Four hours of talks between Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart failed to break a tense East-West deadlock over how to proceed on the Ukraine crisis, though the two men agreed the situation requires a diplomatic solution.
Sitting face-to-face but not seeing eye-to-eye on any of the most critical issues, Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov advanced far different proposals on how to calm tensions and de-escalate the situation.
As he called for Moscow to begin an immediate pullback of the troops, Kerry also ruled out discussion of Russia’s demand for Ukraine to become a loose federation until-and-unless Ukrainians are at the table.
Kerry noted that even if the troops remain on Russian soil and do not enter Ukraine, they create a negative atmosphere. “The question is not one of right or legality,” he said. “The question is one of strategic appropriateness and whether it’s smart at this moment of time to have troops massed on the border.”
U.S. officials said Kerry proposed a number of ideas on troop withdrawals from the border and that Lavrov, while making no promises, told him he would present the proposals to the Kremlin.
At a separate news conference at the Russian ambassador’s house, Lavrov did not address the troop issue. Instead, he made the case for Moscow’s idea of Ukraine as a federalized nation with its various regions enjoying major autonomy from the government in Kiev. Russia says it is particularly concerned about the treatment of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers who live in southern and eastern Ukraine.
Lavrov said that Ukraine can’t function as a “unified state” and should be a loose federation of regions that are each allowed to choose their own economic, financial, social, linguistic and religious models. He said every time Ukraine has elected a new president, the country has adopted a new constitution, proving that “the model of a unified state doesn’t work.”
Ukrainian officials are wary of decentralizing power, fearing that pro-Russia regions would hamper its Western aspirations and potentially split the country apart. However, they are exploring political reforms that could grant more authority to local governments.
The U.S. has been coy about their position on a federation. Washington has encouraged ongoing political and constitutional reform efforts that the government in Kiev is now working on, but U.S. officials insist that any changes to Ukraine’s governing structure must be acceptable to the Ukrainians. Kerry said the federation idea had not been discussed in any serious way during his meeting with Lavrov “because it would have been inappropriate to do so without Ukrainian input. It is not up to us to make any decision or agreement regarding federalization,” he said. “It is up to Ukrainians. We will not accept a path forward where the legitimate government of Ukraine is not at the table,” Kerry said, adding that the bottom line is: “No decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine.”
John Kerry with acting Ukraine President Oleksandr Turchynov
Lavrov denied that Moscow wants to “split Ukraine.” “Federation does not mean, as some in Kiev fear, an attempt to split Ukraine,” he said. “To the contrary, federation … answers the interests of all regions of Ukraine.”
Lavrov said he and Kerry did agree to work with the Ukrainian government to improve rights for Russian-speaking Ukrainians and disarm “irregular forces and provocateurs.”
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that U.S. officials have been divided over whether Putin’s call was indicative of a genuine desire to ease tensions between East and West or a pretext for further military action in Eastern Europe. White House officials described the call as “frank and direct” and said Obama had urged Putin to offer a written response to a diplomatic resolution to the Ukraine crisis that the U.S. has presented. Obama also urged Moscow to scale back its troop build-up on the border with Ukraine.
The Kremlin, on the other hand, said Putin had drawn Obama’s attention to a “rampage of extremists” in Ukraine and suggested “possible steps by the international community to help stabilize the situation” in Ukraine.
Kerry has repeatedly met with Lavrov over the past month in attempts to halt Russia’s annexation of Crimea. However, those talks have proven fruitless, and U.S. officials tell the Journal that Putin is likely to demand that the U.S. accept Russia’s annexation of the Black Sea peninsula earlier this month as the minimum necessary for any cooperation between the two nations.
In previous meetings, Mr. Kerry has outlined to Mr. Lavrov a common approach to resolving the Ukraine crisis, U.S. officials told the Journal. This included joint initiatives to stabilize Kiev’s economy, promote the decentralization of the country’s political system and demobilize pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian paramilitaries that have blossomed across the country in recent months. However, those proposed initiatives have been contingent on the unlikely event of Russia pulling back from Crimea.
Fox News’ Greg Palkot and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
NORTH AND SOUTH KOREA FIRE “TOWARDS” EACH OTHER
(CNN) – The situation remains tense as North and South Korean artillery batteries exchanged hundreds of shells across their western sea border Monday, a day after North Korea warned it was preparing to test another nuclear device.
About 100 of the 500 shells North Korea fired into the Yellow Sea strayed across the line separating the two rivals’ territorial waters, the semiofficial South Korean news agency Yonhap reported. Yonhap quoted the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff as saying the South responded by firing about 300 shells into North Korean waters and dispatching fighter jets to the boundary, known as the Northern Limit Line.
North Korean offshore firing appeared to have resumed after a lull, Yonhap reported, citing a resident of Baekryong Island, which is close to the Northern Limit Line. “Some (North Korean) artillery fire landed in (the) southern part of Northern Limit Line but in the water,” a South Korean Ministry of Defense spokesman said. “We counter-fired over the Northern Limit Line.”
When asked what South Korea fired back at, the defense spokesman said, “We are not shooting at North Korea, just shooting into the sea.
China, the North’s main patron, also expressed concern. “The temperature is rising at present on the Korean Peninsula, and this worries us,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters in Beijing. “We hope that all sides can remain calm and exercise restraint.”
The normally reclusive North took the unusual step of informing its neighbor of live-fire drills close in the heavily militarized western sea. Pyongyang sent a fax early Monday demanding that the South “control” its vessels in seven areas of the waterway near the Northern Limit Line.
According to Wee Yong-Sub, a vice spokesman for the South Korean Defense Ministry, the scheduled tests mark the first time — in recent history, at least — that the North has announced live-firing exercises above the maritime border. “We consider such announcement as a hostile threat and so have activated crisis management operation in case of (military) provocation,” he said. “We stress that we are fully prepared for all situations.”
Victor Cha, a leading Korea analyst, told CNN that the North may be “posturing” for attention in hopes of bringing Washington back to talks over its nuclear program — or moving while the United States is distracted by other global events.
“They could be learning from Crimea that while the United States is distracted, the North Koreans can try to change the playing field and maybe slant it in their direction by pushing it back to talks.
The two Koreans never signed a peace agreement after the 1950-53 war that also pitted the United States and China against each other. Cha called it a “clearly a good thing” that Pyongyang notified the South of its military exercise. But if Northern gunners ended up killing someone across the border, “then we’re in a pretty bad situation. They are on a hair trigger, and because of the array of forces on the peninsula, you can get an action-reaction dynamic that escalates fairly quickly,” he said. “That’s something we want to avoid, of course.”
North Korea said Sunday that it “would not rule out” a new nuclear test as it defended its recent mid-range missile launch that triggered international condemnation. “(We) would not rule out a new form of a nuclear test aimed at strengthening our nuclear deterrence,” Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry said in a
statement carried by the state–run KCNA news agency. “The U.S. had better get over that and stop acting foolishly.”
Last week, Pyongyang launched two medium–range ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast, violating United Nations resolutions that prohibit Pyongyang from conducting such tests.
The statement did not specify what North Korea meant by a “new form” of test, and Wee said there are no immediate signs of nuclear tests being carried out by the North.
Last week, Pyongyang launched to medium–range ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast, violating United Nations resolutions that prohibit Pyongyang from conducting such tests. The Security Council condemned the move and is considering an “appropriate response,” said Luxembourg Ambassador Sylvie Lucas, the council’s current president.
The statement did not specify what North Korea meant by a “new form” of test, and Wee said there are no immediate signs of nuclear tests being carried out by the North.
Last week, Pyongyang launched to medium–range ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast, violating United Nations resolutions that prohibit Pyongyang from conducting such tests. The Security Council condemned the move and is considering an “appropriate response,” said Luxembourg Ambassador Sylvie Lucas, the council’s current president.
In a statement at a meeting yesterday with his top military leaders, North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un blamed the rise in tensions on the U.S. and South Korea. He
warned Tuesday that the current situation with South Korea has become “very grave,” Agence France Presse reports. According to the North Korean leader, the joint military drills between South Korea and the U.S. are to blame for the rise in tensions.
“The United States and other hostile forces, ignoring our magnanimity and goodwill, are viciously stepping up their maneuvers in order to annihilate our republic politically, isolate it economically and crush it militarily,” Kim Jong-un said at the meeting, according to the official North Korean news agency KCNA.
GOOD NEWS AND TERRIBLY TERRIBLY BAD NEWS
(CNN) — No U.S. military forces died last month in Afghanistan, marking the first such month in more than seven years and the third time since the war began more than 12 years ago, according to the CNN Library, which tallies the casualties. Here are some other numbers:
• The previous months in which no U.S. deaths occurred during Operation Enduring Freedom were January 2007 and July 2002, CNN Librarian Lindsey Knight said.
• Separately, NATO said one of its service members died Tuesday of a non-battle-related injury in southern Afghanistan.
• Fourteen U.S. combat deaths have occurred this year in Afghanistan, seven each in January and February.
• In all, 2,309 U.S. military members have died in Afghanistan since hostilities began there on October 7, 2001. Three additional Department of Defense civilians have died.
According to NATO’s website, its primary goal is to help Afghan authorities provide effective security across the country and ensure that terrorists cannot again use the country as a haven. Its mission is slated to end at the end of the year.
Millions of Americans – both Democrat and Republican – are asking “Why were we there at all?” “Why have we stayed so long?” “When we wore out our welcome, why didn’t we leave?” “Didn’t President Obama promise in his 2008 campaign that he would take us out of Afghanistan almost immediately if he was elected?’
The answers they receive aren’t in any way satisfying when balanced against 2,309 dead young Americans soldiers and five times that many maimed for life who would have had healthy whole lives if they hadn’t been there. And the billions of dollars America has spent so that we could.
OSO “WHERE DID IT GO?”
Oso, Washington (CNN)– Among the mounds of mud and ripped-down trees, you see an occasional appliance, a tire here and there, the twisted cables that used to be part of the telephone system. What you don’t see are homes. They are gone. And it is difficult to even figure out where they once stood and what became of them.
72 year old Amos Todd of Oso told a reporter, “The day before the landslide I was sitting at lunch with three of my buddy’s and we were swapping jokes and talking about our plans for the summer. They haven’t found even one of them. I’m sitting here and my buddies were buried alive.”
The sheer force of a landslide on March 22 pulverized this neighborhood in rural Washington, leaving behind a graveyard in the debris where 28 bodies have been recovered and where crews painstakingly search for people who are listed as missing.
On that awful Saturday, a rain-saturated hillside along the north fork of the Stillaguamish River gave way, sending a square-mile rush of wet earth and rock into the outskirts of the town of Oso in Washington’s North Cascade Mountains.
Since then, rescuers have trudged through the muck — 70 feet thick in some places — looking for bodies. Though some cling to hope someone might be found alive even 10 days later. Twenty people remain missing, down from 22 on Monday, authorities said.
About 600 people, including more than 100 volunteers, and cadaver dogs are involved in the search, officials have said. The debris field is full of toxic sludge — a combination of human waste, toxic chemicals from households, propane tanks, oil and gas that make the search extremely dangerous, according to Lt. Richard Burke of the Bellevue Fire Department, who is the spokesman for efforts on the western side of the mile-wide slide.
Some of the workers have come down with dysentery. The far bigger fear is tetanus.
Some of the areas in the search zone are too unstable for crews to work there. It would be like working in quicksand, Burke said.
It smells of sewage, but more than a week after the slide it’s not a strong odor, and the dogs, who can detect humans 10 feet under the surface, are undeterred.
Two of the nine dogs involved in Monday’s search are now suffering the effects of hypothermia.
Some of the volunteers are aiding in the recovery of family mementos from the debris. The sounds of chainsaws fill the air, as do the rumbling motors of the excavating equipment, which grabs large objects like trees and moves them to the side. Then other people move in for a hand search or a visual inspection of a plot. Orange ribbons mark the grid, indicating areas that have been checked, while some indicate a find of interest.
Boards are placed over the thick slop, making a wooden path for workers to walk.
One of the biggest challenges has been standing water, but warmer temperatures and a lack of rain have helped workers, who are running pumps all day long to drain areas of the debris field.
Areas that were submerged 24 hours prior were able to be searched on Tuesday.
Two U.S. flags fly among the men and women working in the field. One, recovered from the debris, hangs in remembrance of lives lost. The other is at half-staff on the lone tree left standing in this part of the slide zone.
Losses in the mudslide-hit area have reached $10 million, the Associated Press reports. The governor of Washington state has contacted President, requesting federal relief.
All week, a steady stream of people has stopped in to pray at the Glad Tidings Assembly of God on the edge of town, said Lee Hagen, the senior pastor. “At a time like this, everybody knows they’ve got to have God’s help,” he said.
CNN’s Jason Hanna and Steve Almasy contributed to this report.
TIME IS QUICKLY RUNNING OUT TO FIND MALAYSIAN FLIGHT 370
He added that the investigation into the flight simulator in the pilot’s house is still inconclusive. Authorities are awaiting an expert’s report on the simulator, he said.
A senior Malaysian government official last week told CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes that authorities have found nothing in days of investigating the two pilots that leads them to any motive, be it political, suicidal or extremist.
Chinese relatives of passengers learned today how the search is unfolding. The Malaysia Airlines CEO’s still hold to the belief that the flight ended in the Indian Ocean. Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation led a closed door briefing with the Chinese families, relatives and friends in Kuala Lumpur. Technical experts from Malaysia, China and Australia also participated, as did the Chinese ambassador Malaysia.
Meanwhile, even more assets are contributing to the search. The HMS Tireless, a British nuclear submarine, will take part. It’ll be joined by an Australian ship with a pinger locator designed to listen for locator beacons attached to the plane’s flight data recorder plus a submersible capable of canvasing the ocean floor for wreckage. Both pieces of technology come from the U.S. Navy. The equipment won’t be of any use, however, until searchers are able to find wreckage from the plane to help narrow the search zone. That’s because neither the pinger locator nor the submersible can quickly scan the enormous area being searched.
Under the best of sea conditions, the pingers can be heard 2 nautical miles away. But high seas, background noise, wreckage or silt can all make pingers harder to detect.
It will take the ship, the Ocean Shield, two more days just to get to the search zone, leaving precious little time to locate the flight data recorders before the batteries on its locator beacon run out. Time is running out: The batteries on the flight data recorder’s locator beacon are designed to last 30 days. Wednesday is the 26th day that authorities have been looking for the plane.
There’s no guarantee it will be found anytime soon. For all the expertise and technology, there’s still more unknown about Flight 370 than is known about it — including its altitude, precise speed and, especially, its final resting place.
As CNN aviation analyst Miles O’Brien said: “We’re seeing what amounts to a big guess.”
“It will take time,” retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, the head of the Australia’s new Joint Agency Coordination Centre, said Tuesday. “It’s not something that’s necessarily going to be resolved in the next two weeks.”
Michael Pearson reported and wrote from Atlanta; Jim Clancy reported from Kuala Lumpur; CNN’s Catherine E. Shoichet, Holly Yan, KJ Kwon, Barbara Starr, Will Ripley, Greg Botelho, Richard Quest, Nic Robertson, Sara Sidner, Mitra Mobasherat, Kyung Lah and Yuli Yang also contributed to this report.
FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE OBAMACARE MAKES ITS GOAL
(CNN) – A last-minute enrollment surge enabled the White House to meet its original sign-up target for the Affordable Care Act, a surprising victory for the Obama administration after a rocky rollout of the program that has become a political hot potato for Democrats and a rallying cry for Republicans.
President Barack Obama announced yesterday in the White House rose garden that 7.1 million people had signed up on federal or state exchanges for coverage under the health care law now often known as Obamacare.
The enrollment period began anemically in October with a faltering federal website and ended with a crush of people trying to beat Monday’s deadline to get coverage. Not everyone who has selected a health plan has paid for it yet, officials said.
Nevertheless, Obama claimed victory at a White House ceremony, saying the program approved by Congress in 2010 — with no Republican support and vilified relentlessly by the GOP as government overreach — has been “a force for good.”
He said it wasn’t perfect, acknowledging the early difficulties in selecting a policy on HealthCare.gov, and he predicted more hurdles in carrying it out.
But the president believes his overall goal of starting to narrow the gap between those with health coverage and those without it has begun, and “millions of Americans are embracing it. That’s what the (law) is all about, making sure all of us and all our fellow citizens can count on the security of health care when we get sick,” he said, noting that the “law is doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s working.”
Administration officials said an absolute crush of people pushed the program — Obama’s chief domestic accomplishment — over the finish line at the 11th hour. More than 4.8 million visits were made to HealthCare.gov on Monday alone.
Officials stressed that the 7.1 million figure represents only those who signed up for coverage. Those who came in late and encountered technical problems have until mid-April to complete the process. Private insurers are providing the coverage.
President with Health And Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius
Health And Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told an Oklahoma TV station on Monday that insurers were reporting that 80% to 90% had paid so far.
The law also includes expanded Medicaid insurance for the poor in many states, but those participants are not part of the sign-up total.
Republicans, especially in the House, have waged a nonstop campaign to repeal or roll back the Affordable Care Act, saying it was rammed through Congress without their input and now is another illustration of big government at its worst.
They have made it a rallying cry of their fall campaign to expand their majority in the House and reclaim the Senate. It has energized the base, and the issue includes the commentary of potential GOP candidates for president as well.
Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said in a statement that the law “continues to harm the American people” despite Obama’s “victory lap.” He said costs are not going down, as Obama contends, and people are losing insurance plans they preferred and small businesses are chafing under the law’s requirements. “That’s why we must replace this fundamentally flawed law with patient-centered solutions that will actually lower health care costs and help create jobs,” Steel said.
Michael Steele, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner
Democrats on the stump, especially those who voted for it and now find themselves in tight races, have recalibrated their position with Obama’s presidency not much help to them with voters overall in their states. But Obama said at the White House that the law is good for the country, regardless of politics, and that the numbers show Americans want it and that it’s “here to stay.”
“I don’t get it. Why are folks working so hard for people not to have health insurance? Why are they so mad about the idea of people having health insurance?” he asked.
The administration did not release details about the numbers, including the number of younger Americans who signed up. That metric is crucial for making the program work economically because premiums from younger, healthier participants are needed to make the program work for older people who use the health care system more. An official briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity said insurance companies were confident the percentage of young people was sufficient for the insurance marketplaces to function properly.
The administration pulled out all the stops in the final weeks of the enrollment period — an effort one official equated to a “get out the vote” campaign before an election. Administration officials took to the radio airwaves by participating in 400 interviews, enlisted celebrities and athletes to promote the law, and engaged people on social media. And Obama’s interview on the online comedycast “Between Two Ferns” resulted in the so-called Zach Galifianakis effect, resulting in 33 million views of his mock interview with the comedian.
The mock interview with Galifianakis, along with a promotional push from Miami Heat forward LeBron James, were cited by administration officials as two of the most effective components in the push to enroll young Americans on the health care exchanges. The overall effort, the White House said, surpassed their expectations in terms of last-minute sign-ups
GENERAL MOTORS IS IN DEEP DEEP TROUBLE
Members of Congress tore into GM management yesterday during a heated Capitol Hill hearing probing fatal car wrecks linked to a defective part, claiming people died because the auto giant failed to fix what amounted to a 57-cent problem. “We know that GM made a series of terrible decisions, and we know that this tragedy has exposed significant gaps in federal law that allowed them to do so,” Representative Diana DeGette, D-Colo., said.
General Motors’ new CEO, Mary Barra, and the head of the nation’s auto safety watchdog, testified before a House subcommittee on the defect in small GM cars that is linked to 13 deaths. Fueling the outrage over the malfunction, DeGette said lawmakers obtained documents showing how GM had actually looked at possible fixes for the defect in 2005, but determined it would be too expensive to address. The “unacceptable cost increase,” she said, turned out to be 57 cents apiece.
The congresswoman held up an ignition switch for one of the cars and said a small spring inside of it failed to provide enough force, causing the car engines to turn off when they went over a bump. DeGette showed how easy it was for a light set of keys to move the ignition out of the “run” position. That can cause the engine to stall, and the driver loses power steering and power brakes.
Asked later in the hearing about the apparent decision not to address the problem, Barra said she found it “very disturbing. If that was the reason the decision was made, that is unacceptable — that is not the way we do business at today’s GM,” she said.
As lawmakers ripped both GM and federal regulators, family members whose loves ones were killed in auto accidents linked to the defect demanded answers, and accountability. Calling the GM cars a “death trap,” they said the company knew for years the vehicleswere dangerous — but their sons, daughters and relatives are dead “because they were a cost of doing business GM’s style.”
Ken Rimer, whose teenage stepdaughter was killed in a 2006 crash in Wisconsin, recalled how she died. “What was to be a simple shopping excursion turned into a death trap as their vehicle, without any warning, lost power,” he said. “The steering wheel lock, power breaks, no longer worked and the safety airbags were turned off. When all of this happened the car followed a path off the road, went airborne over an adjoining driveway, crushed a phone box, and tragically collided with a group of trees.” He added: “Would fixing the problem when it was discovered saved these two girls’ lives and the lives of many others? Yes. Should GM be able to hide behind their bankruptcy and not accept the responsibility and liability of these young lives? No. Please help us in standing up for what is right. GM knew it was wrong. GM hid it during their bankruptcy proceedings. GM is liable for these young deaths.”
Committee members want both officials to explain why neither the company nor the safety agency moved to recall millions of small cars with a defective ignition switch, even though GM knew of the problem as early as 2001.
GM has now recalled 6.3 million vehicles since February. GM estimates the actions will cost it $750 million.
Asked how the company balances cost and safety nowadays, she said: “We don’t. If there’s a defect, Barra said, “we take action” without consideration for cost. She also apologized to the millions affected by the ongoing recalls, and especially to those who lost family members and friends. “I am deeply sorry,” she said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
BE VERY CAREFUL WHERE YOU LOAD A GUN
A man seen loading a gun near student apartments at Georgia’s Columbus State University was shot and fatally wounded by campus officers who chased the suspect on foot Sunday. University Police Chief Rus Drew told The Associated Press “There was a short foot chase and at some point the suspect turned and faced the officers and shots were fired,”
No one else was hurt and the campus in western Georgia, about 100 miles southwest of Atlanta, was never put on any lockdown during or after the shooting episode, campus officials said. Drew added that the man wasn’t a student at the school and that while there were some student witnesses, no lockdown was ordered because events unfolded rapidly and authorities had determined that an “isolated threat” had been removed.
HAMAS’ NEW PUNISHMENT LAWS ARE CONDEMNED EVEN BY OTHER TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS
Hamas is now trying to outdo the Taliban in imposing new Shar’ia inspired draconian punishments, including amputations of limbs and massive increases in lashings and executions. The new punitive law, “inspired by” Shar’ia Law, is required to replace the former and “impractical” one that has been in force for 80 years. The Hamas law states that there will be a minimum of 20 lashes for minor offenses and a minimum of 80 lashes for criminal cases: the death penalty will also be expanded in accordance with the Shar’ia. In addition, the new law includes cutting off the hands of a thief.
Hamas has immediately earned widespread condemnation by other Palestinian factions. Even other terrorist groups condemn Hamas’ new law. They say Hamas prioritizes imposing its radical Islamist agenda on the Palestinian society over enhancing Gaza’s standard of living.
It remains to be seen whether Hamas’ front groups and supporters in the United States, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, American Muslims for Palestine, and the Muslim American Society, who claim to be civil rights organizations, will condemn Hamas for implementing this new law.
THEY WILL CRY “PEACE PEACE” BUT THERE IS NO PEACE
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
American mediators began Sunday holding urgent contacts with Israeli and Palestinian officials Sunday in hopes of salvaging troubled Mideast peace talks — searching for a formula to bring the sides back together and extend the negotiations beyond a current late-April deadline.
Officials from all sides said diplomacy has picked up over the past 24 hours and talks with the Palestinians via the Americans were going on throughout the day. With the sides unable to agree on the terms of a promised Israeli prisoner release, the negotiations appear to face a risk of collapse in the coming weeks.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, in Paris, was weighing a return to the region to find a way out of the deadlock. Under heavy pressure from Kerry, Israel and the Palestinians agreed last July to hold nine months of peace talks, setting a late-April deadline for a final agreement. When that became unrealistic, Kerry scaled back his goals and said he would aim for a preliminary “framework” agreement by April, with the goal of continuing negotiations through the end of the year to iron out the final details of a deal. But even that goal has run into trouble. Israeli officials say they are under no obligation to carry out the final release because of what they say is a Palestinian failure to negotiate in good faith. Yuval Steinitz, a Likud Cabinet minister, said “it is clear” the release can’t be carried out if Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas plans on walking out of the talks the next day. “This release was meant to be carried out as the talks proceed, and not when they fall apart.”
MEXICAN OFFICIALS FIND 370 TRAFFICKER-ABANDONED CHILDREN
MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexican officials said Saturday that in one week they found 370 migrant children who had apparently been abandoned by traffickers paid to take them to the United States. The children were rescued in 14 Mexican states between March 17 and 24, and the youngest was 9 years old, the National Migration Institute said in a statement, adding that 163 of the children under 18 were found traveling alone.
The children told officials the human traffickers abandoned them after being paid between $3,000 and $5,000. It said most of the children showed signs of extreme fatigue, dehydration and foot injuries, along with disorientation at being abandoned at unknown, often dangerous, locations.
JUST ANOTHER POWERBALL WINNER!
(CNN) – While a lot of Americans had April Fools’ Day jokes played on them yesterday, B. Raymond Buxton got the surprise of his life and it was no joke. He had struck it rich. The California man picked up a giant check for $425 million Tuesday after turning in the winning ticket for the February 19 Powerball drawing.
After choosing the cash option, Burton will actually deposit a $242.2 million lump sum (before taxes) in whatever accounts he uses for his funds.
The retiree (the news release didn’t say whether he was already retired or retired as of April 1) said he was going to use some of the money to start a charitable foundation for “pediatric health, child hunger and education.” He will also travel.
Buxton, who bought the ticket in Milpitas, north of San Jose, said he hadn’t told a soul he had won during the six weeks he took to get his legal and financial team in place.
“Sitting on a ticket of this value was very scary,” he said, according to lottery officials. “It’s amazing how a little slip of paper can change your life.”
TOP 10 MOVIES OF THE WEEK
Editor’s Note: I wasn’t a Catholic, but I spent my freshman year of high school at a Catholic all–boys school because my mother wanted to learn Latin every night when I got home! She did my homework for me. At the end of the semester, mom would’ve gotten an A. I got a D-.
One of the first things I learned at that school was about the list of current movies that were condemned each week by a Catholic board of movie reviewers. They were usually sexy or very violent. All the boys lined up to check that list so that they could attend the forbidden films the coming weekend. That’s human nature and I think it explains why the film “Noah” had the largest amount of people attending it this past weekend of all the motion pictures available at theaters. There has been so much negative flack about this grossly un-biblical film that it was enough to titillate those who wanted to see if it could really be that bad. What these viewers thought when they came out of “Noah” will be reflected in next weekend’s receipts. That’s because after a first week a movie is out, all other weeks of attendance depend most on what other people say who have seen it.
The things to cheer about as you look at this list include the fact that there are still three animated movies out of the top 10 that are totally family-oriented. Add the family pleaser The Lego Movie that has been in theaters for two months and is still a respectable 11th .
My biggest joy is to see “God’s Not Dead” has only gone down one notch, from fourth to fifth. That’s tremendous and will impress Hollywood. If “Noah” drops significantly next weekend, it will say even more.
Meanwhile, though “Son of God” is now in fifteenth place and soon will leave the movie theaters, it has done enough to say to the Hollywood moguls that a vast amount of America want to continue to see real Christian films. Be certain that you’ve seen “Son of God” and “God’s Not Dead” before they leave. As long as the movie makers see the kind of money that has come in from them both, they’ll be glad to oblige, even if they have to make Christian films. Here’s the list of current films in order of their attendance for the weekend of March 28-30:
1 | N | $43,720,472 | - | 3,567 | - | $12,257 | $43,720,472 | $125 | 1 | ||
2 | 1 | $25,619,578 | -53.1% | 3,936 | - | $6,509 | $94,379,586 | $85 | 2 | ||
3 | 2 | $11,279,128 | -33.7% | 3,194 | - | $3,531 | $33,116,817 | $50 | 2 | ||
4 | 3 | $9,070,635 | -23.3% | 3,299 | -308 | $2,750 | $94,479,448 | $145 | 4 | ||
5 | 4 | $8,797,666 | -4.5% | 1,178 | +398 | $7,468 | $21,750,684 | - | 2 | ||
6 | 7 | $8,539,795 | +25.8% | 977 | +673 | $8,741 | $24,171,610 | - | 4 | ||
7 | N | $5,272,444 | - | 2,486 | - | $2,121 | $5,272,444 | - | 1 | ||
8 | 6 | $4,226,216 | -46.8% | 2,705 | -410 | $1,562 | $37,644,237 | $66 | 3 | ||
9 | 5 | $4,209,290 | -50.5% | 2,601 | -484 | $1,618 | $101,054,704 | $110 | 4 | ||
10 | 8 | $4,010,885 | -37.7% | 2,515 | -430 | $1,595 | $85,091,060 | $50 | 5 | ||
11 | 9 | $3,018,060 | -27.3% | 2,001 | -500 | $1,508 | $248,216,780 | $60 | 8 |
15 | 11 | Son of God | Fox | $1,064,201 | -60.9% | 1,277 | -862 | $833 | $57,854,943 | - | 5 |
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