POSTED: 09:59 PM CDT Mar 29, 2014 UPDATED: 03:30 AM CDT Mar 30, 2014
Earthquakes in Southern California are rattling some residents' nerves and their homes. About 100 people in cities south of Los Angeles had to be evacuated because of quake damage. Some residents will not be allowed to return because the damage is so severe.
DARRINGTON, Wash. (AP) — Washington authorities: Confirmed dead rises to 18; number of missing drops to 30 in mudslide.
March 30, 2014 - Updated 1022 PKT
From Web Edition
ANKARA: Polls opened Sunday in Turkey for municipal elections that are seen as a referendum on the rule of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has faced anti-government protests and a major corruption scandal.
More than 50 million voters were to cast their ballots for mayors and local assemblies at almost 200,000 pollings stations, pitting Erdogan´s Islamic-rooted Justice and Development party against secular, nationalist and other groups.
The polls opened first in eastern Turkey and will open later in the west.
ALBANY — State leaders reached a deal Friday night on a nearly $140 billion state budget.
After a day of last-minute talks and snags, Gov. Cuomo and legislative leaders settled their outstanding issues and began printing the legislation.
No details were formally released, but sources say that the budget, which the Legislature hopes to enact on Monday, a day before the start of the new fiscal year, will include $300 million in city prekindergarten funding.
The budget contains new protections for charter schools after Mayor de Blasio rescinded co-location agreements with three of eight charters operated by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz.
It's also expected to resolve a dispute between Cuomo and de Blasio over homeless funding.
Sources said the plan includes an ethics reform package and the establishment of a public campaign-finance program limited to the state controller's office.
The ethics reforms likely would spell the end of the anti-corruption panel Cuomo created in 2013.
Statewide school aid was expected to grow by 5% over this year's budget, and the package likely will include a series of tax reductions and relief for renters — items that Cuomo and lawmakers can tout as they seek reelection this year.
By Katya Golubkova and Gabriela Baczynska
MOSCOW/BAKHCHISARAY, Crimea Sun Mar 30, 2014 4:43am EDT
1 of 3. Pro-Russian activists hold pictures of ousted Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich during a protest in central Donetsk March 29, 2014. Russia said on Saturday it had ''no intention'' of invading eastern Ukraine, responding to Western warnings over a military buildup on the border following Moscow's annexation of the Crimean peninsula.
Credit: Reuters/Stringer
MOSCOW/BAKHCHISARAY, Crimea (Reuters) - Russia said on Saturday it had no intention of invading eastern Ukraine following its annexation of Crimea, while the Black Sea peninsula's Muslim Tatars demanded autonomy.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet on Sunday in Paris, the State Department said, as both sides moved to ease tensions in the worst East-West standoff since the Cold War.
In a pivotal political development, Ukraine's presidential election effectively became a two-horse race when boxer-turned-politician Vitaly Klitschko pulled out and threw his weight behind confectionary oligarch Petro Poroshenko.
This sets up a May 25 contest between the man known as the "Chocolate King" and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
Speaking on Russian television, Lavrov reinforced a message from President Vladimir Putin that Russia would settle - at least for now - for control over Crimea despite massing thousands of troops near Ukraine's eastern border.
"We have absolutely no intention of - or interest in - crossing Ukraine's borders," Lavrov said.
Putin called U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday to discuss a U.S. diplomatic proposal, with the West alarmed at the threat to Ukraine's eastern flank from what U.S. officials say may be more than 40,000 Russian troops.
But Lavrov said Russia is ready to protect the rights of Russian speakers, referring to what Moscow sees as threats to the lives of compatriots in eastern Ukraine since Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovich was deposed as president in February.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, in an interview with Germany's Focus magazine published on Saturday, said the alliance is "extremely worried".
"We view it as a concrete threat to Ukraine and see the potential for further interventions," said Rasmussen.
"I fear that it is not yet enough for him (Putin). I am worried that we are not dealing with rational thinking as much as with emotions, the yearning to rebuild Russia's old sphere of influence in its immediate neighbourhood."
TATARS DEMAND AUTONOMY
In the Tatars historic capital of Bakhchisaray, the assembly representing the 300,000-strong indigenous Muslim minority voted in favour of seeking "ethnic and territorial autonomy" in Crimea. They make up less than 15 percent of Crimea's population of 2 million and have been overwhelmingly opposed to Russia's annexation of the territory.
Crimean Tatars' assembly leader Refat Chubarov told more than 200 delegates: "In the life of every nation there comes a time when it must make decisions that will determine its future."
"I ask you to approve...the start of political and legal procedures aimed at creating ethnic and territorial autonomy of the Crimean Tatars of their historic territory of Crimea."
The assembly subsequently backed his proposal. Critical of Russia's annexation of Crimea, the Tatars boycotted the March 16 vote to split from Ukraine and become part of Russia.
Moscow has tried to pressure them to drop their opposition. However, their proposal to seek autonomy signals they would be ready to negotiate their status with Russia.
The West imposed sanctions on Russia, including visa bans on some of Putin's inner circle, after Moscow annexed Crimea this month following a referendum on union of the Russian-majority region with the Russian Federation that the West called illegal.
The West has threatened tougher sanctions targeting Russia's stuttering economy if Moscow sends more troops to Ukraine.
Lavrov called for "deep constitutional reform" in Ukraine, a sprawling country of 46 million people divided between those who see their future in closer ties with Europe and mainly Russian speakers in the east who look to former Soviet master Russia.
"Frankly speaking, we don't see any other way for the steady development of the Ukrainian state apart from as a federation," Lavrov said.
Each region would have jurisdiction over its economy, finances, culture, language, education and "external economic and cultural connections with neighbouring countries or regions," he said. "Given the proportion of native Russians (in Ukraine) we propose this and we are sure there is no other way."
Lavrov and Kerry spoke by phone on Saturday, following up on the Putin-Obama call on Friday. The White House said Obama told Putin that Russia must pull back its troops and not move deeper into the former Soviet republic. The Kremlin said Putin suggested "examining possible steps the global community can take to help stabilise the situation.
UKRAINIAN ELECTION
Ukraine remains deeply divided over protests that led to Yanukovich's overthrow. Many eastern Russian-speaking regions are sceptical about the policies of the new pro-Western government in Kiev.
Yanukovich called on Friday for each of the country's regions to hold a referendum on their status within Ukraine, instead of the presidential election planned for May 25.
Poroshenko was an influential supporter of the "Maidan" popular uprising that toppled Yanukovich in February, three months after he spurned a deal on closer ties with the European Union and plunged the country of 46 million people into turmoil.
Poroshenko confirmed his candidacy late on Friday. Several opinions polls already had him in the lead even before he said he would run to succeed Yanukovich.
In Riyadh, Obama ended a four-nation trip on Saturday in the same situation as he began it - with about a diplomatic way out of the Ukraine crisis. It remained unclear whether the European allies would be able to stomach the kind of crippling sanctions required to significantly undermine Russia's economy since some of their own economies would be jolted as well.
Several German executives criticised the strategy of the United States and Europe in dealing with Russia over Crimea, fearing the consequences for their businesses.
Steelmaker ThyssenKrupp's Chief Executive Heinrich Hiesinger told daily newspaper Die Welt that the events of the past had shown that great change could be achieved if the West cooperated with Russia rather than being confrontational.
Many companies are worried about losing out on business if further sanctions take effect. Some 300,000 German jobs are linked to business there and Europe's biggest economy depends on Russia for 35 percent of its gas.
(Additional Alessandra Prentice in KIEV, Madeline Chambers in BERLIN, Lesley Wroughton in SHANNON, Ireland, Maria Sheahan in; FRANKFURT, and Steve Holland and Jeff Mason in RIYADH; Writing by Will Dunham)
Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., speaks during the Republican Jewish Coalition spring leadership meeting at The Venetian Las Vegas March 29, 2014, in Las Vegas. Ethan Miller, Getty Images
Last Updated Mar 29, 2014 6:11 PM EDT
They would have you believe their trip has nothing to do with 2016, but it's easy to see why nobody's buying that.
A gaggle of potential Republican presidential candidates, including Govs. Chris Christie, R-N.J., Scott Walker, R-Wis., and John Kasich, R-Ohio, made the pilgrimage to Las Vegas Saturday to speak to a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition, a small but influential group of GOP luminaries.
And, in a happy coincidence, the ambitious governors just might cross paths with one of most profligate GOP donors in the country - a man whose financial support has almost singlehandedly powered a major presidential campaign.
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CBS This MorningMany of the top 2016 GOP presidential primary contenders will be vying for the support of billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Jan Crawford reports on th...
Gingrich had a long friendship with Adelson dating back to his time as speaker of the House. But in 2016, Adelson's support is up for grabs, and the candidate who earns it will be poised to reap quite the reward.
"I call it the Sheldon primary," RJC board member and former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer told CBS News. "I think that every candidate who is coming to Las Vegas has already asked for one-on-one time with Sheldon. He can be extraordinarily influential. Sheldon can keep a candidacy alive, or he can take out somebody else's candidacy."
Several speakers on Saturday emphasized their deep concern for Israel's security, an issue of paramount importance to Adelson. Walker, for example, spoke of America's "integral partnership" with Israel, saying the alliance between the two countries has frayed under President Obama. Christie described his recent trip to Israel as an "overwhelming" experience that reinforced for him the need to speak "loudly," not "quietly," on behalf of the Jewish state.
Israelis "want America to be their unblinking, unwavering, unquestioning friend," Christie said. "And the sense I got from that trip [was] that many of those folks were worried that we were no longer being that."
Adelson did not speak at the event, but it's a sure bet he appreciated what he heard.
Naturally, the potential candidates aren't exactly racing to promote the idea that they're kissing the ring of an influential billionaire in preparation for a presidential bid. They've emphasized more selfless, immediate concerns in explaining their trip.
At a press conference Friday, Christie, currently the head of the Republican Governors Association, said he's going to Vegas to raise money for GOP governors' races. He added that he wasn't sure whether he'd meet with Adelson.
"Oftentimes, they set up other private meetings for me with donors or potential donors to solicit them for the Republican Governors Association, so I'm sure I'll have some meetings," he said.
After his speech Saturday, Walker responded to a question about 2016 by saying, "Any Republican who is talking about anything other than 2014 is doing a disservice to not only the party, but the country."
And a source close to Kasich, who has has refused to entertain talk of a presidential bid as he seeks re-election, told CBS News that the governor is making the trip to raise money for his 2014 race in Ohio.
In a slightly different position is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who's been coyer about the prospect of a presidential bid than many of his potential competitors.
Bush has known Adelson for some time, owing to his famous name and his eight years as governor of Florida, and he didn't have to participate in Saturday's cattle call to earn his spot at the RJC gathering: The four-day gala kicked off Thursday with a private dinner in Bush's honor at Adelson's private airplane hangar.
Bush delivered brief remarks at the dinner, which was closed to the press, and during a question-and-answer session after his speech, one attendee reportedly urged him to run for president.
"I'm going to ignore that one," Bush said with a smile, according to CNN.
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PoliticsCBS News elections director Anthony Salvanto talks with Real Clear Politics national political reporter Scott Conroy about the top Republican can...
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., were at the head of the pack with 13 percent apiece, clarifying just how much of a jump ball the GOP primary remains at this early stage.
Still, event organizers are taking pains to downplay any talk of the presidential race. RJC executive director Matt Brooks told the Columbus Dispatch that the group's "focus right now is 100 percent on 2014."
"But obviously, given the very active political involvement of a lot of people coming in from across the country," Brooks conceded, "You can't help but look at them through the prism of, 'Do they have the potential to possibly be contenders for 2016?'"
© 2014 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Shoigu also told Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russia would hand over to Kiev military vessels and airplanes of Ukrainian forces that had not gone over to Russia's side.
Jerusalem Post Annual Conference. Buy it now, Special offer. Come meet Israel's top leaders
BOSTON (AP) — Lawyers for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are hoping the FBI has evidence that the defense can use to show his deceased older brother was mostly responsible for the deadly attack.
His attorneys believe that convincing jurors that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was the instigator could sway them to give Dzhokhar's a life sentence instead of the death penalty if he's convicted.
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General Motors Co expanded its global recall of cars with defective ignition switches to 2.6 million on Friday, adding 971,000 later-model vehicles due to concerns over faulty replacement parts.
The recall now includes all model years of the Chevrolet Cobalt, Chevrolet HHR, Saturn Ion, Saturn Sky, Pontiac G5 and Pontiac Solstice made from 2003-2011.
At least 12 deaths have been linked to the defect in the ignition, which when jostled or bumped can switch itself into "accessory" mode, even at highway speeds, shutting down the engine and disabling power steering, power brakes and airbags.
The expanded recall follows a Reuters report on Wednesday that it was still possible to purchase GM-brand ignition switches manufactured by Delphi Automotive carrying the same part number as the product at the center of the February recall.
GM redesigned the faulty part for model years after 2007, but it did not change the part number, and it fears that some newer-model cars could have been repaired with defective older-model switches.
Switches still available in parts stores may not be defective, but it is nearly impossible to tell new ones from older-design ones unless they are taken apart or the manufacturing history is checked, Reuters reported.
Even before the expansion, the recall had sparked investigations by Congress, federal regulators, the Department of Justice and GM itself. All are asking why it took GM so long to address an issue first noted by the company in 2001.
GM chief executive Mary Barra said on Friday that "we are taking no chances with safety" in replacing the ignition switches on all 2.6 million cars. Barra is due to testify next week before Congress, where she is likely to be grilled on why it took GM more than 10 years to implement the recall.
971,000 globally
The expanded recall adds 971,000 cars globally, including 824,000 in the United States, GM said.
GM also is recalling all the replacement ignition switches that have been sent to US aftermarket distributors, the spare parts market. About 95,000 faulty switches were sold to dealers and parts wholesalers, of which about 5,000 remain on shelves.
GM said Friday that no deaths or injuries have been linked to faulty ignition switches in the newer models that have been added to the recall. Older versions of those cars, dating from 2003-2007, were recalled in two tranches in February.
GM had said on Thursday that the replacement ignition switch it has ordered from Delphi to use in the earlier recall will bear a new part number that "eliminates any potential confusion about which part to use in the repair," according to a company spokesman.
GM said owners will be notified by mail the week of April 21 and can have ignition switches replaced for free at dealers "as parts become available" -- a process that is likely to take months because of the sheer number of vehicles involved.
GM also launched a website, www.gmignitionupdate.com, to provide consumers with information on the recall.
GM replaced the Cobalt in 2010 with a newer compact, the Cruze. On Friday, the automaker told US dealers to stop selling certain 2013 and 2014 Cruze sedans equipped with 1.4-liter engines without saying why.
Copyright: Thomson Reuters 2014
Sat Mar 29, 2014 5:02am EDT
(Reuters) - Suicide bombers targeted buildings near the Independent Election Commission headquarters in Kabul on Saturday, staff and police said, the latest in a spate of attacks ahead of next week's presidential election.
"I am here... the attack is going on around the IEC compound," spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor told Reuters by telephone from a safe room inside the building.
An explosion was followed by gunfire, IEC staff and police said.
The IEC compound is close to offices used by the United Nations Office Complex in Afghanistan (UNOCA) and other international organizations.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, the second launched against an IEC office in the capital this week as the Islamist insurgency seeks to derail the April 5 election it calls a Western-backed "sham".
Noor said that IEC personnel were safe and that Afghan security forces were in control of their building.
Police said that a nearby building that was privately owned had been targeted for reasons that remained unclear.
"We can only confirm that a number of armed insurgents have entered a building close to the Independent Election Commission," said Kabul's police chief spokesman Hashmat Stanekzai.
Another IEC official told Reuters that staff inside the compound feared the neighboring building might be used by insurgents to fire on their headquarters because it was several stories high.
(Reporting by Jessica Donati and Mirwais Harooni; Editing by Richard Borsuk and Jeremy Laurence)
Water bubbles up through the pavement along Gilbert Street, just south of Rosecrans, in Fullerton, Calif., on March 28, 2014, following an 5.1 earthquake.(Photo: Mark Rightmire, AP)
LOS ANGELES — A 5.1 earthquake centered at La Habra near Los Angeles rolled Southern California Friday evening.
The strong earthquake was felt widely across the region shortly after 9 p.m. PT. The USGS said the epicenter was one mile from Brea, located about 20 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles, and three miles from Rowland Heights and Fullerton.
Southern California Edison reported power outages to nearly 2,000 customers following the quake.
The quake triggered a rockslide that closed Carbon Canyon Road in northern Orange County near the center of the quake, the California Highway Patrol and Brea police reported. The rockslide caused a car to overturn, and the people inside the car sustained minor injuries.
Up to 50 people have been displaced because due to housing damage, the Orange County Register reported.
Seven water leaks, including a broken water main in Fullerton, not far from the center of the quake, were attributed to the temblor, the Register reported. Other minor structural damage was reported in Brea, La Habra and Buena Park.
The quake was felt as far south as San Diego and as far north as Ventura County, according to citizen responses collected online by The U.S. Geological Survey.
It was followed by more than two dozen aftershocks. The 5.1 quake was preceded by a 3.6 quake an hour earlier.
The larger quake rattled the region, and police and fire officials said they were looking for any damage. Several people who live in the area near the quake posted pictures on social media showing broken glasses and dishes that tumbled from shelves or cabinets.
Tom Connolly, a Boeing employee who lives in La Mirada, the next town over from La Habra, said the magnitude-5.1 quake lasted about 30 seconds.
"We felt a really good jolt. It was a long rumble and it just didn't feel like it would end," he told The Associated Press by phone. "Right in the beginning it shook really hard, so it was a little unnerving. People got quiet and started bracing themselves by holding on to each other. It was a little scary."
Hall of Fame announcer Vin Scully was on the air calling the Angels-Dodgers exhibition game in the sixth inning at Dodger Stadium.
"A little tremor here in the ballpark. I'm not sure if the folks felt it, but we certainly felt it here in press box row," Scully said. "A tremor and only that, thank goodness."
MORE: Dodgers, Angels play through earthquake
Los Angeles Department of Public Works said it was sending crews to check dams, bridges and other infrastructure for damage.
Callers to KNX-AM reported seeing a brick wall collapse, water sloshing in a swimming pool, and wires and trees swaying back and forth.
"Tonight's earthquake is the second in two weeks, and reminds us to be prepared," said L.A. Mayor Garcetti. "The Los Angeles Police and Fire Departments have conducted an assessment and report no damage in the City."
U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones at CalTech in Pasadena told the Los Angeles Times that the 5.1 quake has a 5% chance of being a foreshock of an even larger quake. "There could be even a larger earthquake in the next few hours or the next few days," she said.
Preliminary data suggest Friday night's 5.1 magnitude earthquake occurred near the Puente Hills thrust fault, which stretches from the San Gabriel Valley to downtown Los Angeles and caused the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake, Jones said.
"It's a place where we've had a lot of earthquakes in the past," she said.
The 5.9 Whittier Narrows quake killed eight people and caused $360 million in damage.
At Disneyland in Anaheim, rides were stopped as a precaution, the L.A. Times reported.
Friday's quake hit a week after a pre-dawn magnitude-4.4 quake centered in the San Fernando Valley rattled a swath of Southern California. That jolt shook buildings and rattled nerves, but did not cause significant damage.
Southern California has not experienced a damaging earthquake since the 1994 magnitude-6.7 Northridge quake killed several dozen people and caused $25 billion in damage.
Contributing: Associated Press
Merchandise is strewn across the floor in a La Habra Walgreens following a 5.1 earthquake centered near La Habra on March 28, 2014. 1(Photo: Blaine Ohigashi, AP)
An unnamed person involved in the Facebook and Oculus deal states the social media giant is planning to re-brand the VR hardware with the Facebook interface and logo.
Update: A Facebook rep has told TechCrunch the rumor is "not true and not in the spirit of our relationship [with Oculus]." Facebook also says it will allow Oculus to operate independently, similar to how it runs its other acquisitions, Instagram and WhatsApp.
We'll keep you posted once more news becomes available.
Source: TechCrunch
Original Story:
Earlier today, Facebook shocked the technological world when it announced its acquisition of Oculus VR -- makers of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset -- for an astounding $2 billion. While it's been reported that nothing will change for Oculus and its upcoming device, that might not be the case for long. In a report by the New York Times, it states that "According to a person involved in the deal who was not allowed to speak publicly because he was not authorized by either company, Facebook eventually plans to redesign the Oculus hardware and rebrand it with a Facebook interface and logo."
Aside from that, no other info has been shared. Could this and other unannounced details be one of the major reasons why Markus "Notch" Persson cancelled Mojang's planned Oculus version for Minecraft? We can't say for sure. Keep in mind that this is just a rumor for now, so nothing's set in stone. Of course, seeing how much Facebook is shelling out for the tech, it is kind of understandable if they want some of its branding on the device to some degree. But a Facebook interface, though? I'm no VR expert, but if this comes true, I can see how it might rub some people the wrong way.
Would integrating a Facebook interface or logo be enough for you to not purchase an Oculus Rift once consumer models are made available to the public?
Source: New York Times via Superannuation
The news comes only a day after courts in the country ordered that a ban of Twitter be lifted.
The national telecoms authority (TIB) has said that it has taken an "administrative measure" against the site, according to reports from Reuters.
The news agency also examined the uploaded recording that apparently triggered the ban, saying it was potentially the most damaging leak yet, as it would have had to have originated from an extremely confidential meeting.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan originally vowed to "wipe out Twitter" after users spread allegation of corruption ahead of elections.
Preliminary local polls are to be held this weekend that will indicate the future of the current government. These follow a summer of harsh crackdowns against anti-government protestors and scandals for Erdogan as recorded calls uploaded online seemed to indicate massive corruption.
Turkey is a Muslim Nato and country seen as significant to the foreign interests of both Europe and the US due its geographical position on the borders of the Middle East.
Edrogan's AK Party ('Justice and Development Party') was formed in 2001 from a coalition of centre-right nationalists and conservative religious Muslims and trounced the secular parties in the polls a year later.
Opposition leaders say that after three successive elections victories Erdogan is desperate to hang on to power and risks leading Turkey back into another period of dictatorship, while Erdogan himself claims that there is an "evil alliance" plotting against him.
11
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The murder trial of Oscar Pistorius has been postponed until April 7 after the judge in the case said Friday that one of the legal experts assisting her with the case has been taken ill.
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Try againOscar Pistorius hops into the car as a police offer watches the high court in Pretoria, South Africa, on March 25.(Photo: Themba Hadebe, AP)
The murder trial of Oscar Pistorius has been postponed until April 7 after the judge in the case said Friday that one of the legal experts assisting her has been taken ill.
The delay in proceedings comes at a point in the trial when Pistorius, 27, was expected to provide testimony as his defense team prepared to begin their case.
"One of my assessors is not well, so this court is not properly constituted," Judge Thokozile Masipa announced shortly after Pistorius arrived in the courtroom in Pretoria on Friday morning.
South Africa does not have a jury system and the verdict in the trial into whether the double-amputee runner shot his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp last year in an act of premeditated murder will be delivered by Masipa alone. Although two judicial assessors will assist her in reaching the verdict.
The prosecution rested its case on Tuesday after 15 days of accounts that included testimony from Pistorius' neighbors as well as close scrutiny of more than 1,000 text messages sent between the athlete and Steenkamp, a well-known South African model, TV celebrity and law graduate.
The Olympic medal winner — nicknamed the "blade runner" because of his prosthetic limbs — denies deliberately killing Steenkamp, and says instead that he shot her through a bathroom door in a tragic accident when he mistook for an intruder.
Pistorius faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of premeditated murder.
Follow USA TODAY's Kim Hjelmgaard on Twitter — @khjelmgaard
In just five films, he's delivered a sci-fi thriller ("Pi"), an anti-drug drama ("Requiem for a Dream"), an eternal romance ("The Fountain"), a gritty sports flick ("The Wrestler") and a horror ballet that should have won him Best Director ("Black Swan").
Now, in his sixth feature, the mad genius attempts arguably his toughest genre yet: the Biblical epic.
We all know the story: The Creator decides to send a great flood to wash the world clean and start over, commanding Noah to build a giant ship to preserve two of each animal species that will then repopulate the world after the waters subside. The story inspired Aronofsky to write a poem that won an award from the United Nations when he was just 13 years old. Ever since, it's been his lifelong ambition to make the film and a 10-year struggle in Hollywood to get it made. Such blinding pet projects can be treacherous waters for filmmakers.
Video Review:
"Noah" has 4-star masterpiece written all over it: an ambitious, visionary, risk- taking, finely-crafted cinematic vessel, except for a single, glaring Achilles heel that rips a large hole in its hull, taking on so much water that it threatens to sink the entire ship.
I'm talking about a controversial group of characters known as The Watchers, a collection of CGI rock creatures that look like the talking-tree Ents from "The Lord of the Rings" and move like the title bots from "Transformers." Yes, they are loosely based in the Nephilim (Hebrew for "giants"), which are briefly mentioned in Genesis. And yes, their journey from fallen angels to redemptive servants is an admirable arc (no pun intended). But as the clunky rock creatures help Noah build the ark, then fend off an army invasion from the descendents of Cain, most viewers will be completely taken out of the movie.
How do you look your filmmaking idol in the face, the man you believe is the most daring and exciting filmmaker today, and humbly say, "What were you thinking?"
Aronofsky himself knew this would be a problem during the editing phase, repeatedly going to Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) because he was unhappy with the look of The Watchers. By this point, however, they were baked into the cake. This is the danger of CGI, folks, a lesson Aronofsky should have learned when Portman's CGI legs snapped backward like a swan -- the sole directing misstep in all of "Black Swan."
In the case of "Noah," there was plenty of room for measured CGI, from the animals to the ark to the floods. All of these are pulled off brilliantly, particularly the shooting geysers that burst through the arid earth. But while the massive CGI battles between humans and earthly objects were effective in Peter Jackson's "LOTR: The Two Towers," they feel out of place here.
This is not to say Aronofsky should have held steadfast to a strict, literal recount of the Genesis story. On the contrary, it's refreshing to see him deviate with such artistic license and moral complexity.
In doing so, he offers creative answers to questions that have puzzled many of us since Sunday school: Why didn't Adam prevent Eve from biting the forbidden fruit? Easy -- he was distracted by a snakeskin shed by the very serpent that tempted his wife. How on earth did Noah round up all those animals? Easy -- they came to him. How did all those animals not devour each other in a cramped space for 40 days and 40 nights? Easy -- they all went into a divine hibernation.
Bible literalists may despise such deviations. This is no doubt the reason for Paramount's timid release strategy, shutting out critics in many cities until the very last minute, and why the studio has been running this disclaimer during various promotions: "The film is inspired by the story of Noah. While artistic license has been taken, we believe that this film is true to the essence, values and integrity of a story that is a cornerstone of faith for millions of people worldwide. The biblical story of Noah can be found in the Book of Genesis."
Make no mistake -- this isn't your shiny Biblical epic like "The Ten Commandments" (1956), "Ben-Hur" (1959) or "The Bible" (1966), which John Huston directed, narrated and starred in as Noah. Even then, the darkness wasn't far away. Eight years after playing Noah, Huston played the corrupt, incestuous villain Noah Cross in "Chinatown" (1974), Roman Polanski's first hit since "Rosemary's Baby" (1968) due to his pregnant wife's murder by the Manson Family in the "helter skelter" summer swelter of 1969.
Aronofsky's "Noah" is the type of world Noah Cross would like. It isn't a lush paradise, nor should it be. It's a bleak, desolate world with muted colors and an apocalyptic atmosphere. All this is necessary to portray a time when wickedness was supposedly so strong that it needed to be destroyed.
This entire premise is framed by a centuries old struggle between good and evil, where Noah (Russell Crowe) represents the descendants of Adam's virtuous son Seth, while Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone) represents the descendants of Adam's wicked son Cain, who killed Abel in the Bible's first murder.
Noah and Tubal-cain may be hero and villain, respectively, but Aronofsky realizes they're two sides of the same coin. Tubal-cain believes in God, but feels God has long since forsaken humanity. He says, "I'm not afraid of miracles" and shouts toward the heavens, "Why won't you speak to me?" It's Lieutenant Dan shouting in the storm, daring God to drown him, only this time it's Biblical.
Noah is no less tormented than his ancestral foe. Rather than a saintly, pure, righteous protagonist, he is instead haunted by visions of the flood and confused at his Creator's divine directives, doubting whether or not he has really carried out God's will. Even after surviving the storm, he finds himself face first in the sand, naked and drunk. As he tells his sons, "The wickedness is not just in them. It's in all of us."
In this way, Aronofsky goes the route of Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988) rather than the recent gloss of "Son of God" (2014). And like John Wayne's Ethan Edwards at the end of "The Searchers" (1956), Noah must face his own choice of whether to kill or love in an Abraham-Isaac sacrificial dilemma.
All this is fertile ground for Crowe, who's had a series of stinker performances over the past several years, from "Robin Hood" (2010) to "Les Miserables" (2012). "Noah" reminds us of Crowe at his best, whether it's detectives in the streets like "L.A. Confidential" (1997) and "American Gangster" (2007), or warriors in the arena like "Cinderella Man" (2005) and "Gladiator" (2000). As he pays visits to the 900-year-old Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins) in a remote cave, we'll recall Crowe's Jor-El father figure in "Man of Steel" (2013). And when Noah turns to Tubal-cain to say, "I am Noah, the son of Lamech," it's spoken with such Maximus command that we expect him to follow it with, "And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next."
But the best performance does not come from the title character at all. That honor belongs to Jennifer Connelly, who steals the show as Noah's wife, Naameh, by delivering the film's biggest heaving-chest moments. The Crowe-Connelly pairing is not only an effective reunion from "A Beautiful Mind" (2001); it's a love story not unlike Jack and Rose aboard the "Titanic" (1997) -- two hearts jostled by the waves. In the face of Crowe's internal conflict, it is Connelly who must serve as the film's moral conscience and the glue of the family that includes their sons Ham (Logan Lerman), Shem (Douglas Booth) and Japeth (Leo McHugh Carroll), and their future daughters-in-law (Emma Watson, Madison Davenport).
Aronofsky's ability to get strong performances from his cast should be no secret. He directed Natalie Portman to an Oscar as ballerina Nina Sayers in "Black Swan," and should have done the same for Mickey Rourke as Randy "The Ram" Robinson in "The Wrestler." What's more, he helped put Connelly on the map in "Requiem for a Dream," alongside a young Jared Leto, Marlon Wayans and Ellen Burstyn, who found her best role since "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (1974).
But Aronofsky's ability to find good performances is just half of his directorial power. He also has an unrivaled visual mind for the cinematic language:
Beyond any of this, Aronofsky masters his pacing, keeping our attention for nearly 2 1/2 hours. Perhaps this is because for each depiction of desolation, there's another glimmer of hope. The earth's demise is not depicted so much as destruction, but as rebirth. As Noah says, "Fire consumes. Water cleanses."
Let's hope the film has a similar cleansing effect on Aronofsky's career. A "Waterworld" flop it is not, but one has to wonder whether the $130 million spectacle finally compromised Aronofsky's better angels -- ironically with fallen angels turned rock creatures. Or, perhaps there's a holy trinity, a rule of threes, at work, where Aronofsky is in the zone for two films, then pushes things too far on the third. "Pi" and "Requiem" were followed by the head-scratching "Fountain." Now, the cycle has repeated itself, following two gems in "The Wrestler" and "Black Swan" with another head-scratcher.
Okay, Mr. Aronfosky; you've gotten your pet project out of the way. Now let's get back to the intimate stories you're so good at telling. In the meantime, thanks for the same lesson that Noah himself learns: all humans are flawed, even great filmmakers.
★ ★ ★
The above rating is based on a 4-star scale. See where this film ranks in Jason's 2013 Movie Guide. Follow WTOP Film Critic Jason Fraley on Twitter @JFrayWTOP, read his blog The Film Spectrum or listen Friday mornings on 103.5 FM.
© 2014 WTOP. All Rights Reserved.
We've now heard from the supreme commander of NATO in Europe, Gen. Philip Breedlove, that the 150,000 Russian combat troops on Ukraine's eastern border are "very, very sizable and very, very ready."
NATO on the other hand is "unwilling, unable and unready," at least if you go by some of its vocal military critics in recent years.
Breedlove would contest that description, and NATO remains, after all, the largest and most successful military alliance in history. The problem with history, however, is that the 28-nation alliance has seen better and certainly more coherent days.
From a military standpoint, the Ukraine crisis hits Europe at a time when its European members have slashed $45 billion from their militaries in recent years (the equivalent of the entire German defence budget).
Those cuts have left the U.S. to carry 75 per cent of the NATO burden, and they are coming at a time when Washington has been showing much less interest in European security, as it "pivots" its military strategy to the Pacific.
By contrast, Russian military spending has surged 92 per cent in just four years and will rise by 18 per cent this year, according to the authoritative Janes Defence Weekly military publications and Russian state figures.
Clearly, NATO did not expect to see this echo of the Cold War erupt, and defence analysts are wondering just how fit and flexible the alliance will be if tensions escalate further — not just along Ukraine's borders, but in other areas where NATO members abut Russia.
The immediate need is to ensure those same very ready Russian forces don't move into eastern and southern Ukraine, as they did in Crimea, to "protect" Russian speaking minorities, as Vladimir Putin would have it.
This would be a catastrophe for both Ukraine and the stability of Europe.
At this point, it's clear that diplomats might have a few more tools than the generals to try and shore up Ukraine's independence.
These would include further economic sanctions against Putin's regime, more diplomatic isolation of Moscow, and urgent economic and technical assistance for Kyiv as it tries to build a democratic state free of the suffocating corruption that has crippled it almost since it became independent in 1991.
Another wrinkle here is that Europe has grown critically reliant on Russian energy supplies. And clearly a formula must be found to reduce Ukraine's and probably central Europe's dependence on Russian energy.
Ukraine's new acting Defence Minister Mykhailo Koval, the former head of the Ukrainian border guard. His predecessor, Ihor Tenyukh, was let go over his handling of Crimea's annexation. (Reuters)
Militarily, however, the kind of help that has been discussed for Ukraine's poor-cousin armed forces is strikingly limited.
It would include some technical support, satellite intelligence and communications upgrades to counter any cyberwar. Plus real uniforms and "military meals."
Ukraine, of course, is not a member of NATO, and too much involvement by the alliance at this point would almost certainly heighten tensions dramatically.
Offering to shore up Ukraine's military, NATO believes, would be a step much too far in a country for which Russia has deep emotional ties and considers part of its, though now much reduced, sphere of influence.
Concern about provoking Russia unnecessarily was why so many in NATO were always cool to Ukrainian membership whenever it was brought up.
One of the strongest opponents of Ukrainian membership in NATO was the former Cold War-era diplomat /strategist Henry Kissinger, who continues to warn that such a move would topple Europe's delicate balance of powers.
"Far too often the Ukrainian issue is posed as a showdown: whether Ukraine joins the East or the West," he wrote last week in the Washington Post.
"But if the Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side's outpost against the other — it should function as a bridge between the two."
Even leaving Ukraine aside, NATO has other potential crises on its flanks, where it is obliged by treaty to protect increasingly nervous NATO members who are also neighbours of Russia.
These include the three former Soviet Union satellites, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, all with fragile economies and significant Russian minorities; as well as the much larger Poland, a former member of the Soviet Union's Warsaw Pact military alliance.
Including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania was always controversial within NATO because they are so far east and so difficult to defend.
Still, they made it in and now demand NATO show it would be ready to honour its famous (Article 5) guarantee that an attack on one member involves an attack on all.
In recent weeks, the U.S., with U.K. support to come, has rushed in limited fighter plane and other air support for the Baltic members, as well as 300 support staff and some naval units.
Russian sailors mill about onboard the Suzdalets at the Crimean port of Sevastopol earlier this week. As many as 150,000 Russian troops are also taking part in exercises along Ukraine's eastern boundary. (Reuters)
But so cautious a response has not eased the nervousness in the region, which has been warning NATO for years about Russian ambitions.
Some of their fears stem from the large military exercises Moscow has run in the Baltic region in recent years, including some that simulate attacks on Lithuania and Poland.
NATO, it should be noted, also exercises units in the Baltic region, while Poland has recently launched a substantial arms buildup of its own in response to Russia's.
These days, NATO is also hearing rising security concerns and demands for reassurance from nations such as Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria , as well as both the Czech and Slovak Republics.
Here, NATO's worries are not limited to military pressure-tactics, but encompass the deep political crises and anti-democratic trends in some of these Eastern Europe countries, where crony-capitalism and the leverage of Russian gas supplies open new doors to Putin's influence.
No, this is not the old Cold War. Today's Russia is weaker than the West, even with few European powers ready for yet another arms race with Moscow.
But if Putin's regime really does feel that NATO's once triumphant march to the east is at least in part reversible, given the right pressure points, then NATO's very credibility is about to be severely tested, yet again.
The search area for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has shifted nearly 700 miles northeast due to a "new credible lead," Australia officials said at a Friday press conference. Martin Dolan, Chief Commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, said the search has "a long way to go yet."
The shift marks another setback in the three-week search, which was bolstered in previous days by satellite images showing possible debris.
Missing Malaysia Airlines Plane: What We Know Now
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Further analysis of radar data revealed the plane was traveling faster than previously estimated, resulting in it burning more fuel and shortening the distance it could have traveled south into the Indian Ocean, officials said.
AMSA General Director John Young defended previous search efforts in the southern Indian Ocean, which have involved crews from six countries.
"This actually happens to us all the time," he said of the re-focused search. "New information will emerge out of sequence with the investigation itself."
Chicago Law Firm Launches Litigation in Malaysia Airlines Jet Disappearance
Three weeks of weather and currents have added difficulty to the search, Young said.
"There will be a significant amount of random dispersion of objects," Young said, "so the search area steadily gets bigger with time."
The shifting focus comes amid improved weather conditions, with 10 aircraft and six ships slated to participate in today's search. Thursday's search efforts were scaled back to the heavy winds and rain.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: New Data Shows Focus in the Southern Indian Ocean
The jetliner was carrying 239 people when it disappeared March 8.
Relatives of the passengers remain devastated. Malaysia Airlines group chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya addressed the tragedy in a separate statement today.
"Ever since the disappearance of Flight MH370, Malaysia Airlines' focus has been to comfort and support the families of those involved and support the multi-national search effort. We will continue to do this, while we also continue to support the work of the investigating authorities," the statement reads.
Scientists have discovered a dwarf pink planet located beyond the known edge of our Solar System.
The known Solar System can be divided into three parts: the rocky planets like Earth, which are close to the Sun; the gas giant planets, which are further out; and the frozen objects of the Kuiper belt, which lie just beyond Neptune's orbit. Beyond this, there appears to be an edge to the Solar System where only one object, Sedna, was previously known to exist for its entire orbit.
But the newly found 2012 VP113 has an orbit that stays even beyond Sedna, making it the furthest known in the Solar System.
Sedna was discovered beyond the Kuiper Belt edge in 2003, and it was not known if Sedna was unique, as Pluto once was thought to be before the Kuiper Belt was discovered. With the discovery of 2012 VP113 it is now clear Sedna is not unique and is likely the second known member of the hypothesized inner Oort cloud, the likely origin of some comets.
2012 VP113's closest orbit point to the Sun brings it to about 80 times the distance of the Earth from the Sun.
Carnegie's Scott Sheppard and Chadwick Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory used the new Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the NOAO 4 meter telescope in Chile for discovery.
From the amount of sky searched, Sheppard and Trujillo determine that about 900 objects with orbits like Sedna and 2012 VP113 with sizes larger than 1000 km may exist and that the total population of the inner Oort cloud is likely bigger than that of the Kuiper Belt and main asteroid belt.
The findings have been published in the journal Nature.
By Howard Mintz, Josh Richman and Jessica Calefati
Staff writers
SAN FRANCISCO -- Known for navigating the state Capitol's backrooms and this city's complicated political landscape, state Sen. Leland Yee now is accused of consorting with notorious felons, accepting money for his cash-strapped political campaigns in exchange for favors and promising undercover FBI agents he could deliver connections to international gun runners.
In a stunning development that almost certainly torpedoes Yee's quest for statewide office, the San Francisco Democrat wound up glum and disoriented in a federal courtroom Wednesday. The politician who introduced anti-gun-violence legislation is now charged with trafficking in firearms and public corruption in an FBI undercover operation that could land him in prison for years.
Democratic leaders in Sacramento, already stung by another recent federal corruption case, exhorted Yee to immediately step down. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, called the allegations against Yee "shocking" and "surreal."
"Senator Yee should leave the Senate and leave it now," he said.
With scenes resembling the recent movie blockbuster "American Hustle," Yee is depicted in a startling, 137-page FBI affidavit of repeatedly offering to broker illegal firearms sales in exchange for campaign contributions. He allegedly took part in dealmaking meetings with undercover agents, often arranged by San Francisco political consultant Keith Jackson, a close associate among two dozen figures charged in the case.
Yee is linked to a host of wrongdoing to pad his political warchest, charged with seven felonies in a case with two dozen defendants accused of everything from money laundering to murder-for-hire. The defendants include Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, a reputed ringleader of a Chinese syndicate federal investigators have been trying to crack since the late 1980s.
A federal magistrate judge released Yee on $500,000 bond, and he brushed past a swarm of reporters and left the courthouse in a dark blue BMW. Paul DeMeester, Yee's lawyer, said he was encouraged the senator was released and added: "The future will hold a lot of work."
The government's case will no doubt be challenged as the case unfolds. It rests largely on the FBI's accounts of Yee's meetings with undercover agents, which include alleged attempts to improperly land cash for his current secretary of state campaign.
But as recently as last month, Yee was engaged in the secretive meetings, at one point telling an undercover operative with whom he was trying to cut an arms deal that he was ready to cash in on his connections in Asia if he lost his current bid to become secretary of state, according to court papers.
Yee, who once championed a California law that would have outlawed violent video games, told undercover operatives that he had ties to an international arms dealer with connections as far-flung as Russia, during one meeting saying: "Do I think we can make some money? I think we can make some money," according to the FBI affidavit.
The charges surfaced during a whirlwind day of law enforcement raids around the Bay Area, where Yee was arrested early in the morning at home and Chow was hauled from bed by federal agents. In all, the criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday charges 26 people -- including Yee and Chow -- with crimes including firearms trafficking, money laundering, murder-for-hire, drug distribution, trafficking in contraband cigarettes and "honest services" fraud. That last charge is the centerpiece of the case against Yee and Jackson and effectively alleges they attempted to secure political donations in exchange for their help, including arranging the firearms deals. But federal agents never culminated the arms deals through Yee, though they did give him cash, the affidavit says.
Yee is charged with conspiracy to traffic in firearms without a license and to illegally import firearms, and six counts of scheming to defraud citizens of honest services. Each corruption count is punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000, while the gun-trafficking count is punishable by up to five years and $250,000.
The charges are particularly shocking given that Yee has been among the state Senate's most outspoken advocates both of gun control and of good-government initiatives.
"I'm just astonished," said Corey Cook, director of the University of San Francisco's Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good. "Political corruption is one thing, but this is a whole other level."
Jackson, a former school-board president, allegedly was the link between Yee and undercover agents, as well as Chow, who federal prosecutors say is the current "Dragonhead," or leader, of the San Francisco-based Ghee Kung Tong organization, spelled in court documents as Chee Kung Tong.
Chow introduced an undercover agent who had infiltrated his organization to Jackson. With his son, Brandon Jackson, and another man, Marlon Sullivan, Keith Jackson allegedly sold the agent guns and bulletproof vests. The Jacksons and Sullivan also allegedly conspired in a murder-for-hire scheme requested by the undercover agent, as well as other crimes, including sale of stolen credit cards and purchase of cocaine. There is no link in the FBI document between Yee and the murder-for-hire scheme.
An FBI affidavit says Keith Jackson last August told one of the undercover agents that Yee was "associated with a person who was an international arms dealer who was shipping large stockpiles of weapons into a foreign country." At later meetings in August and December, Jackson said Yee had agreed to help set up an arms deal; the agent first gave Jackson $1,000 cash for his help and later cut a $5,000 check from a bogus company to Yee's campaign.
At one meeting, agents pressed Yee and Jackson for shoulder-fired weapons or missiles, the affidavit says; Yee asked whether he wanted automatic weapons, and the agent confirmed he did -- about $500,000 to $2.5 million worth. Yee told the agent "he saw their relationship as tremendously beneficial," the affidavit says, adding he wanted the agent and Jackson to make all the money because he didn't want to go to jail. The agent replied he would pay Yee and Jackson hundreds of thousands of dollars over time and more immediately would pay $100,000 for the first arms deal. "Senator Yee said 'All right, take care.' The meeting ended."
But during one meeting, Yee appeared spooked by the federal indictment of state Sen. Ronald Calderon; the two shared a desk on the Senate floor. Yee, the affidavit alleges, discussed specific locations in the Philippines and Florida that might be ideal for moving the guns, which he said would include M-16-type automatic rifles.
Yee, Jackson and Wilson Lim and the agent met again later; Yee said the arms deal wouldn't be done until after this year's elections. "Senator Yee explained, 'Once things start to move, it's going to attract attention. We just got to be extra-extra careful,'" the affidavit says.
Finally, they all met March 14, where they discussed how they would break up the undercover agent's money into legitimate campaign donations. The agent told Yee he was prepared to give Yee $6,800 cash and a list of weapons he wanted; Yee replied "he would take the cash and have one of his children write out a check."
Yee is the state's third Democratic legislator recently targeted in corruption allegations. In February, state Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello, surrendered to authorities after being indicted on bribery charges. In January, state Sen. Roderick Wright, D-Inglewood, was convicted of voter fraud and perjury stemming from a 2010 indictment.
Staff writers Thomas Peele, Robert Salonga, Mark Gomez and Erin Ivie contributed to this report.
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{{/host}} {{/message}}{{/content}}{{/assets}}{{/assetlist}} /* ]]> */WASHINGTON — With less than a week left for people to sign up for health insurance, the Obama administration said Tuesday that it would allow more time to people who had tried to apply but were blocked by technical problems with the federal exchange.
Several states running their own exchanges, including Maryland, Minnesota, and Nevada, have taken similar steps in the last two weeks.
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Open enrollment was scheduled to end on Monday for all Americans. The White House had previously insisted that the deadline was firm and would not be extended.
Under the move planned by the administration, some people will be given a special enrollment period, beyond the March 31 deadline, if they can show they were not able to enroll because of an error by the federal exchange or by the Department of Health and Human Services.
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Federal officials allowed a special enrollment period, on a case-by-case basis, for some people who were unable to meet the Dec. 24 enrollment deadline for coverage starting Jan. 1.
Aaron Albright, a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs the federal insurance exchange, said Tuesday that the special enrollment period could be particularly helpful to people with special circumstances and complex cases.
"Open enrollment ends March 31," Albright said. But he added, "We are experiencing a surge in demand and are making sure that we will be ready to help consumers who may be in line by the deadline to complete enrollment, either online or over the phone."
Asked last week if there would be any kind of grace period for people who had trouble with the website, Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said, "As was the case for the December deadline, we're going to want to make sure that people who are already in line can finish their enrollment."
Consumer advocates and insurance companies had been urging the administration to provide extra time for people to complete applications.
While HealthCare.gov is working better than it did last October, they said, it still has occasional problems — when, for example, the website is down or displays inaccurate information about premiums for certain health plans.
In some cases, consumers said they enrolled in an insurance plan through HealthCare.gov but received no information from the insurer and therefore filed a complaint with the federal government.
Federal officials put pressure on the insurer to fix the problem.
But the insurer said it had not received any notice of the person's enrollment from the federal government.
Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, has said repeatedly that the federal website has been repaired and is ready to handle a surge of applications expected just before the deadline.
But White House officials and some technology experts working on the exchange began to worry that the website might freeze up if the demand exceeded expectations.
President Obama and members of his administration have been traversing the country, encouraging people to sign up for insurance, and enrollment fairs around the country have been deluged with applications from people responding to those messages.
WASHINGTON — President Obama's new plan for the National Security Agency would significantly curb its authority, ending its vast collection of Americans' telephone records, but at the same time give the spy agency access to millions of cellphone records it currently does not reach.
The compromise, which would require Congress' approval, won praise Tuesday from prominent lawmakers, including leading defenders and critics of the agency. But it faces a lengthy legislative process during which the agency will continue to collect and store the records of millions of U.S. telephone calls.
At a news conference in The Hague, where he took part in a world meeting on nuclear security, Obama said the Justice Department and intelligence agencies had given him "an option that I think is workable" and that "addresses the two core concerns that people have" about the most controversial surveillance program revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Photos: Hacking victims
The first concern, Obama said, was that the government not control a vast archive of U.S. telephone call data. Currently, the NSA collects records of virtually all land-line telephone calls in the U.S. and stores them for five years.
Under the administration proposal, the government would no longer keep that archive. Instead, all telephone companies, including cellphone providers, would be required to keep call records for 18 months, the current industry standard.
The second concern, Obama said, was that the NSA be allowed to search only those phone records under a specific court order. Previously, a blanket court order required telephone companies to turn call records over to the NSA, but no judge scrutinized analysts' decisions about which numbers to look at.
In February, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved Obama's request to require judicial approval for each search. The new proposal would write that requirement into law, with an exception for emergencies.
U.S. intelligence agencies have to "win back the trust, not just of governments but more importantly of ordinary citizens" around the world, Obama said. Doing so is "not going to happen overnight because I think that there's a tendency to be skeptical of government and to be skeptical, in particular, of U.S. intelligence services," he added.
The new plan should help make Americans more comfortable with the surveillance program, he said. Obama repeated his belief that "some of the reporting here in Europe, as well as the United States, frankly, has been pretty sensationalized," and he said that U.S. intelligence analysts had exercised their authority judiciously. But such power could be abused in the future, he said.
"The fears about our privacy in this age of the Internet and big data are justified," he said.
The NSA does not obtain the contents of communications under the telephone program. But the ability to map a person's communications with times, dates and the numbers called can provide a window into someone's activities and connections.
Snowden's disclosures to journalists made the existence of the program public in June. It was the first of a stream of stories that have revealed some of the government's most sensitive electronic intelligence efforts.
In a statement through his lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union, Snowden, who has taken refuge in Russia, called Obama's proposal a "turning point."
"It marks the beginning of a new effort to reclaim our rights from the NSA and restore the public's seat at the table of government," his statement said.
The NSA director, Gen. Keith Alexander, also embraced the proposal. "I think it's the right thing to do, and I think it addresses our counter-terrorism operational mission requirements," he said in an interview.
Alexander, who is retiring Friday, has been lobbying members of Congress to adopt the plan. NSA officials consider the compromise the best outcome the agency could hope for, particularly since its authority to collect phone records will expire in 18 months unless Congress reauthorizes it.
Congressional critics of the spy agency praised some aspects of the proposal, but urged the NSA to immediately halt further collection of telephone records until Congress acts.
"This is the start of the end of dragnet surveillance in America," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Joined by Sens. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in an unusual bipartisan alliance, Wyden has pressured the White House over the NSA's activities.
"They can stop immediately," Paul said. "There's nothing forcing them to keep collecting the data."
Administration officials, however, say they plan to continue the collection for at least three more months while Congress debates. They have not ruled out continuing longer if Congress does not act.
Two leading NSA supporters, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and the committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, unveiled their own proposal Tuesday that tracks the White House plan in most respects, with a major exception: It would not require court approval each time phone records are searched.
The parts of the administration proposal dealing with cellphone companies would provide significant benefits for the NSA, Alexander acknowledged in the interview. Although the agency's archive includes hundreds of millions of telephone records, U.S. officials disclosed last month that it did not reach a large segment of cellphone calls. As a result, the NSA may collect only about 30% of call data in the country.
The administration's new plan would require cellphone providers to keep records much as land-line companies do, significantly expanding the NSA's access to information.
"This could actually make the program more efficient and more effective [and] at the same time more protective of civil liberties," said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), who proposed legislation in January similar to the White House plan.
White House officials have been laying the groundwork with phone service providers, which would be required to standardize their records and make them available on a continuously updated basis. The NSA would be allowed to search up to two "hops" of phone numbers connected to a number linked to a terrorist, meaning all the numbers connected to the suspect number and all the numbers connected to that first set of connections.
The once-secret program, authorized by Section 215 of the Patriot Act, is used by the NSA to analyze links between callers in an effort to identify hidden terrorist plots in the United States. Intelligence officials have said it played a role in thwarting at least a dozen terrorist plots. Critics say only one case was discovered as a direct result of a phone record search — an Anaheim cab driver who was sentenced last month to six years in prison for sending money to Somalia's Al Qaeda affiliate.
ken.dilanian@latimes.com
Lisa Mascaro in the Washington bureau and Times staff writer Kathleen Hennessey in The Hague contributed to this report.
U.S. equipment designed to detect black box signals arrived in Australia on Wednesday, as searchers stepped up efforts to find some trace of a Malaysian airliner thought to have crashed 18 days ago thousands of miles off course in the Indian Ocean.
A dozen aircraft from Australia, the United States, New Zealand, China, Japan and South Korea were once more scouring the seas some 2,500 kilometres southwest of Perth in the hunt for wreckage, after bad weather on Tuesday forced the suspension of the search.
"The crash zone is as close to nowhere as it's possible to be but it's closer to Australia than anywhere else," Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said, before leading the country's parliament in a moment's silence.
"A considerable amount of debris has been sighted in the area where the flight was last recorded. Bad weather and inaccessibility has so far prevented any of it from being recovered. But we are confident that it will be."
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak this week confirmed that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which vanished while flying to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, had crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.
Citing satellite-data analysis by British company Inmarsat , he said there was no doubt the Boeing 777 came down in one of the most remote places on Earth - an implicit admission that all 239 people on board had died.
Recovery of wreckage could unlock clues about why and how the plane had diverted so far off course in one of aviation's most puzzling mysteries. Theories range from a hijacking to sabotage or a possible suicide by one of the pilots, but investigators have not ruled out technical problems.
An Australian navy ship returned to the area after being driven away by gale force winds and 20-metre waves on Tuesday, while a Chinese icebreaker and three Chinese navy vessels are now in the search zone.
Early flights, including a Japanese P3-Orion were returning from the search on Wednesday afternoon and an AMSA spokesman said no objects had so far been spotted.
A family member of passengers aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines plane reacts while hearing the latest developments in the search for flight MH370, at a hotel in Malaysia on Tuesday. (Joshua Paul/The Associated Press)
The United States has sent an undersea Navy drone and a high-tech black box detector which will be fitted to an Australian Defence vessel due in Perth in the coming days.
The so-called black boxes - the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder - record what happens during flight, but time is running out to pick up locator beacons that stop about a month after a crash due to limited battery life.
Malaysia said on Tuesday that the U.S. "Towed Pinger Locator" would not arrive in the search area until April 5, which would give it only a few days to find the black box before the beacon battery would be expected to run out.
The prolonged and so far fruitless search and investigation have taken a toll, with dozens of distraught relatives of Chinese passengers clashing with police in Beijing on Tuesday, accusing Malaysia of "delays and deception".
Malaysia's confused initial response to the plane's disappearance and a perception of poor communications has enraged many relatives of the more than 150 Chinese passengers and has strained ties between Beijing and Kuala Lumpur.
Chinese special envoy, Zhang Yesui, is meeting with Malaysia's Najib on Wednesday, state media reported.
Flight MH370 vanished from civilian radar screens less than an hour after taking off on March 8 and investigators believe someone on the flight may have shut off the plane's communications systems.
Partial military radar tracking showed it turning west and recrossing the Malay Peninsula, apparently under the control of a skilled pilot.
The air crash investigation is shaping up as one of the most costly and difficult ever. Normally, an official investigation can only begin once a crash site has been identified. That would give Malaysia power to co-ordinate and sift evidence.
A government source told Reuters that Malaysia would lead the investigation, but hoped other countries, especially Australia, would play a major role.
Despite the shutoff of its main reporting and communications systems, the plane continued to exchange hourly electronic "pings" with a commercial satellite operated by Inmarsat that showed it kept flying for around six hours after the last radar sighting northwest of Malaysia.
Initially, those faint signals could only place the plane in one of two massive arcs stretching across Asia. But Najib said Inmarsat had performed further calculations to narrow the location of the final "ping" to the southern Indian Ocean.
Malaysian authorities said a there was a further "partial handshake" between the satellite and the aircraft eight minutes after the last ping, which was still being analyzed to see if it could shed any further light on the plane's fate.
By Evan Perez, CNN
updated 1:38 AM EDT, Wed March 26, 2014
Obama's European tour
Obama's European tour
Obama's European tour
Obama's European tour
Obama's European tour
Obama's European tour
Obama's European tour
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
(CNN) -- Three Secret Service agents were sent home after one of them was found passed out after a night of drinking in Amsterdam, an official familiar with the incident told CNN.
The agents were in the Netherlands as part of a contingent preparing for President Barack Obama's visit there this week.
According to the official, one Secret Service agent was found intoxicated and passed out in the hallway of his hotel. Hotel staff subsequently alerted U.S. authorities.
This agent and two other agents -- who were his companions on a night out drinking in the Dutch capital -- were disciplined by being sent home Sunday for not exercising better judgment.
Confirming that three agents went home for disciplinary reasons, Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan added an investigation is underway.
The story was first reported by The Washington Post.
The agents are blamed for not doing more to prevent another embarrassment for the 150-year-old agency, whose mission includes investigating crimes such as counterfeiting and credit card fraud in addition to protecting top U.S. figures, including presidents.
One of the biggest, most recent black eyes came nearly two years ago and also involved an advanced team ahead of an Obama visit to Colombia for the Summit of the Americas.
In that case, Secret Service agents hit the clubs of Cartagena for a night of drinking that ended with bringing prostitutes back to their hotel.
The agency immediately pulled 11 agents allegedly involved in the scandal from Obama's security detail, put them on administrative leave and removed their security clearances. In addition, 12 military personnel also were cited for their role.
Several government reports later examined the incident, looking into not just what happened but how the Secret Service handled the matter.
The agency has instituted tougher disciplinary rules in the wake of the Cartagena scandal.
CNN's Greg Botelho contributed to this report.
An attendee wears an Oculus Rift HD virtual-reality head-mounted display at the Intel booth at the 2014 International CES on Jan. 9, 2014, in Las Vegas Robyn Beck—AFP/Getty Images Facebook will acquire virtual-reality technology company Oculus VR for $2 billion, the social-networking giant announced Tuesday. Oculus makes the Oculus Rift, a virtual-reality headset originally funded on Kickstarter.
The deal includes $400 million in cash and $1.6 billion in Facebook stock, as well as an additional $300 million if Oculus meets certain performance targets. Oculus will continue to operate independently at its headquarters in Irvine, Calif. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2014.
Though the Rift has been pitched as a video-gaming device, Facebook plans to use its technology for communications, media and other forms of entertainment. In a conference call with analysts, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, said virtual reality has the potential to be the next great computing evolution, following the transition from desktop computers to mobile devices.
"Oculus has the potential to be the most social platform ever," he said. '"Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures."
In a post on his Facebook profile page, Zuckerberg presented such scenarios as sitting courtside at a sports event, studying with a group of students or consulting face-to-face with a doctor as potential uses for virtual reality.
The acquisition amount is a huge sum for a company that has yet to release a consumer-facing product. The Oculus Rift made its public debut at the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo, the video-game industry's largest trade show. That summer the company launched a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign in which it eclipsed its $250,000 funding goal nearly 10 times over. Interest in the device has risen steadily since then, with the company raising more than $90 million in venture funding over the past two years. As many as 75,000 people have ordered developer kits in order to test the device and begin making software for it. And owners of the device can already use an Oculus Rift to play PC games, enter the world of Game of Thrones or even visit a supermarket. However, the company has not yet released a version of its headset for sale to the general public. Zuckerberg did not provide a timetable for when that might happen.
For now, the Oculus team's focus will remain on gaming. Facebook chief financial officer David Ebersman told investors that the $2 billion valuation of the company was based on gaming opportunities alone, and it's not a lonely field: Sony revealed its own virtual-reality headset last week and Microsoft has recently expressed interest in the technology.
The acquisition comes just weeks after Facebook announced it would purchase the messaging service WhatsApp for $19 billion. Zuckerberg noted that he didn't expect Facebook's buying spree to continue, but that the company would open its wallet for companies that it thinks offer a unique value opportunity. "There are not that many companies that are building core technologies that can be the next major computing platform," he said of Oculus.
Facebook does not yet have a business model for Oculus, but revenues won't center around selling Oculus Rift headsets. Zuckerberg said he could envision people visiting virtual worlds where they can buy goods and are served advertisements.
The huge purchase shows that every major tech player is making a big bet on wearable devices. Google is continuing to develop its Google Glass hardware and just announced a version of its Android operating system tailored for smart watches. Samsung already has a line of smart watches. With Oculus, Facebook is making a remarkably bold bet that people in the future will want to be fully immersed in technology.
"We feel like we should be looking ahead and thinking about what the next platforms are going to be," Zuckerberg said. "We think vision is going to be the next really big platform."
It could take weeks, months or years for families of the dead and injured and other local residents to recover from the mile-wide mudslide that buried a rural Washington town under tons of mud and debris in one of the worst landslide disasters in U.S. history.
At least 16 people were confirmed dead on Tuesday evening and dozens of reports of missing people have been received by authorities.
Eight more bodies were located and were expected to be pulled from the pile of trees, mud and other debris Wednesday in the Cascade foothills community about an hour northeast of Seattle.
As the recovery effort continues in its grim task, here are several questions that linger about the tragedy:
The hillside across from the small town of Oso, by the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River, has been a known landslide area for more than 60 years, according to geologists.
The river has been eroding the base of the slope since at least the 1950s, bringing down earth and debris that muddied the river and threatened salmon runs in stretch of water that has lured fishermen to the area for ages. Then in 2006, a small slide damaged homes in a small riverside neighborhood.
Over the winter, heavy rains saturated the soil on the unstable slope perched precariously above the neighborhood.
Then, on Saturday morning, the soaked earth gave way — possibly disturbed by a tiny 1.1 earthquake about two weeks earlier.
A massive load of some 15 million cubic yards of mud, clay and wood roared across the river and buried the neighborhood and other rural homes before it raced across state Highway 530.
The day of the slide, four people were confirmed dead. Since search-and-rescue operations began another 12 bodies have been pulled from the slide zone, and officials expect the number to increase as more bodies are recovered.
"I believe in miracles. I believe that people can survive these events."
John Pennington, head of Snohomish County's Department of Emergency Management, acknowledged on Tuesday that the chances of finding survivors were slim but said the effort remained a rescue and recovery operation.
"I believe in miracles," he said. "I believe that people can survive these events."
Four days after the deadly landslide, authorities still did not have an accurate number on how many people were missing in the disaster. The potential number keeps going up. At first it was 18, then 108, as of Tuesday it stood at 176.
The confusion, officials said, comes from using what are essentially raw numbers — reports called into a hotline by family, friends and others that could be false alarms and also likely include duplicates.
The emergency agency director, Pennington, on Tuesday said, "the 176, I believe very strongly is not a number we're going to see in fatalities. I believe it's going to drop dramatically."
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Search efforts are likely to be long and complicated given the isolated location, weather and the nature of the debris, a senior federal official monitoring the rescue effort told NBC News.
"The ground is still moving. It's really not good," the official said of the situation.
And, sadly, the slowly moving debris pile is likely is causing significant damage to any bodies still buried in the debris, the official said.
Any future forensic work will be painstaking, reminiscent in some ways of work after the World Trade Center attack in September 2001, the official said.
The situation on the debris field is also complicated by the high number of potential casualties, a lack of electrical power at the site, the cold weather, an absence of nearby shelter, and the many agencies involved in the operation (law enforcement, rescue crews, medical examiner, utilities, and others), the official said.
"It's just slow tedious work," said Snohomish County District 21 Fire Chief Travis Hots, who said he's seen cars twisted and torn into pieces by the force of the slide.
The mudslide happened without an evacuation order or any other alert at about 11 a.m. local time on Saturday, March 22.
County officials have insisted they couldn't have anticipated the slide, but records dating back to the 1950s show that the hillside in Oso was unstable.
John Pennington, head of Snohomish County's Department of Emergency Management, on Monday called the slide "completely unforeseen."
"This came out of nowhere," he said.
Yet a 1999 report for the Army Corps of Engineers by geomorphologist Daniel Miller warned of the potential for a massive collapse.
Snohomish County Executive John Lovick and Public Works Director Steve Thomsen have said they were not aware of the 1999 report.
Fewer than 1 percent of homeowners in Washington state have insurance against landslides, according to Karl Newman, president of the Northwest Insurance Council.
Newman said 4,700 of properties — homeowners and businesses — in the state have such coverage. There are 1.5 million single family homes, according to the U.S. Census.
Known as a Difference in Conditions (DIC) policy, the policies cover disasters not include from the typical homeowner's or business policy. A DIC policy can cover landslide, mudflow, earthquake, and floods.
Cost of the policies vary by risk and are written not by familiar names in homeowner's insurance but by Lloyds of London and other companies.
Though it is unknown how many in Oso had such insurance, Newman said generally four factors seem to keep homeowners from signing up for the policies:
Officials are using maps that they have overlaid on the slide zone, and they have also talked to a number of local residents to get an idea of what specific locations — homes and other residences where people were known to be dwelling — should be targeted for searches.
"We haven't lost hope that there is a possibility that someone will be found alive."
Search and cadaver dogs often lead the way into the slide zone where emergency crews, including firefighters, police as well as local residents, are digging through the mess of earth and wood debris.
Bulldozers and smaller backhoes are on hand to help the digging, and helicopters to help in spotting and transportation.
"We haven't lost hope that there is a possibility that someone will be found alive," Hots, the fire chief, said late Tuesday. "We're going full steam ahead."
At times, searchers are climbing atop flattened houses and cutting holes in the structure with chain saws.
After President Barack Obama declared an emergency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency requested 18 California firefighters with special training in urban rescue to join the effort.
Members of the Urban Search and Rescue teams are specifically deployed to find people trapped after a disaster.
The work, however, is made difficult by the sheer amount of debris – an estimated 15 million cubic yards of muck and wreckage.
GOOGLE (TOP) | DAN BATES / THE HERALD VIA AP (BOTTOM) Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and a small entourage walk eastward on a cleared swath of SR 530 toward the first house that lies in a heap across the highway. The same stretch of road is pictured in the Google photo above.
If the history of such disasters is any guide, it could take weeks, months or even years for the community to completely recover from the tragedy.
On Wednesday, a family assistance center for relatives to identify victims will be set up in the nearby town of Arlington. A special crisis line has also been created where residents dealing with anguish can call.
State road crews are clearing snow from the Mountain Loop Highway, normally closed until Memorial Day, in order to give residents a route into the largest town in the area Darrington, which has been cut off by the slide.
People are also gathering at churches to pray for loved ones as well as healing and strength for the community.
The Red Cross as well as some local banks have are receiving donations to help the community recover.
Still, the emotional toll of survivors is hard to measure.
"Some of these are our friends, family of some people that serve with us." Jeff McClelland, a local volunteer firefighter helping find victims, told NBC station KING TV. "A close firefighter friend lost his wife and his granddaughter. That's tough."
He said he will continue working to free people trapped in the debris pile in order to give friends and neighbors a final resting place.
After that, the town might begin to move on.
Bill Dedman and Richard Esposito of NBC as well as The Associated Press contributed to this report.
First published March 26 2014, 1:58 AM
