In Brief | Nation & World | 11-24-15

Suicide vest found in Paris raises possible link to suspect

PARIS — A street cleaner on Monday found an explosive vest similar to those used in the Paris attacks near the place where a fugitive suspect’s cellphone was found, raising the possibility that he aborted his mission, either ditching a malfunctioning vest or fleeing in fear.

Authorities said the device, which did not have a detonator, was found in a pile of rubble in the southern Paris suburb of Montrouge. A police official said the vest contained bolts and the same type of explosive used in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks that claimed 130 lives and left hundreds wounded.

It was found in the same area where a cellphone belonging to fugitive suspect Salah Abdeslam was pinpointed by GPS on the day of the Paris attacks, two police officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.

Police have been conducting a manhunt for Abdeslam, who was stopped by police after the attacks but let go and allowed to travel on to Belgium.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, meanwhile, announced Brussels would remain at the highest alert level for at least another week, maintaining security measures that have severely disrupted normal life in the Belgian capital since the weekend.

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US issues travel warning in wake of terror attacks

WASHINGTON — Americans should be alert to the possible travel risks, especially during the holidays, following increased terrorist threats around the world, the State Department warned on Monday.

A travel alert, which is to be in effect until Feb. 24, said current information suggests that militants with the Islamic State, al-Qaida, Boko Haram and other terrorist groups continue to plan attacks in multiple regions. U.S. authorities said the likelihood of terror attacks will continue as members of IS return from Syria and Iraq, and other individuals not affiliated with terror groups engage in violence on their own.

Extremists have targeted sporting events, theaters, open markets and aviation targets. In the past year, there have been multiple attacks in France, Nigeria, Denmark, Lebanon, Turkey and Mali. IS has claimed responsibility for the Oct. 31 bombing of a Russian airliner in Egypt, killing 224 people.

“U.S. citizens should exercise vigilance when in public places or using transportation,” the alert said. “Be aware of immediate surroundings and avoid large crowds or crowded places. Exercise particular caution during the holiday season and at holiday festivals or events.”

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Mali releases photos of slain gunmen in hotel attack

BAMAKO, Mali — State media broadcast photos Monday of the two slain attackers of a luxury hotel in Mali’s capital, appealing for anyone who knew them to come forward with information about the gunmen.

The photos of the two young men were taken after Friday’s rampage at the Radisson Blu hotel in which 19 people were killed, said Capt. Baba Cisse at the Interior Ministry.

The gunmen, who shouted “God is great!” in Arabic as they attacked, were shot to death by security forces following a more than seven-hour siege in the capital of the West African country.

Officials also put out phone numbers, urging people who might have known them to call with information.

The decision to release the photos came a day after the Islamic extremist group that first claimed responsibility for the attack purported to identify the gunmen in an audio recording, according to Al-Akhbar, a Mauritanian news site that often receives messages from Malian extremists.

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$160B deal to combine Pfizer and Allergan raises outcry

A $160 billion deal announced Monday to merge Pfizer and Allergan and create the world’s biggest drug company renewed the outcry in Washington over “inversions,” in which U.S. corporations combine with companies overseas to lower their tax bill.

The combination — the second-largest merger in history — could have ramifications around the globe, pushing up drug prices and spurring more such deals in the fast-consolidating health care sector and other fields.

It is also increasing the election-year backlash from U.S. politicians who have been blasting drugmakers recently over medicine prices that can exceed $100,000 a year.

In what would be the biggest inversion ever, New York-based Pfizer could save hundreds of millions in U.S. taxes annually because it would move its tax headquarters to Ireland, where Allergan is based. That would enable Pfizer to slash its tax rate from around 25 percent this year to about 18 percent.

Inversions have long been attacked by some politicians as a tax dodge, and Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bernie Sanders, the leading Democratic presidential contenders, criticized the deal.

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White House asks allies to step up in IS campaign

WASHINGTON — The White House urged allies on Monday to do more in the campaign against the Islamic State, while President Barack Obama faced pressure in return to show the U.S.-led coalition will intensify efforts in response to the Paris attacks, even without a major shift in strategy.

Requests for more counterintelligence, military and humanitarian assistance came a day before French President Francois Hollande was to arrive at the White House to discuss the fight against the extremists believed to be behind the Nov. 13 attacks that killed 130 people. Hollande, who next visits Russian President Vladimir Putin, is expected to seek more coordinated military operations that would include both the U.S. and Moscow.

Obama has shown no inclination to rethink the U.S. strategy or significantly expand America’s commitment, despite pressure from Hollande, Republican critics and some members of his own Democratic Party. However, Secretary of State John Kerry said in Abu Dhabi that both he and the president would like to see progress against the Islamic State “go faster.”

At the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest said the U.S. may step up efforts supporting strategies believed to be working — airstrikes and train-and-assist missions in Syria and Iraq — but he played down the possibility of any surge of new American resources into the fight.

The U.S. is “pulling more than our weight” in the coalition, Earnest said. “And we believe that there is more that can be done if countries are willing to contribute additional resources.”

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Social media helps drive historic Cuban exodus to US

PENAS BLANCAS, Costa Rica — As summer began to bake the central Cuban city of Sancti Spiritus, Elio Alvarez and Lideisy Hernandez sold their tiny apartment and everything in it for $5,000 and joined the largest migration from their homeland in decades.

Buying two smartphones for $160 apiece on a layover on their way to Ecuador, they plugged themselves into a highly organized, well-funded and increasingly successful homebrewed effort to make human traffickers obsolete by using smartphones and messaging apps on much of the 3,400-mile (5,500-kilometer) overland journey that’s become Cubans’ main route to the U.S.

Some 45,000 Cubans are expected to move by bus, boat, taxi and on foot from Ecuador and other South and Central American countries to the Texas and California borders this year, afraid that the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba will mean an imminent end to special immigration privileges that date to the opening of the Cold War. With thousands more taking rafts across the Florida Straits, 2015 may witness the biggest outflow of Cubans since the 1980 Mariel boatlift that hauled 125,000 people across the Florida Straits.

The overland exodus has caused a border crisis in Central America, set off tensions in the newly friendly U.S.-Cuban relationship and sparked rising calls in the U.S. to end Cubans’ automatic right to legal residency once they touch U.S. soil.

At the heart of it all is Cubans’ ability to cross some of the world’s most dangerous territory relatively unscathed by the corrupt border guards, criminal gangs and human traffickers known as coyotes who make life hell for so many other Latin American migrants. Key to that ability is the constant flow of information between migrants starting the journey and those who have just completed it.

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2 men charged with murder in killing of pastor’s wife

INDIANAPOLIS — Authorities charged two young men with murder on Monday in the fatal shooting of a pastor’s pregnant wife during a home invasion that happened after the minister left the couple’s Indianapolis home without locking the front door.

Amanda Blackburn, 28, was found partially nude, with her underwear nearby and her shirt pulled up, lying in a pool of blood on her living room floor. She died one day after the Nov. 10 attack on Indianapolis’ northwest side.

Her husband, Pastor Davey Blackburn, told police he had left the home’s front door unlocked when he departed about 6 a.m. that morning to go to the gym and work out and returned home about 8:20 a.m. to find his wounded wife. The couple’s 15-month-old son, Weston, was at home upstairs in a crib but was not harmed in the attack.

Marion County Prosecutor Terry Curry identified the two men charged with murder as Larry Jo Taylor Jr., 18, and Jalen E. Watson, 21, both of Indianapolis, who face murder, burglary, theft and several other charges. A probable cause affidavit says that Taylor shot Blackburn three times, including once in the back of the head.

Watson also faces a murder charge because Blackburn was killed during a burglary in which prosecutors allege that he was involved.

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Police hunt suspects in mass shooting in New Orleans park

NEW ORLEANS — Police on Monday sought to determine what touched off a wild shootout in a crowd of hundreds of people at a New Orleans playground, where an evening of fun at a block party swiftly turned into a nightmare.

The shootout, combined with the recent shooting of a good Samaritan who tried to help a woman who was being dragged toward a vehicle, put a city that has long struggled with violence on edge.

“No one feels safe,” said Peter Scharf, a Louisiana State University professor who studies crime.

The Sunday night shootout happened as hundreds of people — possibly as many as 500 — gathered at the Bunny Friend Playground in what police described as a block party. A music video was also being filmed there. Police said neither event had a permit.

Officers were nearby overseeing a neighborhood parade when they received reports of a large crowd at the park. The shooting happened while they were on their way over to disperse the gathering. Two groups pulled out weapons and started firing, police said.

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Nestle confirms labor abuse among its Thai seafood suppliers

WASHINGTON — Impoverished migrant workers in Thailand are sold or lured by false promises and forced to catch and process fish that ends up in global food giant Nestle SA’s supply chains.

The unusual disclosure comes from Geneva-based Nestle SA itself, which in an act of self-policing announced the conclusions of its yearlong internal investigation on Monday. The study found virtually all U.S. and European companies buying seafood from Thailand are exposed to the same risks of abuse in their supply chains.

Nestle SA, among the biggest food companies in the world, launched the investigation in December 2014, after reports from news outlets and nongovernmental organizations tied brutal and largely unregulated working conditions to their shrimp, prawns and Purina brand pet foods. Its findings echo those of The Associated Press in reports this year on slavery in the seafood industry that have resulted in the rescue of more than 2,000 fishermen.

The laborers come from Thailand’s much poorer neighbors Myanmar and Cambodia. Brokers illegally charge them fees to get jobs, trapping them into working on fishing vessels and at ports, mills and seafood farms in Thailand to pay back more money than they can ever earn.

“Sometimes, the net is too heavy and workers get pulled into the water and just disappear. When someone dies, he gets thrown into the water,” one Burmese worker told the nonprofit organization Verite commissioned by Nestle.