In Brief | Nation & World | 12-8-15

FBI: Killers had been radicalized ‘for quite some time’

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — The San Bernardino killers had been radicalized “for quite some time” and had taken target practice at area gun ranges, in one instance just days before the attack that left 14 people dead, the FBI said Monday.

In a chilling twist, authorities also disclosed that a year before the rampage, Syed Farook’s co-workers at the county health department underwent “active shooter” training in the very conference room where he and his wife opened fire on them last Wednesday.

It was not immediately clear whether Farook attended the late-2014 instructional session on how to react to a workplace gunman, San Bernardino County spokeswoman Felisa Cardona said.

On Monday, two employees who had been in the room during the attack on a holiday luncheon said colleagues tried to do just as they had been trained — drop under the tables and stay quiet so as not to attract attention.

“Unfortunately, the room just didn’t provide a whole lot of protection,” said Corwin Porter, assistant county health director.

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Responding to mistrust, feds investigate Chicago police

CHICAGO — Responding to deepening mistrust of one of the nation’s largest police forces, the federal government opened an investigation Monday into the Chicago Police Department, and authorities announced they would not charge an officer in the death of a 25-year-old black man who was shot in the back last year.

The Justice Department investigation was to look into patterns of racial disparity in the use of force. It comes nearly two weeks after the release of a video showing a white Chicago police officer shooting a black teenager 16 times.

Lack of trust between police and their communities, “makes it more difficult to gain help within investigations, to encourage the victims and the witnesses of crime to speak up and to fulfill the most basic responsibilities of public-safety officials,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch said. “And when suspicion and hostility is allowed to fester, it can erupt into unrest.”

The investigation, which is separate from an existing federal investigation into last year’s shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, will also review how the department disciplines officers and handles misconduct accusations. Justice Department officials say they use so-called patterns-and-practices probes to identify systemic failings in troubled police departments and to improve trust between police and the communities they serve.

The civil-rights investigation follows recent ones in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, and comes as the police department and Mayor Rahm Emanuel are under intense scrutiny over their handling of the October 2014 death of McDonald. Officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder Nov. 24, more than a year after the killing and just hours before the release of police dashboard camera footage showing the officer shooting the teenager.

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Syria: 3 troops killed by US-led strikes; US blames Russia

BEIRUT — Syria on Monday accused the U.S.-led coalition of bombing an army camp in the eastern part of the country, killing three Syrian soldiers and wounding 13, but a senior U.S. military official said the Pentagon is “certain” the strike was from a Russian warplane.

The dispute over the deadly airstrike underscored the increasingly chaotic skies over Syria as various powers hit targets in the war-ravaged country. The U.S.-led alliance began its airstrikes in Syria in September 2014, while Russia’s air campaign began a year later.

In a letter to the United Nations, the government in Damascus said four aircraft from the coalition targeted the army camp in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour on Sunday night. In addition to the casualties among the troops, it said the attack destroyed armored and other vehicles, and a weapons and ammunition depot.

“This hampers efforts to combat terrorism and proves once again that this coalition lacks seriousness and credibility to effectively fight terrorism,” said the letter, which was published in Syrian state media. The government refers to all those fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad as “terrorists.”

It was the first time Syria has accused the U.S.-led coalition of hitting its troops.

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Trump calls for ‘complete shutdown’ on Muslims entering US

NEWARK, N.J.— Donald Trump called Monday for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” an idea swiftly condemned by his rival GOP candidates for president and other Republicans.

The proposed ban would apply to immigrants and visitors alike, a sweeping prohibition affecting all adherents of Islam who want to come to the U.S. The idea faced an immediate challenge to its legality and feasibility from experts who could point to no formal exclusion of immigrants based on religion in America’s history.

Trump’s campaign said in a statement such a ban should stand “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.” It said the proposal comes in response to a level of hatred among “large segments of the Muslim population” toward Americans.

“Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” Trump said in the statement.

He added on Twitter: “Just put out a very important policy statement on the extraordinary influx of hatred & danger coming into our country. We must be vigilant!”

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Study sees possible dip in world carbon dioxide emissions

PARIS — Global carbon dioxide emissions may be dropping ever so slightly this year, spurred by a dramatic plunge in Chinese pollution, according to a surprising new study released Monday.

The unexpected dip could either be a temporary blip or true hope that the world is about to turn the corner on carbon pollution as climate talks continue in Paris, said the study’s authors, a scientific team that regularly tracks heat-trapping pollution.

One skeptical scientist offered a $10,000 bet that world emissions will keep rising despite the findings, which were published on the same day that Beijing issued its first ever red alert for smog, urging schools to close and invoking restrictions on factories and traffic.

Still, some leaders cheered the study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

“That shouldn’t tell us we don’t need to do anything, but that shows there is action,” Janos Pasztor, the United Nations assistant secretary general for climate change, told The Associated Press. “Things are going in the right direction. All we need is a strong agreement.”

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Republicans assail Obama on ISIS — despite similarities

WASHINGTON — Minutes after a solemn President Barack Obama spelled out his plans to protect Americans from terrorism, Marco Rubio declared that he “may have made things worse.” Jeb Bush called the president “weak” and his approach “business as usual.” And Donald Trump declared on Twitter, “We need a new President – FAST!”

Yet beneath their harsh rhetoric lies a fundamental political reality: Few in the Republican Party’s 2016 class would break significantly with the Democratic president’s approach to combating the Islamic State group. The avalanche of Republican criticism that continued Monday focused on the president’s tone, his word choice and the fine points of his plans — not in most cases the specific policy prescriptions he presented in his address from the Oval Office Sunday night.

Bush, in an MSNBC interview, twice acknowledged that he agreed with the president’s approach in specific areas. Still, he chided Obama’s planning for lacking “the intensity that’s necessary.”

“He needed to persuade people that our fears will subside when we’re engaged actively in the destruction of ISIS, and from there you would have a strategy that would be much more comprehensive,” said Bush. He then outlined a plan to strengthen the existing U.S. effort to train local forces and engage Sunni tribal leaders.

Like Obama, most of the GOP’s White House hopefuls oppose the use of many U.S. ground troops, preferring instead to send a limited number of special forces to train and support anti-Islamic State forces in the region. Like Obama, they support an aggressive air campaign to bomb the Islamic State group — and its reliance on oil revenue — across Iraq and Syria.

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Fox suspends 2 analysts for language against Obama

NEW YORK — Two Fox News contributors were suspended Monday for using inappropriate language about President Barack Obama while discussing his speech on terrorism the night before in two separate episodes.

The analysts, former U.S. Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters and actress Stacey Dash, were each ordered off the air for two weeks.

Peters was appearing on a Fox Business Network program hosted by Stuart Varney when he was asked his reaction to the president’s speech. He didn’t like it.

“This guy is such a total pussy, it’s stunning,” Peters said. After he spoke some more, Varney said that while he could tell Peters was “super angry,” he shouldn’t use such language.

Dash, who appeared in the movie “Clueless” and has been a Fox contributor since 2014, said on Fox News Channel’s noontime program “Outnumbered” that Obama’s speech was an epic fail and followed up with an obscenity. “I felt like he could give a s—-, excuse me, like he could care less.”

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Eagles of Death Metal members appear with U2 on Paris stage

PARIS — Members of the California rock band Eagles of Death Metal have made a surprise return to a Paris stage during a concert by U2, less than a month after suicide bombers stormed the band’s Nov. 13 gig at the Bataclan theater and killed 89 people.

U2 on Monday night was playing the last of four concerts in Paris. The last two shows had been postponed when France announced a state of emergency following the attacks that killed 130 people.

It was the first time the Eagles of Death Metal band had performed since the attacks, which band members escaped under harrowing circumstances. The band, though deeply shaken, has said it wanted to play again in Paris.

Just before the band emerged Monday night, U2 frontman Bono said there was “nothing left except to introduce you to some people whose lives will forever be a part of this city of Paris. These are our brothers. Our fellow troubadours. They were robbed of their stage three weeks ago, and we would like to offer them ours tonight. Would you welcome the Eagles of Death Metal!”

The bands then played the Patti Smith song “People Have the Power.”

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Chicago police probe announced; no charges in 2nd shooting

CHICAGO — A Chicago police officer will not be charged in the shooting of a 25-year-old black man who authorities said was armed with a gun as he ran away from officers, prosecutors announced Monday, the same day the federal government opened an investigation into patterns of racial disparity in the use of force by Chicago police.

The Justice Department investigation, announced by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, comes nearly two weeks after the release of a video showing a white Chicago police officer shooting a black teenager 16 times.

The investigation, which is separate from an existing federal investigation into last year’s shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, will also review how the department disciplines officers and handles misconduct accusations. Justice Department officials say they use such patterns-and-practices investigations to identify systemic failings in troubled police departments and to improve trust between police and the communities they serve.

“This mistrust from members of the community makes it more difficult to gain help within investigations, to encourage the victims and the witnesses of crime to speak up and to fulfill the most basic responsibilities of public-safety officials,” Lynch said. “And when suspicion and hostility is allowed to fester, it can erupt into unrest.”

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Killers had been radicalized ‘for quite some time’

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) — The San Bernardino killers had been radicalized “for quite some time” and had taken target practice at area gun ranges, in one instance just days before the attack that left 14 people dead, the FBI said Monday.

In a chilling twist, authorities also disclosed that a year before the rampage, Syed Farook’s co-workers at the county health department underwent “active shooter” training in the same conference room where he and his wife opened fire on them last week.

Two employees who survived the attack said colleagues reacted Wednesday by trying to do as they had been trained — dropping under the tables and staying quiet so as not to attract attention.

“Unfortunately, the room just didn’t provide a whole lot of protection,” said Corwin Porter, assistant county health director.

Most of the county’s 20,000 employees went back to work for the first time since the rampage five days earlier.

“To honor them, to express our gratitude for their unimaginable sacrifice, we have to fight to maintain that ordinary,” County Supervisor Janice Rutherford said of the victims. “We can’t be afraid of our lives, of our community, of our neighbors, of our co-workers.”

Authorities tightened security at county buildings and offered counseling and a hotline for employees in distress.

By wire sources