In Brief: Nation & World: 3-29-16

Belgian police hunt airport suspect; victim toll rises to 35

BRUSSELS — As the number of victims in the Brussels suicide attacks rose to 35, Belgian police released a video of a mysterious man in a dark hat seen in the company of the bombers who attacked Brussels Airport, indicating that he is still at large.

“Police are seeking to identify this man,” the Belgian Federal Police’s website said Monday.

The video’s release came as a Belgian magistrate also ruled that a man identified as Faycal C., who was arrested during the police raids that followed the March 22 attacks, could be released.

Faycal C. was among those taken into custody and facing preliminary terror charges. Belgian media reported the man was the mysterious suspect in the white jacket and dark hat spotted with the two bombers at the airport the morning of the attacks.

But the Belgian magistrate ruled that new evidence uncovered by investigators revealed there were no grounds to keep Faycal C. in custody and he was released, the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office said.

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Justice Department cracks iPhone; withdraws legal action

WASHINGTON — The FBI said Monday it successfully used a mysterious technique without Apple Inc.’s help to hack into the iPhone used by a gunman in a mass shooting in California, effectively ending a pitched court battle between the Obama administration and one of the world’s leading technology companies.

The government asked a federal judge to vacate a disputed order forcing Apple to help the FBI break into the iPhone, saying it was no longer necessary. The court filing in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California provided no details about how the FBI did it or who showed it how. The FBI is reviewing the information on the iPhone, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Apple did not immediately comment on the development.

The brief court notice left important questions unanswered: Who showed the FBI how to break into iPhones? How did the government bypass the security features that Apple has invested millions of dollars to build into its flagship product? Are newer iPhones vulnerable to the same hacking technique? Will the FBI share its information with scores of state and local police agencies that said they also need to break into the iPhones of criminal suspects? Will the FBI reveal to Apple how it broke its security? Did the FBI find anything useful on the iPhone?

The surprise development also punctured the temporary perception that Apple’s security might have been good enough to keep consumers’ personal information safe even from the U.S. government — with the tremendous resources it can expend when it wants to uncover something.

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As Pakistan mourns, prime minister vows to defeat militants

LAHORE, Pakistan — In an emotional televised address, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed Monday to hunt down and defeat the militants who have been carrying out attacks like the Easter bombing that targeted Christians and killed 72 people.

“We will not allow them to play with the lives of the people of Pakistan,” Sharif said. “This is our resolve. This is the resolve of the 200 million people of Pakistan.”

As the country began three days of mourning after Sunday’ suicide bombing in the eastern city of Lahore in a park crowded with families, Sharif said the army would forge ahead with a military operation on extremist hideouts and police will go after what he called the “cowards” who carried out the attack.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway Taliban faction that supports the Islamic State group, claimed responsibility and said it specifically targeted Christians.

But most of those killed were Muslims who also had been in the popular park for the holiday. Many women and children were among the victims, and dozens of families held tearful funerals Monday for their slain relatives. At least 300 people were wounded.

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Man shot by police after drawing weapon at US Capitol

WASHINGTON — Police shot a man on Monday after he pulled a weapon at a U.S. Capitol checkpoint as spring tourists thronged Washington, authorities said. The suspect was previously known to police.

The suspect was taken to a local hospital, and a female bystander also sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

Capitol Chief of Police Matthew R. Verderosa declined to confirm reports that the suspect was the same man who was arrested last October for disrupting House proceedings, yelling he was a “Prophet of God.”

That man, 66-year-old Larry Dawson of Tennessee, was issued a “stay away order” by D.C. Superior Court in October, telling him to keep away from the Capitol grounds, court documents show.

The U.S. Capitol was on lockdown for about an hour Monday and the White House also was briefly locked down. As the capital teemed with spring tourists in town to view the cherry blossoms, staff members and visitors to the Capitol were rushed into offices and told to shelter in place.

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Trump, Ryan increasingly at odds over future of the GOP

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump wants to win the White House in the fall. Paul Ryan wants to save his vision of the Republican Party for years to come.

Those goals put Trump and Ryan increasingly at odds over both tone and substance as the businessman barrels toward the GOP presidential nomination. While Ryan is appealing for political civility and a party rooted in traditional conservative principles, Trump is bucking campaign decorum and embracing policy positions that are sharply at odds with years of GOP orthodoxy.

Their starkly different visions for the Republican Party are a microcosm of the broader fissures roiling the GOP. And if Trump does become the Republican nominee, he and the House speaker’s ability to work together could be the first test of whether a party in this much turmoil can stay together.

“Trump’s obviously running on issues that are contrary to conservatives and at odds with what a lot of what Paul Ryan believes,” said Peter Wehner, a former adviser to President George W. Bush.

For now, Trump and Ryan are engaged largely in a cold war, with the politicians only occasionally mentioning each other by name. Ryan has picked key moments to draw implicit contrasts with Trump, including condemning the billionaire’s refusal to take responsibility for violence at his rallies. Trump will launch the next volley Tuesday when he campaigns in Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin, ahead of the state’s April 5 primary.

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State-by-state strategy wielded to defund Planned Parenthood

NEW YORK — Though congressional Republicans’ bid to defund Planned Parenthood was vetoed by President Barack Obama, anti-abortion activists and politicians are achieving a growing portion of their goal with an aggressive state-by-state strategy.

Over the past year, more than a dozen states have sought to halt or reduce public funding for Planned Parenthood. The latest to join the offensive is Florida; GOP Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill Friday that bars Planned Parenthood from accessing state funds.

Defunding has been blocked by court action in some states. But cutbacks in other states are forcing Planned Parenthood to drop contraceptive services, health screenings and other programs serving thousands of low-income women.

“It’s been a non-stop assault — with devastating consequences for the patients we serve,” said Dawn Laguens, Planned Parenthood’s executive vice president. “At what point do you hit a tipping point where it has same impact as if a federal bill had passed?”

Planned Parenthood is a national target because of its role as the largest U.S. abortion provider. Federal law and the laws of most states already prevent public money from paying for abortions except in rare circumstances, but the recent defunding bills prohibit state money for any services by an organization that also provides abortions.

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Retaking Syria’s Palmyra reveals more shattered antiquities

DAMASCUS, Syria — The recapture of Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra from the Islamic State group has brought new revelations of the destruction wreaked by the extremists, who decapitated priceless statues and smashed or looted artifacts in the city’s museum.

Experts say they need time to assess the full extent of damage in Palmyra, a UNESCO world heritage site boasting 2,000-year-old Roman-era colonnades and other ruins, which once attracted tens of thousands of tourists every year. Syrian troops drove IS out on Sunday, some 10 months after the militants seized the town.

The world knew through satellite images and IS videos that the militants destroyed the Temple of Bel, which dated back to A.D. 32, the Temple of Baalshamin, which was several stories high and fronted by six towering columns, and the Arch of Triumph, which was built under the Roman emperor Septimius Severus between A.D. 193 and A.D. 211.

But no one knew the extent of the damage inside the museum until a Syrian TV reporter entered on Sunday and found the floor littered with shattered statues. A sculpture of the Greek goddess Athena was decapitated, and the museum’s basement appeared to have been dynamited or hit with a shell.

Some of the damage may have been caused by shelling, which would have knocked the statues from their stands. In the Syrian TV footage from inside the museum, a hole can be seen in the ceiling, most likely from an artillery shell.

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AP Investigation: How con man used China to launder millions

ASHDOD, Israel — Gilbert Chikli was rolling in money, stolen from some of the world’s biggest corporations. His targets: Accenture. Disney. American Express. In less than two years, he made off with at least 6.1 million euros from France alone.

But he had a problem. He couldn’t spend the money. A tangle of banking rules designed to stop con men like him stood between Chikli and his cash. He needed to find a weak link in the global financial system, a place to make his stolen money appear legitimate.

He found it in China.

“China has become a universal, international gateway for all manner of scams,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press. “Because China today is a world power, because it doesn’t care about neighboring countries, and because, overall, China is flipping off other countries in a big way.”

A visionary con man, Chikli realized early on — around 2000, the year before China joined the World Trade Organization — the potential that lay in the shadows of China’s rise, its entrenched corruption and informal banking channels that date back over 1,000 years. The French-Israeli man told the AP he laundered 90 percent of his money through China and Hong Kong, slipping it into the region’s great tides of legitimate trade and finance.