Nation and World briefs for August 12

Kerry, top Democratic senator spar over consequences of Congress voting down Iran nuclear deal

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State John Kerry sparred Tuesday with the lone Democratic senator to publicly oppose last month’s historic Iran nuclear deal, saying there was no way the U.S. could prevent American allies from doing business with Tehran if Congress were to reject the agreement.

Speaking across town in New York, Sen. Chuck Schumer disagreed and suggested Washington still could force the world into isolating the Iranians until they make deeper nuclear concessions.

The dispute goes to the heart of the questions that American lawmakers are considering as they prepare to vote on the nuclear accord.

If they were to shelve the deal — and override an expected presidential veto — they could severely complicate the Obama administration’s ability to honor its commitments to roll back economic sanctions on Iran. In exchange, Iran has agreed to a decade of tough restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program and a far more intrusive inspections regime.

Republicans are almost universally opposed at this point.

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US intelligence officials confident they can catch Iran cheating, but skeptics are doubtful

WASHINGTON (AP) — Iran’s intelligence agencies have penetrated CIA front companies, executed Western agents and captured a sophisticated U.S. drone.

So why should anyone believe American intelligence officials when they express confidence that they can monitor Iran’s compliance with the just-completed nuclear agreement?

The main reason, according to a classified joint intelligence assessment presented to Congress, is that the deal requires Iran to provide an unprecedented volume of information about nearly every aspect of its existing nuclear program, which Iran insists is peaceful. That data will make checking on compliance easier, officials say, because it will shrink Iran’s capacity to hide a covert weapons program.

“We will have far better insight (into) the industrial aspects of the Iranian nuclear program with this deal than what we have today,” James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told an audience last month at the Aspen Security Forum.

Outside experts don’t dispute that. But they question — considering past blunders of U.S. intelligence in the Middle East — whether American spying will really be able to detect every instance of Iranian cheating.

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Hacking ring accused of making $100M on Wall Street by stealing corporate press releases

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — An international web of hackers and traders made $100 million on Wall Street by stealing a look at corporate press releases before they went out and then trading on that information ahead of the pack, federal authorities charged Tuesday.

Authorities said it was the biggest scheme of its kind ever prosecuted, and one that demonstrated another alarming vulnerability in the financial system in this age of increasingly sophisticated cybercrime.

In a 21st-century twist to insider trading, the hackers broke into the computers of some of the biggest business newswire services, which put out earnings announcements and other press releases for a multitude of corporations.

Nine people in the U.S. and Ukraine were indicted on federal criminal charges, including securities fraud, computer fraud and conspiracy. And the Securities and Exchange Commission brought civil charges against the nine plus 23 other people and companies in the U.S. and Europe.

The case “illustrates the risks posed for our global markets by today’s sophisticated hackers,” SEC chief Mary Jo White said. “Today’s international case is unprecedented in terms of the scope of the hacking at issue, the number of traders involved, the number of securities unlawfully traded and the amount of profits generated.”

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St. Louis County police chief regained control of security at latest Ferguson protests

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — As another protest on Ferguson’s beleaguered West Florissant Avenue began to turn rowdy, Jon Belmar was among the first to confront protesters.

Wearing neither a helmet nor a shield, the St. Louis County police chief strode directly toward demonstrators, telling them to get out of the street and urging calm.

“They’re not going to take the street tonight,” Belmar told an Associated Press reporter standing nearby. “That’s not going to happen.”

One night earlier, things turned dangerously violent when shots rang out and an 18-year-old black suspect was shot by police after he allegedly fired a handgun into an unmarked police van. Police used smoke to disperse the crowd. Three officers were injured.

The scene was markedly different on Monday night and early Tuesday, after the St. Louis County executive declared a state of emergency, a move that gave Belmar — instead of interim Ferguson Police Chief Andre Anderson — control of security.

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Bail denied for young Mississippi couple charged with trying to join Islamic State group

OXFORD, Miss. (AP) — A young Mississippi couple who are charged with attempting to join the Islamic State were ordered held without bail Tuesday, pending federal grand jury action on the charges.

Twenty-year-old Jaelyn Delshaun Young and 22-year-old Muhammad “Mo” Dakhlalla, who were arrested at a Mississippi airport just before boarding a flight with tickets bound for Istanbul, went before U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Allan Alexander in Oxford on Tuesday.

Alexander denied bail, saying that even though the pair have never been in trouble with the law and have relatives willing to oversee their home confinement, she believed their desire to commit terrorism is “probably still there.”

During the two-day hearing, prosecutors had urged Alexander to deny bail, citing statements Young and Dakhlalla made to undercover agents and handwritten farewell letters they left for their families saying they would never return.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner likened them to Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, saying that like him, they could commit violence with knives, vehicles or homemade weapons.

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Q&A: What China’s yuan devaluation means for its struggling exporters and relations with US

BEIJING (AP) — China rattled global financial markets Tuesday by devaluing its currency — an effort, in part, to revive economic growth.

The yuan’s value declined 1.9 percent, its biggest one-day drop in a decade. The move could help Chinese companies by making their products less expensive in global markets. U.S. stocks plummeted, partly on fears about a worsening economic slowdown in China.

WHAT EXACTLY DID CHINA DO?

China doesn’t let its currency trade freely in financial markets as the United States does. Instead, it links the yuan’s value to the U.S. dollar. Then it restricts trading to a band 2 percent above or below a daily target set by the People’s Bank of China. On Tuesday, the central bank set the target 1.9 percent below Monday’s level — the biggest one-day change in a decade. It also made a technical change to give market forces more influence in determining the yuan’s value: Its daily target will now be based on the previous day’s closing value. That change will allow the yuan to make bigger, faster moves up or down and better reflect investors’ outlook on the prospects for China and its currency, said David Dollar, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

WHY DID CHINA DEVALUE ITS CURRENCY?

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Tension high on Kos island, as Greek authorities are overwhelmed by seaborne refugee influx

KOS, Greece (AP) — On this sunny Greek island accustomed to dealing with nothing more than a summer influx of tourists, authorities are struggling to handle a far different human tide: tens of thousands of migrants arriving in crammed rubber dinghies in hopes of making new lives in Europe.

Overwhelmed police clerks used fire extinguishers and batons on Tuesday to quell the crowds of weary and frustrated boat people fiercely jostling to be registered in Kos’ main port, where thousands have been sleeping rough for days waiting for temporary travel documents.

The migrants, mostly refugees from war-torn Syria, make their way across the narrow strait that separates Kos from Turkey in their hundreds every day — desperate men, women and children risking the sometimes fatal crossing in flimsy boats in the hope of gaining asylum in northern Europe.

What they ask of Greece is one piece of paper, which will record their refugee status.

“We just want to leave this island, and they don’t understand that,” said Laith Saleh, a 30-year-old former plasterer from Aleppo, who fled Syria last month after spending three years fighting Syrian government forces and Islamic State group extremists.

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Kids with cancer get futuristic fertility chance; experimental tissue-freezing even for babies

CHICAGO (AP) — Barely 2 years old, Talia Pisano is getting tough treatment for kidney cancer that spread to her brain. She’s also getting a chance at having babies of her own someday.

To battle infertility sometimes caused by cancer treatment, some children’s hospitals are trying a futuristic approach: removing and freezing immature ovary and testes tissue, with hopes of being able to put it back when patients reach adulthood and want to start families.

No one knows yet if it will work.

It has in adults — more than 30 babies have been born to women who had ovarian tissue removed in adulthood, frozen, and put back after treatment for cancer or other serious conditions. In lab animals, it’s worked with frozen and thawed testes tissue.

But the procedures are still experimental in children who haven’t reached puberty, and too new to have been attempted. There are challenges to making immature eggs and sperm from removed tissue suitable for conception. Still, fertility researchers hope to refine the science while the first generation of children whose tissue has been put on ice grows up.

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Maine fugitive on lam for 2 months after ex-girlfriend’s shooting death turns himself in

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — A man who broke into his ex-girlfriend’s home, fatally shot her while her children slept and then spent more than two months hiding in the woods turned himself in on Tuesday, officials said.

Robert Burton surrendered around noon in Dover-Foxcroft, ending the longest manhunt in decades in Maine, authorities said. The 38-year-old was “walking and talking” and appeared to be in decent shape, a spokesman for the Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Department said. Authorities believe he had been breaking into camps and stealing food.

Burton is accused of killing his ex-girlfriend, 37-year-old Stephanie Ginn Gebo, whose body was found in her home in Parkman on June 5. Police said he broke into the home and shot her while her children slept upstairs shortly after Ginn Gebo ended their relationship.

Her father, Vance Ginn, said he was elated by Burton’s capture, which he said put an end to two extremely difficult months for his family.

“We weren’t sleeping, we weren’t eating. … The only thing on your mind is him getting caught and what he did to your family,” Ginn said Tuesday from his home in Abbot. “This is the only happy day we’ve had since June 5.”

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Jets QB Geno Smith out 6-10 weeks with broken jaw after being ‘sucker-punched’ by teammate

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — Geno Smith’s hopes for a breakout season with the New York Jets took a major blow — to the jaw.

The quarterback will be sidelined at least 6-10 weeks with a broken jaw after being punched by teammate Ikemefuna Enemkpali in the locker room Tuesday morning. Smith, entering his third season, required surgery to repair the injuries.

Coach Todd Bowles made the stunning announcement in an impromptu news conference before training camp practice was scheduled to start.

Enemkpali (EN-um-PAL-ee), an outside linebacker in his second season, was immediately released by the Jets. Bowles said Smith and Enemkpali got into an “altercation” in the Jets’ locker room Tuesday morning.

“It had nothing to do with football,” Bowles said. “It was something very childish, and he got cold-cocked, sucker-punched — whatever you want to call it — in the jaw.”