Searchers find body parts, seats, luggage from Egyptian jet
Searchers find body parts, seats, luggage from Egyptian jet
CAIRO (AP) — Search crews found floating human remains, luggage and seats from the doomed EgyptAir jetliner Friday but face a potentially more complex task in locating bigger pieces of wreckage and the black boxes vital to determining why the plane plunged into the Mediterranean.
Looking for clues to whether terrorists brought down EgyptAir Flight 804 and its 66 people aboard, investigators pored over the passenger list and questioned ground crew members at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, where the plane took off.
The Airbus A320 had been cruising normally in clear skies on a nighttime flight to Cairo early Thursday when it suddenly lurched left, then right, spun all the way around and plummeted 38,000 feet into the sea, never issuing a distress signal.
In Egypt, home to 30 of the victims, grieving families and friends wondered if their loved ones would ever be recovered. Many gathered in mosques for Salat al-Ghaib, or “prayers for the absent,” held for the dead whose bodies have not been found.
“This is what is ripping our hearts apart, when we think about it. When someone you love so much dies, at least you have a body to bury. But we have no body until now,” said Sherif al-Metanawi, a childhood friend of the pilot, Mohammed Shoukair.
Sanders delegates brace for Philadelphia convention fight
DENVER (AP) — Gabriel McArthur is heading to the Democratic National Convention in July to serve as a delegate for Bernie Sanders. Screaming and shouting are a distinct possibility from the Sanders camp at the event, he says.
McArthur and other Sanders supporters are approaching the gathering with the enthusiasm that has powered the effort from the start — holding garage sales, delivering pizza and raising money online to pay for their travel to Philadelphia.
But their nerves are raw now over the Democratic Party’s perceived slights against the insurgent candidate and they are clinging to a bygone hope that Sanders can wrest the nomination from Hillary Clinton despite her overpowering lead in delegates.
As these super-fans chant “Bernie or bust,” Democratic officials are growing increasingly worried about dissent, especially after a recent state convention in Nevada turned raucous. Some of the Sanders backers who are going to the convention as delegates for him — and there are more than 1,400 — give party officials little reason for comfort.
“I don’t think we’re going to see a lot of violence, but we are going to see some screaming and shouting if the DNC doesn’t humanize itself,” McArthur, a 24-year-old administrative assistant in suburban Denver, said of the Democratic National Committee. “A little civil disobedience is OK. It’s part of being an American.”
Oklahoma governor vetoes bill criminalizing abortion
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin on Friday vetoed legislation to make it a felony for doctors to perform an abortion, a measure that would have effectively outlawed the procedure in the state.
In vetoing the measure just a day after the Legislature passed it, Fallin, a Republican who opposes abortion, said it was vague and would not withstand a legal challenge.
“The bill is so ambiguous and so vague that doctors cannot be certain what medical circumstances would be considered ‘necessary to preserve the life of the mother,’” Fallin said. “While I consistently have and continue to support a re-examination of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, this legislation cannot accomplish that re-examination.”
The bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Nathan Dahm, said the measure was aimed at ultimately overturning the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. Dahm said he was considering whether to try to override the governor’s veto, which would require a two-thirds majority in each chamber, a threshold it did not meet in the House when it first passed. The bill passed on a 33-12 vote in the Senate with no debate on Thursday; it passed 59-9 in the 101-member House on April 21.
“Of course I’ll consider it,” Dahm said. “I’m weighing my options.”
Group that helped sell Iran nuke deal also funded media
WASHINGTON (AP) — A group the White House recently identified as a key surrogate in selling the Iran nuclear deal gave National Public Radio $100,000 last year to help it report on the pact and related issues, according to the group’s annual report. It also funded reporters and partnerships with other news outlets.
The Ploughshares Fund’s mission is to “build a safe, secure world by developing and investing in initiatives to reduce and ultimately eliminate the world’s nuclear stockpiles,” one that dovetails with President Barack Obama’s arms control efforts. But its behind-the-scenes role advocating for the Iran agreement got more attention this month after a candid profile of Ben Rhodes, one of the president’s top foreign policy aides.
In The New York Times Magazine article, Rhodes explained how the administration worked with nongovernmental organizations, proliferation experts and even friendly reporters to build support for the seven-nation accord that curtailed Iran’s nuclear activity and softened international financial penalties on Tehran.
“We created an echo chamber,” said Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, adding that “outside groups like Ploughshares” helped carry out the administration’s message effectively.
The magazine piece revived Republican criticism of the Iran agreement as they suggested it was evidence of a White House spin machine misleading the American people. The administration accused opponents of trying to re-litigate the deal after failing to defeat it in congressional votes last year.
‘Tase him!’ ‘I’m dead’: Deputies struggle with man in videos
ATLANTA (AP) — Two deputies yell “Stop fighting!” and “He’s got my Taser!” as they repeatedly stun a handcuffed man in the back of a vehicle, commanding him to relax even as he insists “I’m dead,” shortly before he stops breathing, body-camera videos show.
The videos show the Nov. 20 incident in the back of an SUV in Coweta County, outside Atlanta. Chase Sherman, 32, of Destin, Florida, was pronounced dead at a hospital later that day.
The deputies responded after Sherman’s mother called 911. She told the dispatcher she was in a car with her husband, her son and the son’s girlfriend on southbound Interstate 85. She said her son was “freaking out” and had taken the synthetic drug spice.
The deputies approach the vehicle and start struggling with Sherman, with someone yelling “Tase him!” and “Hit him!” as he cries out and his mother begs them to stop, as shown in the videos. The videos from the body cameras of the two responding deputies were released Friday by Coweta Judicial Circuit District Attorney Peter Skandalakis.
“What’s your problem, buddy?” one deputy says. “That’s a good way to get shot right there. I tell you right now, you grab my Taser again, it’s gonna be on.”