Get the latest Codewit News from the Middle East: breaking news, features, analysis and debate plus audio and video coverage from across the Middle East.
A 47-year-old disabled Nova Scotia woman, who had been reported missing by her husband, crawled 800 metres to get help after spending two nights in her truck after driving into a ditch.
Colleen Hopkins was driving home from her doctor's office in Wolfville, N.S., last Thursday night when she suddenly got a bad headache and became disoriented. She drove off Ridge Road and into a farmer's field.
"I couldn't see very well," Hopkins said. "I just got disoriented and everything, so I ended up lost."
She wound up driving her four-wheel drive truck into a trench filled with water. The water was up to the door of the vehicle.
Hopkins wrapped herself in a blanket she found in the back seat meant for her dog. Without a cellphone to call for help, she stayed in the vehicle for two days honking the horn and flashing the lights trying to catch someone's attention.
She even tried rocking the truck and trying to drive out of the trench with no luck. She stayed inside the truck for 30 hours without food or water.
Hopkins fell from a horse in 2012 and suffered a brain injury that left her with limited use of her legs. She has a tough time walking on good days.
By Saturday, rain was falling and the water was rising around her truck. Hopkins decided at first light that she would try to go for help.
"I figured the truck was going to fill up with water or get water in it, so I crawled out," she said.
It took Hopkins eight hours to crawl 800 metres to a farmhouse where she hoped to find help. She said she couldn't feel her legs and her hands were numb due to poor circulation, so she dragged herself on her wrists.
She said she would pass out, then come to and keep going.
"I kept yelling [my husband] Doug's name and it was the thought of him and my dog that kept me going."
At one point she said a helicopter passed overhead and although she waved, those aboard didn't see her.
"I was scared at first and then I got past being scared and just basically got in survival mode," Hopkins said.
When she realized there was nobody home at the farmhouse, she tested the door and found it was unlocked. She crawled inside and called 911.
"I got the operator there to call Doug," said Hopkins.
Police said they had been searching for Hopkins since her husband reported her missing Friday morning.
Saturday afternoon an ambulance took her to hospital where her husband met her.
"She said, 'I got the the truck stuck' and I said, 'I ain't worried about the truck,'" said her husband.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
TORONTO – It's an inescapable reality: As long as measles is infecting children in other parts of the world, Canada is going to have occasional outbreaks.
The same is true in the United States, but public health officials there typically have managed to more quickly extinguish spread of the virus when it comes from abroad, leaving some experts on this side of the border wondering: Why does Canada have such large measles outbreaks?
There have been at least 375 cases in the ongoing outbreak in British Columbia's Fraser Valley. An outbreak in Quebec in 2011 racked up a whopping 725 confirmed cases, following on a 2007 outbreak of 94 cases in that province. The Vancouver Olympics, which brought people to the city from around the world, touched off an outbreak of roughly 80 cases in B.C. in early 2010.
By comparison the largest outbreak the U.S. has experienced in nearly two decades occurred in an Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, N.Y., last year. Total cases: 58. Indeed most measles outbreaks south of the border are far smaller, coming in at under two dozen cases, and many times fewer than a handful.
What explains the substantial difference in numbers?
"Well, that's the question," Dr. Gaston De Serres says. "That's the question."
"They have more importations per year than Canada. And yet, you know, the size of outbreaks they had in the U.S. in the past 10 years is way smaller than what we have in Canada."
De Serres is an infectious diseases specialist with Quebec's provincial public health agency; he led intensive studies into that province's 2011 outbreak. He and some colleagues are now looking at this Canada-U.S. question, trying to figure out how to explain why Canada has had such large outbreaks of late.
Their investigation will likely lead to a scientific paper, so De Serres is reluctant to spell out all his theories now. But one possibility he raises relates to the way public health authorities north and south of the border respond to reports of an imported case of measles.
"The Americans are far, far more aggressive in terms of tracking every case and implementing control measures," says De Serres. "That might be a difference between the countries."
Both countries have high measles vaccination coverage — coverage that is high enough to have stopped measles viruses from spreading here regularly, as they did before the introduction of the vaccine. In fact, the virus is no longer endemic in the countries of the Americas, which are in the process of trying to be certified as having eliminated measles.
Measles is a respiratory disease caused by a virus of the same name. It causes fever, runny nose and a characteristic rash all over the body. Most people recover, but the infection is fatal in between one and three of every 1,000 cases.
Measles is targeted for global eradication. When all six of the World Health Organization regions stop local spread of measles, the disease can be declared eradicated.
The Pan American Health Organization, the WHO regional body for this region, said the Americas achieved elimination status in 2002, but the process of formally certifying that accomplishment hasn't yet been completed. And it could conceivably be threatened by large outbreaks sparked by imported measles cases, such as Quebec's 2011 outbreak. That outbreak lasted almost a year; 12 months of continuous spread of measles in one country would reset the clock on the elimination effort for the entire region.
The Public Health Agency of Canada describes measles vaccination coverage in Canada high but uneven. A 2009 national immunization survey found about 92 per cent of two-year-olds had received the first of two doses, but only 69 per cent of seven-year-olds had received the second dose. Rates are similar in the U.S., where in 2012 nearly 91 per cent of children had received at least one dose of measles vaccine.
Both countries have pockets of unvaccinated children. When those pockets are small — a few kids in a school full of vaccinated children — a case of measles brought back from a country where the virus circulates won't trigger a big outbreak because there are few unprotected kids to infect.
But when there are more unvaccinated children — or adults — transmission can go on for weeks, as it has in the Fraser Valley outbreak. There spread has emanated from a religious school — kindergarten to Grade 12 — affiliated with a church that opposes vaccination.
Still, De Serres says Canada does not have more vaccine opponents than the U.S. does, and both countries have religious groups that oppose vaccination. So if the circumstances are roughly the same, is the response what makes the difference?
A 2008 outbreak in San Diego, Calif., is a good illustration of the lengths to which public health officials in the United States go to contain measles when the virus makes an incursion.
An unvaccinated seven-year-old child contracted measles in Switzerland, and infected 11 others on returning home. Public health swooped in, tracing contacts of all cases who were exposed, sending home unvaccinated children and quarantining families. Unvaccinated children cannot return to school until 21 days after the last case developed symptoms, which can mean sitting out several months. They can go back to school immediately if their parents have them vaccinated.
A report on the outbreak, published in the journal Pediatrics, said county and state public health workers logged 1,745 person-hours on investigation and containment efforts, at a cost of US$10,376 per case. Affected families reported direct and indirect costs of US$775 per quarantined child.
Dr. Jane Seward is the top measles expert at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. She says the response to measles across the United States is swift and robust.
"Even one case in the United States is considered an 'outbreak.' Although our outbreak definition is three or more cases, with even a single case our surveillance guidelines are for states to very, very rapidly report that case," she says.
"Even a suspected case before confirmation, it needs to be reported to the CDC within 24 hours. And then the case needs to be investigated and all the people who were in contact with that case need to be assessed for evidence of immunity and offered vaccine or immune globulin" — a serum of antibodies — "as appropriate if they don't have evidence of immunity."
People who are sick are told to isolate themselves. People who are exposed but don't yet have symptoms are told to quarantine themselves. People who don't voluntarily comply are sometimes hit with court orders to do so, such as in a 2004 measles outbreak in Iowa.
This aggressive approach is not cheap. A study by CDC scientists published in the journal Vaccine reported that 16 measles outbreaks in the U.S. in 2011 cost taxpayers between US$2.7 million and US$5.3 million.
Canadian public health authorities have essentially the same tools at their disposal but may not employ them as rigorously as their American counterparts.
Dr. Lisa Mu, medical officer of health with the Fraser Health Authority, says the B.C. Public Health Act gives public health workers broad powers, but authorities prefer not to use them if they don't have to. Fraser Health tries to take a collaborative approach, Mu says.
"We want to maintain our healthy relationships with the public, and not be seen as enforcers," she says.
In the ongoing outbreak there — which has placed a huge burden on the public health staff who too have traced contacts of cases — Mu says most people who have been asked to go into isolation or quarantine have obliged. But health authorities have received reports some people who should be home have continued to move about the community, behaviour that could potentially expose others to measles.
Fraser Health has not taken action. Mu says the decision comes down to how high the risk is and how certain it is that the behaviour will threaten others.
"When we have possibly hundreds of people who are being requested to remain at home because they may have come in contact with somebody who may have had measles, or they were in contact with somebody who may have had measles, the risk there is not grave enough, the certainty is not there for us to exercise those kinds of limitations on somebody's personal freedoms," she says.
"So to date we have not enforced any kind of isolation orders or quarantine orders."
The school that is at the heart of the outbreak was closed for an extended spring break, she says. It has now reopened.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
TORONTO – A man working at the Toronto branch of a multinational human resources company went on a stabbing spree after being told he would lose his job, injuring four co-workers in the bloody rampage, police said Wednesday.
The incident took place around 9:30 a.m. at the fifth-floor offices of Ceridian, which provides payroll and "human capital management" services.
"He was being fired and I guess then he proceeded to get involved in stabbing some of his bosses and some other employees," Det. Daniel Darnbrough told The Canadian Press.
Police charged Chuang Li, 47, of Mississauga, Ont., with three counts of attempted murder, four counts of aggravated assault and four counts of assault with a weapon. He was set to appear in court on Thursday.
Ceridian would only describe the man as a "former employee."
"This is a very difficult time. The entire Ceridian family is shocked and deeply saddened by this incident," the company said in a statement. "All four employees are being treated by medical experts at area hospitals."
Police said the suspect — who was arrested at the scene — used a "sharp instrument…possibly a knife before those around him were able to hold him down.
"I believe the employees eventually subdued him until the police got here," Darnbrough said.
Police said a 32-year-old woman and three men between the ages of 35 and 45 were taken to hospital. The woman's injuries were described as life-threatening.
The suspect was not injured in the incident. Footage from outside the office building showed a bespectacled man wearing a striped blue office shirt and dark jeans being led into a police cruiser.
"We still have a lot of forensic evidence to gather here," Darnbrough said."It's an ongoing investigation."
Steve Paraskevopoulos, who worked on the fourth floor of the building, recalls hearing a commotion coming from above.
"It was kind of a stampede kind of sound," he said. "It was an odd thing, we have thick slab concrete floors, you never hear a thing from somebody above you unless there's construction."
Shortly after, Paraskevopoulos and a few co-workers headed down to the ground floor to get coffee and ran into one of the building's security guards who told them "something serious" was going on.
Paraskevopoulos then saw a number of police cruisers, ambulances and fire trucks outside the building, and said one of his colleagues also noticed officers head into the building with their guns drawn.
It was at that point that Paraskevopoulos saw the victims, who were smeared with noticeable traces of blood.
"There was one guy who looked like he took a stab across the head, it was all bandaged up," he recounted.
"There was another gentleman who kinda was sitting on the side beside the EMS truck…and I definitely saw two people come out on a stretcher that looked to be a lot more serious. They rushed into the back of the ambulances."
Tony Bitonti, who works with the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp in the building next door, was able to get a closer look at two of the men who appeared to be less seriously injured.
"One had a bandage around his head and also around his jaw," he said. "Another young guy had an undershirt on, like a white T-shirt, and it was ripped, the left hand sleeve was gone."
Bitonti said the two men were able to walk to a waiting ambulance.
The entire incident appeared to have rattled many working in the office complex.
"It was more stunned disbelief than anything," Bitonti said of how the people around him were reacting to the stabbing. "It's fairly quiet, fairly tranquil around here and when something like this happens, it's weird."
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
It’s been less than a year since the Lac-Megantic rail disaster, but the fiery train wreck that took 47 lives and incinerated the centre of a picturesque Quebec town seems to already be receding from memory.
We’re left with process stories about the push to strengthen regulations for carrying volatile types of crude oil in rail tank cars. There’s the lingering concern that dangerous goods must still be taken through population centres because rerouting them would be costly and inefficient.
But the disaster itself has been consigned to history, except of course for those who lost family, friends and property when an unattended train loaded with explosive Bakken crude derailed July 6. Tank cars cracked open like eggs and the ensuing inferno killed dozens of Lac-Megantic residents.
The incident was little more than a footnote in the recent Quebec election, as Quebec writer Nora Loreto observed this week in a post on rabble.ca.
Marois had committed her now-defeated Parti Quebecois government to spending $16.2 million to build a new shopping district in the scorched town of 6,000, the Montreal Gazette noted.
Marois also called on Ottawa to foot the bill to shift the rail line around Lac-Megantic, the Toronto Star reported.
“Railways are their responsibility, so it will be up to them to assume the costs incurred if we are to go ahead with the rerouting†said Marois during a March campaign stop.
The mayor, Colette Roy-Laroche, stayed on the sidelines during the campaign.
The story of Lac-Megantic turned a page Wednesday when the Quebec coroner’s office closed the file on identifying the remains of seven of the victims.
The identity of the 40th victim, 30-year-old Jimmy Sirois, was made using microscopic bone fragments and DNA samples, the Gazette reported.
The coroner’s office posted a list on its web site of the victims who were positively identified and the seven whose remains were not recovered but who’ve been declared legally dead. Most range in age from 57 to 77 but they include a nine-year-old girl. The youngest victim of the disaster was four, the oldest 93.
According to QMI Agency, work identifying the victims was done by forensic experts in Montreal and the United States.
“This work consisted primarily of analyzing fragments and human remains that had been highly altered by the intensity of the fire to which they were exposed, making it impossible to identify all the people who died in the fire,” coroner’s spokeswoman Genevieve Guilbault said.
The coroner’s news release said victim remains now would be released and discussions were underway with relatives and the local parish priest as to when and how they would be returned.
Findings from the coroner’s investigation will be made public when it’s completed, the agency said.
The disaster has spawned a class-action lawsuit on behalf of survivors and relatives of those who died, naming now-defunct railway operator Montreal, Maine & Atlantic, the company’s president, the engineer who left the train parked on a siding above the town while he took a rest break and the federal government, among others.
While scar tissue forms over the wound left by Lac-Megantic, the railways tell us we can expect more crashes in future.
“You can mitigate the risk, but you can’t eliminate the risk,” Keith Creel, CP Rail’s chief operating officer, told reporters an appearance before a Commons committee last week, according to the Sault Star.
The committee has been looking into the shipment of dangerous goods since the disaster.
Rail executives also say there’s no alternative but to route hazardous goods through Canadian cities.
“When we can route traffic with a view to minimize risk, we do so,†CN Rail chief executive officer Claude Mongeau told the Globe and Mail last week.
“But the reality is, if you look at a map, all of our business goes through Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal. These are just the larger population centres. The smaller population centres, it’s the same. The country was built around the railroads and that’s just the hard reality.â€
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
(Reuters) – The death toll in a mudslide that buried much of a rural Washington state community last month rose to 36 on Wednesday after medical examiners extricated one more body from the rubble.
A rain-soaked hillside collapsed without warning above the north fork of the Stillaguamish River on March 22, unleashing a torrent of mud that engulfed some three dozen homes on the outskirts of the tiny community of Oso.
Of the 36 people confirmed dead, 32 have been positively identified including a 58-year-old man on Wednesday, Snohomish County officials said in a statement. The death toll had stood at 35 on Tuesday.
Recovery crews were still searching for another 10 missing people, including two children, down from 11 on Monday. Efforts have been hampered by rain, which has created treacherous conditions and raised the risk of further slides and flash floods.
President Barack Obama will stop in Oso on April 22 and plans to view the devastation and meet with families of those affected by the disaster, as well as first responders and recovery workers.
No one has been pulled alive from the rubble since the landslide, when at least eight people were injured but survived. Rescue teams have since found no signs of life.
(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Lisa Shumaker)
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
PHOENIX (Reuters) – Arizona lawmakers gave final passage on Wednesday to a bill that would allow state health authorities to conduct surprise inspections of abortion clinics without first obtaining a warrant, handing another legislative victory to abortion foes.
The Republican-backed bill, which passed the state Senate on a 17-13 vote and now goes to the governor, would remove a provision in law state requiring a judge to sign off on any surprise inspections conducted at the nine clinics in Arizona licensed to perform abortions.
No other medical facilities require such a warrant.
“This is not about pro-life or pro-choice at this point,” said Senator Nancy Barto, a supporter of the bill. “What it is about is protecting the lives of women and children.”
Barto, a Phoenix Republican, said that abortion clinics should be subject to the same level of oversight as other medical facilities and that requiring court-approved warrants for unannounced health inspections could delay such scrutiny.
Republican Governor Jan Brewer has five days from the time the bill is formally transmitted to her desk to veto it, sign it or do nothing and have it become law. She has not indicated what her decision will be.
If the measure is enacted, Arizona would join 10 other states that allow for warrantless surprise inspections, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit sexual health organization.
Abortion-rights advocates have said they would challenge the measure in court if it becomes law, adding to a string of abortion controls on the books in Arizona that rank among the most restrictive in the nation.
In 2012, Arizona enacted a law banning most abortions from being performed after 20 weeks of pregnancy, though a federal appeals court struck down that statute last year.
Senator Olivia Cajero Bedford, a Democrat from Tucson, said the bill, which has been pushed for by the conservative Center for Arizona Policy, was unnecessary and could lead to excessive interference with clinics, effectively restraining legal access to abortion in Arizona.
“This bill simply opens the door for abuse and does nothing to keep women safe,” she said during debate on the Senate floor. “In fact, it’s just another harassment tool the supporters are pushing to force a lawsuit.”
Arizona lawmakers previously approved warrantless surprise inspections for abortion clinics in 1999, but a federal appeals court struck down that measure as unconstitutional.
Abortion foes argue that warrantless inspections could now pass court muster under a new set of abortion clinic regulations adopted by Arizona in 2010. Abortion rights advocates disagree.
(Reporting by David Schwartz; Editing by Steve Gorman and Eric Walsh)
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (Reuters) – A medivac helicopter crashed moments after takeoff onto the roof of the University of New Mexico Children’s Hospital on Wednesday, injuring the pilot but leaving two other crew members apparently unhurt, a hospital spokesman said.
The chopper, owned by a Louisiana-based company that provides corporate and medical evacuation flight services, was not carrying any patients at the time, and nobody in or on the building was hurt, according to the spokesman, Billy Sparks.
But Sparks said patients on the top two floors of the building, just below the helipad, were moved to other areas of the hospital as a precaution following the accident, which occurred at about 5:45 p.m. local time.
Local television news footage showed the wrecked helicopter lying on its side, with the cabin of aircraft intact but its rotors crumpled and the body of the chopper sharply bent, leaving the tail dangling over the side of the roof.
Witnesses told local media that the helicopter, which came down about 30 to 50 feet away from the landing pad, had appeared to be wobbling in the air shortly after its takeoff.
A small blaze ignited by the crash was quickly doused by a fire suppression system on the roof.
The pilot suffered unspecified injuries and was taken to the adjoining main hospital of the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Sparks said. A flight paramedic and nurse who were aboard as passengers emerged unscathed but were also taken to the hospital for observation.
The cause of the crash was under investigation.
(Reporting by Joseph Kolb in Albuquerque, Victoria Cavaliere in New York; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Lisa Shumaker)
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
SAN DIEGO (Reuters) – A family of four rescued from their sailboat after their infant daughter became seriously ill at sea returned safely to San Diego on Wednesday aboard a U.S. warship that picked them up in the Pacific over the weekend, a Navy spokeswoman said.
The parents, Eric and Charlotte Kaufman, and their two daughters, 3-year-old Cora and 1-year-old Lyra, left the Navy frigate Vandegrift after the ship arrived in port around 10 a.m. local time and were taken to see their family doctor, according to Lieutenant Lenaya Rotklein of the Third Fleet.
Rotklein declined to give any further information about the arrival of the Kaufmans at Naval Air Station North Island on San Diego Bay except to say all four family members were “stable when they departed” and were met at the port by relatives.
The Kaufmans, whose boat was their home but are from San Diego, did not speak to reporters on their arrival.
The family was two weeks into a planned around-the-world cruise on their 36-foot (11-metre) sloop when Lyra developed a fever and rash, prompting her parents to send a distress call to the Coast Guard by satellite phone last Thursday.
In addition to the child falling ill, the family reported that their boat, christened the Rebel Heart, took on water whenever they tried to start the vessel’s engine, the Coast Guard said.
A four-man rescue team from the California Air National Guard was dispatched by military plane to the scene, about 1,000 miles out in the Pacific off Mexico, to render medical assistance. The team parachuted into the ocean and boarded the family’s vessel late on Thursday to treat the child.
The rescuers then remained on the sailboat with the family until the Vandegrift, which had been conducting routine operations off the Southern California coast, arrived on Sunday to take all four Kaufmans aboard for a return voyage.
The Kaufmans’ crippled sailboat, listing badly and considered a navigation hazard, was scuttled by the father himself, who cut holes in the vessel and then watched it sink after he was taken off the yacht on Monday morning, Navy officials said.
News of the family’s plight generated considerable online chatter about whether the parents had exercised poor judgment in embarking on a round-the-globe sailing voyage with an infant and a toddler.
Defending their decision to set sail with their young children, Eric Kaufman issued a statement from sea on Sunday saying, “This is how our family has lived for seven years. … We remain confident that we prepared as well as any sailing crew could.”
Lieutenant Colonel Nando Polo of the Air National Guard said the father approached him after the family arrived in port and “basically apologized for putting us through all this.”
“I told him he did fine, and he doesn’t owe anyone an apology,” Polo said. “Even when things went wrong for him, he made all the right decisions. He saved his family.”
(Reporting by Marty Graham; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Jonathan Oatis and Ken Wills)
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
(Reuters) – Russia declined several FBI requests for more information on Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev two years before the deadly 2013 attack, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing an unpublished U.S. government review.
The information, including a telephone call in which Tsarnaev and his mother discussed Islamic jihad, would probably have prompted harsher scrutiny of the suspect, the paper said.
“They found that the Russians did not provide all the information that they had on him back then, and based on everything that was available, the FBI did all that it could,” a senior U.S. official familiar with the review said, according to the paper.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Two Chechen brothers, Tamerlan and his younger brother Dzhokhar, are suspected of planting pressure-cooker bombs near the race’s finish line last April 15 in an attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260.
Tamerlan died after a gunfight with police while the younger
brother is awaiting trial on charges that could lead to the death penalty if he is convicted.
The new report, authored by the inspector general of the Office of Intelligence Community, has not been made public, though U.S. lawmakers are to be briefed on it on Thursday, the Times said.
This latest review comes after a March congressional report outlined what it called “missed opportunities” that could have prevented the attack.
That March report investigated the U.S. probe of Tamerlan Tsarnaev after a 2011 warning to the Federal Bureau of Investigation by Russian authorities that he had become radicalized and might return to Russia to join extremist groups there.
After the Russian warning, a task force of federal, state and local authorities launched an investigation that included checks of government databases and interviews with Tsarnaev and his parents. It found no evidence of terrorist activity.
But after an initial FBI probe in Boston, Russian officials refused several requests for additional information they had on Tsarnaev, although, at the time, U.S. law enforcement officials viewed him as a greater threat to Russia, the Times reported.
The new report found that Russians shared intelligence with the FBI only after the bombing attack, such as the telephone conversation about Islamic jihad.
“Had they known what the Russians knew they probably would have been able to do more under our investigative guidelines, but would they have uncovered the plot? That’s very hard to say,” the Times reported a senior U.S. official as saying.
Boston-area FBI agents who investigated the Russian intelligence in 2011 could have conducted more interviews and should take steps to better share information with local and state agencies, the report says, according to the Times.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Detroit on Wednesday struck a deal with a core group of creditors that dramatically cuts the losses they would suffer in the city’s landmark bankruptcy case, a breakthrough that could pave the way for settlements with other holdout creditors.
Additionally, Detroit might no longer try to classify nearly $400 million of voter-approved general obligation bonds as unsecured, a threat that had been a chilling prospect for municipal bond investors who have long viewed so-called GO debt as that market’s safest investments. Their final status is still under discussion, but the settlement assures they will receive a superior payout than other unsecured creditors.
The deal also aims to provide a safety net for city retirees at risk of falling below the poverty line.
Terms of the settlement, announced by U.S. Bankruptcy Court mediators in a case brought by the bonds’ insurers, mean that bondholders will receive $287.5 million of $388 million they are owed from a dedicated stream of tax revenue backing the debt, known as unlimited tax general obligation bonds.
That is about 74 cents on the dollar compared with a recovery rate of 15 cents on the dollar for other unsecured debt holders under the city’s latest adjustment plan proposal.
The remaining $100 million in tax revenue would be divided between about $27 million in back payments on bonds and establishing an income stabilization fund to ensure city retirees, who are likely to see their benefits reduced in the bankruptcy, stay out of poverty.
The deal, struck with three bond insurers that had sued the city last fall – National Public Finance Guarantee Corp, a unit of MBIA Inc; Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp and Ambac Assurance Corp – could entice other creditors toward settlements of their objections, analysts said.
“It should increase other unsecured creditors interest in negotiating,” said Matt Fabian, managing director of Municipal Market Advisors, an independent research firm.
Assured Guaranty wants the bonds to be considered secured debt with a valid lien on property taxes. The three insurers claimed the city was illegally diverting voter-approved property taxes meant to pay off the bonds to the general fund.
The “dedicated revenue stream will continue to go to them,” Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr said in an interview following the deal announcement. “The exact details about whether they are secured will be in further documents.”
Shares of all three insurers rose about 4 percent following the deal.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes must still approve any restructuring plan.
LABOR URGED TO MAKE A DEAL
Wednesday’s deal is the second agreement that Orr has struck with creditors in Detroit’s bankruptcy, as he scrambles to resolve the largest municipal insolvency case in U.S. history by this fall when his term expires. The city filed for bankruptcy last July, crippled by decades of economic decline and an $18 billion debt load.
Detroit last month settled with UBS AG and Merrill Lynch Capital Services, a unit of Bank of America Corp, over costly interest-rate swaps. Rhodes, who rejected previous swaps deals, is scheduled to rule on the latest deal on Friday.
Orr urged other creditors to negotiate, including unions fighting on behalf of the city’s two pension plans. Orr’s plan would cut pensions by between 6 percent and 34 percent.
The funds said in a statement they had not yet determined whether Wednesday’s settlement is “advantageous to the city and to the retirement systems.”
As more creditors settle with the city in exchange for supporting Orr’s plan, he gains leverage in negotiations with the remaining holdouts. Still, he is reluctant to simply impose steep losses on any creditor, known in bankruptcy circles as a “cram down,” even though bankruptcy law permits it.
“We recognize as we get additional settlements in, that (there may be the) necessity of a cram down,” Orr said. “We don’t want to cram down.”
A cram down also risks protracted litigation that could threaten other sources of financing for the city’s plan, in particular the $816 million “Grand Bargain” with the State of Michigan, private donors and foundations to bolster city pensions while protecting the city’s renowned collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts from a possible firesale.
“No one wants to buy litigation,” Orr said.
Meanwhile, another bond insurer in the bankruptcy, FGIC Corp, said it had received alternative proposals for city art.
FGIC, which insurers $1.1 billion of city pension debt, said it had received proposals from “credible third parties” for acquiring or monetizing the collection that would generate $1 billion to $2 billion for the bankrupt city, considerably more than under the Grand Bargain.
Orr was not warm to the alternatives.
“We have no intention of selling art,” Orr said. “In a Chapter 9 you cannot compel the city to sell anything, not a park, not a zoo, not the DIA.”
(Additional reporting by Karen Pierog, Edward Krudy and Tom Hals in New York; Writing by Dan Burns; Editing by G Crosse, James Dalgleish and Lisa Shumaker)
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
