Bail hearing set for 2 men in Canada terror plot

TORONTO (AP) ? Two men face a bail hearing Tuesday after their arrest on charges of plotting a terrorist attack against a Canadian passenger train with support from al-Qaida elements in Iran, authorities said. The case has raised questions about Shiite-led Iran's murky relationship with the predominantly Sunni Arab terrorist network.

Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, and Raed Jaser, 35, had "direction and guidance" from al-Qaida members in Iran, though there was no reason to think the planned attacks were state-sponsored, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner James Malizia said Monday. Police said the men did not get financial support from al-Qaida, but declined to provide more details.

"This is the first known al-Qaida planned attack that we've experienced in Canada," Superintendent Doug Best told a news conference. Officials in Washington and Toronto said it had no connections to last week's bombings at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

Charges against the two men include conspiring to carry out an attack and murder people in association with a terrorist group. Police said the men are not Canadian citizens and had been in Canada a "significant amount of time," but declined to say where they were from or why they were in the country.

The arrests in Montreal and Toronto bolstered allegations by some governments and experts of a relationship of convenience between Iran and al-Qaida.

Bruce Riedel, a CIA veteran who is now a Brookings Institution senior fellow, said al-Qaida has had a clandestine presence in Iran since at least 2001 and that neither the terror group nor Tehran speak openly about it.

"The Iranian regime kept some of these elements under house arrest," he said in an email to The Associated Press. "Some probably operate covertly. AQ members often transit Iran traveling between hideouts in Pakistan and Iraq."

U.S. intelligence officials have long tracked limited al-Qaida activity inside Iran. Remnants of al-Qaida's so-called management council are still there, though they are usually kept under virtual house arrest by an Iranian regime suspicious of the Sunni-/Salafi-based militant movement. There are also a small number of financiers and facilitators who help move money, and sometimes weapons and people throughout the region from their base in Iran.

Last fall, the Obama administration offered up to $12 million in rewards for information leading to the capture of two al-Qaida leaders based in Iran. The U.S. State Department described them as key facilitators in sending extremists to Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. Treasury Department also announced financial penalties against one of the men.

Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for the Iranian mission to the United Nations, said the terrorist network was not operating in Iran.

"Iran's position against this group is very clear and well known. (Al-Qaida) has no possibility to do any activity inside Iran or conduct any operation abroad from Iran's territory," Miryousefi said in a statement emailed to the AP late Monday. "We reject strongly and categorically any connection to this story."

The investigation surrounding the planned attack was part of a cross-border operation involving Canadian law enforcement agencies, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The attack "was definitely in the planning stage but not imminent," RCMP chief superintendent Jennifer Strachan said Monday. "We are alleging that these two individuals took steps and conducted activities to initiate a terrorist attack. They watched trains and railways."

Strachan said they were targeting a route, but did not say whether it was a cross border route. Best said the duo had been under investigation since last fall. Their bail hearing was scheduled in Toronto on Tuesday.

Via Rail said that "at no time" were passengers or members of the public in imminent danger. Via trains_Canada's equivalent of Amtrak passenger trains in the U.S. ?carry nearly four million passengers annually.

In Washington, Amtrak president Joe Boardman said the Amtrak Police Department would continue to work with Canadian authorities to assist in the investigation. Via Rail and Amtrak jointly operate trains between Canada and the U.S.

Canada's Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said the arrests show that terrorism continues to be a real threat to Canada.

"Canada will not tolerate terrorist activity and we will not be used as a safe haven for terrorists or those who support terrorist activity," Toews said in the House of Commons.

U.S. Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, said in a statement praising Canadian authorities for the arrests, that the attack was intended "to cause significant loss of human life including New Yorkers."

Muhammad Robert Heft, who runs an outreach organization for Islamic converts, and Hussein Hamdani, a lawyer and longtime advocate in the Muslim community, said one of the suspects is Tunisian and the other is from the United Arab Emirates. Heft and Hamdani were part of a group of Muslim community leaders who were briefed by the RCMP ahead of Monday's announcement.

Authorities were tipped off by members of the Muslim community, Best said. Hamdani said the police said they were very thankful to Muslim community leaders for that.

"It was sort of a thank you moment," Hamdani said. "This tip, this lead, came from the Muslim community. But for the Muslim community we would not be talking about an arrest today. This is evidence and proof that the Canadian Muslim community, rather than a community that should be seen as suspect, is in fact partners for peace and here is the proof of it."

Hamdani said he did not know if anybody in the room for the briefing knew the suspects. He called the al-Qaida connection to the Shiite theocracy of Iran "very strange.

He noted that police said al-Qaida didn't provide material support and that it was more guidance.

"What does that mean exactly?" Hamdani wondered. "It could be words of support or inspiration. It could be 'Here's the idea I think you should use it.'"

The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, a national Muslim civil liberties organization, planned to hold a news conference in Toronto Tuesday afternoon to comment on the terror-related arrests.

A spokeswoman for the University of Sherbrooke near Montreal said Esseghaier studied there in 2008-2009. More recently, he has been doing doctoral research at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique, a spokeswoman at the training university confirmed.

Julie Martineau, a spokeswoman at the research institute, said Esseghaier began working at the center just outside Montreal in 2010 and was pursuing a Ph.D. in nanotechnology.

"We are, of course, very surprised," she said.

A LinkedIn page showing a man with Esseghaier's name and academic background said he helped author a number of biology research papers, including on HIV and cancer detection. The page says he was a student in Tunisia before moving to Canada in the summer of 2008.

The page carries a photo of a black flag inscribed with the Muslim declaration of faith: "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet." The same flag was used by al-Qaida in Irag and then started being used by ultraconservative Islamic groups in Egypt, Tunisia, Mali and elsewhere across the region.

In Markham, Ontario, north of Toronto, police tape cordoned off half of a duplex, with officers remaining at the scene well into the night. Sanjay Chaudhary, who lives in the other half of the duplex with his family, said the RCMP questioned him about his neighbor Jaser, asking whether he knew him or spoke to him often.

Chaudhary said he didn't know his neighbor or the woman he believes is the man's wife but added "every day, we see them going out."

Monday's raid on the house stunned Chaudhary, who said the neighborhood is otherwise "peaceful."

The arrests came just a few months after two Canadians were discovered among militants killed in a terrorist siege at a gas plant in Algeria. At least 38 hostages and 29 militants were killed in the siege, including Ali Medlej and Xristos Katsiroubas, two high school friends from London, Ontario.

In 2006, Canadian police foiled the so-called Toronto 18 home grown plot to set off bombs outside Toronto's Stock Exchange, a building housing Canada's spy agency and a military base. The goal was to scare Canada into removing its troops from Afghanistan. The arrests made international headlines and heightened fears in a country where many people thought they were relatively immune from terrorist strikes.

___

Associated Press writers Benjamin Shingler in Montreal, Peter James Spielmann and Maria Sanminiatelli in New York, and Pete Yost and Kimberly Dozier in Washington contributed to this story.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bail-hearing-set-2-men-canada-terror-plot-063001608.html

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Motion picture group will emphasize rating details

LAS VEGAS (AP) ? The Motion Picture Association of America announced changes to its movie rating system Tuesday, saying it wants to help parents make informed decisions at the multiplex.

The new system, rolled out as the "Check the Box" campaign, will include prominent descriptions explaining why a movie received its rating. Films that might previously have been stamped PG-13 with a sentence beneath the rating will now feature those same descriptions in large type next to the ratings code.

The changes announced by MPAA CEO Christopher Dodd in Las Vegas on Tuesday come in the aftermath of explosions at the Boston Marathon and recent shooting rampages, though the former U.S. senator did not address such examples directly.

The White House has called on the movie industry help parents monitor violence in media since the elementary school in Newtown, Conn., the state Dodd represented for 30 years as a Democrat until 2011. And in a sweeping proposal this year, President Barack Obama asked specifically for a stricter rating system.

Dodd announced the industry's plan at the annual movie-theater convention CinemaCon and spoke generally about the need to help parents "so they can make the best choices about what movies are right for their children to watch."

The MPAA began issuing ratings descriptions for every film rated PG or higher in 1990. Those descriptions will now feature more prominently.

One example read, "An intense scene of war violence, some images of carnage, brief strong violence."

"We're changing the way they're presented so that they're easier to read," MPAA spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield said.

Some observers had hoped Dodd might use his keynote address to signal to the industry that the MPAA would begin assigning R ratings to all hyper-violent movies, potentially limiting their audience and quashing their box office appeal.

Conservative groups have for years accused the MPAA of "ratings creep," a ratcheting down of ratings in the interest of profits, so that material once considered a PG-13 now gets a PG and what once was an R is now a PG-13.

"I am not moved," said Tim Winter, the president of nonpartisan Parents Television Council "I think this is a distinction without a difference. A cynical view of the announcement today is, How can the MPAA protect themselves and continue a toxic level of violence, especially in PG-13 movies, while providing themselves cover from all the scrutiny?"

Gun control advocacy groups greeted the announcement with a shrug.

The MPAA will bolster the campaign with a public service announcement that will be shown before movies and posters that will appear in theaters across the country. It will also update its green pre-trailer screens to clarify that the trailer is approved for the audience viewing the main feature.

___

Hannah Dreier can be reached at http://twitter.com/hannahdreier

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/motion-picture-group-emphasize-rating-details-224442160.html

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Md. health secretary says state prepared to help addicts | Maryland ...

ANNAPOLIS ? More than 41,000 drug and alcohol addicts in Maryland are estimated to be eligible for health insurance next year under the federal health overhaul, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and Maryland?s health secretary said the state is well-positioned to handle added numbers who seek treatment due to big state investments in recent years.

Maryland invested more than $100 million a year of state money to support drug treatment, on top of Medicaid money that many other states rely solely on to help pay for drug treatment, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

?There are tens of thousands of people in treatment, and a lot of them are supported through Medicaid. And then, on top of the Medicaid, there is state-supported treatment, which doesn?t even exist in many other states,? Sharfstein said.

The number of additional drug addicts who will be eligible for health insurance will increase by about 20,000 after Maryland expands Medicaid as planned under federal health care reform.

?Pressure on our substance abuse treatment system to serve more people is a problem I would like to have,? said Sharfstein, who was the U.S. Food and Drug Administration?s No. 2 official before becoming Maryland?s health secretary in 2011. ?We want people to get substance abuse treatment. It allows them to gain independence and transform their lives, and it leads to less criminal behavior, more employment and better outcomes for individuals and their families.?

Maryland currently has an estimated 423,000 people who need treatment for substance abuse, about 9 percent of the population, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration said. An estimated 58,000 of them are receiving treatment. Maryland also has 3,012 beds at treatment facilities, with about an 89 percent occupancy rate, the administration estimates.

Maryland has seen a big increase in spending on outpatient substance abuse treatment in recent years. For example, Medicaid spending for outpatient treatment increased by 165 percent from fiscal year 2009 to fiscal year 2011 in total funds, according to a report the state health department sent last year to lawmakers.

In January 2010, the health department expanded drug treatment goals through three initiatives, including an increase in service reimbursement rates to Medicaid providers. The department also expanded a benefit package of the Primary Adult Care program to include outpatient substance abuse treatment. It also improved the ability of enrollees to self-refer for services. The department paid for the expansion by annually transferring state-only funds from the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Administration grant program to the Medicaid program. That enabled Medicaid to draw down federal matching funds and expand total funding in the system.

Sharfstein sees any need to expand services as a positive development.

?I think the treatment system will be able to handle more people, and if the demand rises to the point that the treatment system has to grow, it should grow,? the health secretary said.

Source: http://thedailyrecord.com/2013/04/16/md-health-secretary-says-state-prepared-to-help-addicts/

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Ex-official arrested in probe of prosecutor slayings

By Lisa Maria Garza

KAUFMAN, Texas (Reuters) - A former justice of the peace in Kaufman County, Texas, whose home was searched as part of the probe into the killings of the local district attorney, his wife and a prosecutor, has been arrested on suspicion of threatening violence, officials said on Saturday.

Eric L. Williams, 46, was arrested on Friday on charges of making a "terroristic" threat, which generally involves a threat to commit violence, according to the Kaufman County jail website. Kaufman County is just east of the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

It was not immediately clear whether the alleged threat had any connection to the slayings, which along with the March slaying of the Colorado prisons chief raised concerns about public officials being targeted by criminal elements.

Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were found shot to death on March 30 at their home near Forney, 22 miles from Dallas, two months after Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse was gunned down execution-style. McLelland had publicly vowed to capture Hasse's killer.

The arrest of Williams marked at least the third time investigators in the case have taken a person into custody over an alleged threat, and came as Texas authorities were seeking to double an existing $200,000 reward to find the killers.

Williams has not been named as a suspect in the slayings. He lost his position as justice of the peace in Kaufman County after being convicted last year of theft, according to local media reports.

His attorney, David Sergi, said in a statement on Friday that his client "has cooperated with law enforcement and vigorously denies any and all allegations," according to local news station KXAS-TV, an NBC affiliate.

Sergi did not return calls on Saturday.

SEARCH WARRANT

A jail official confirmed that Williams' bail was set at $3 million in connection with the charge against him, but she could not release further details.

Kyle Bradford, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Rangers, said authorities served a search warrant at Williams' home on Friday.

Richard Mohundro, who lives next door to Williams' house in Kaufman County, said he watched from his porch as police poured into the neighborhood on Friday afternoon. "There were cops everywhere and I thought, 'Oh my God,'" he said.

Officers were there until around midnight and took out bins filled with documents and computers, Mohundro said.

On Saturday, FBI agents and Texas Rangers also searched several storage units in the town of Seagoville as part of the probe into the slayings, the Dallas Morning News reported. It added that a car had been found in one of the units.

It was not immediately clear who the units belonged to. An FBI spokeswoman did not immediately return calls seeking comment on the developments, nor did a spokesman for the Kaufman County Sheriff's Department.

After the slayings of Hasse and the McLellands, investigators had tested Williams for gun residue and they examined his cell phone, but they did not name him as a suspect, according to the New York Times.

The theft conviction against Williams last year centered on his removal of computer monitors from a public building, according to a report on the trial from The Forney Post newspaper. Hasse prosecuted the case, according to the paper.

Police investigating the slayings previously have arrested others on a charge of making a public threat.

The Texas Rangers arrested a man on April 4 accused of using Facebook to threaten violence against an assistant district attorney. Two days earlier, authorities arrested another man suspected of making a telephone threat against a county official on a tip line set up for the case.

(Additional reporting Marice Richter in Dallas,; Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Vicki Allen, Cynthia Johnston and Paul Simao)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/former-texas-official-arrested-probe-prosecutors-slayings-033144835.html

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U.S., China agree to work together on cyber security

BEIJING (Reuters) - China and the United States will set up a working group on cyber-security, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday, as the two sides moved to ease months of tensions and mutual accusations of hacking and Internet theft.

Speaking to reporters in Beijing during a visit to China, Kerry said the United States and China had agreed on the need to speed up action on cyber security, an area that Washington says is its top national security concern.

Cyber security, Kerry said "affects the financial sector, banks, financial transactions, every aspect of nations in modern times are affected by the use of cyber networking and obviously all of us - every nation - has an interest in protecting its people, protecting its rights, protecting its infrastructure".

Earlier, China's official Xinhua news agency quoted Foreign Minister Wang Yi as telling Kerry in their meeting that China and the United States should make joint efforts to safeguard cyberspace.

Cyberspace should be an area where the two countries can increase mutual trust and cooperation, Wang told Kerry, according to Xinhua.

Beijing and Washington have traded accusations in recent months of massive cyber intrusions. The United States says hacking attacks emanating from China have targeted U.S. government and corporate computer networks among others, stealing government and commercial data.

A U.S. computer security firm released a report in February saying a secretive Chinese military unit is believed to be behind a wave of hacking attacks against the United States.

China claims it is the victim of large-scale cyber attacks from the United States, though it has given few details. Wang repeated to Kerry the Chinese government's oft-stated position that it opposes any form of hacking.

The working group announcement follows other recent calls for dialogue and cooperation. Officials and business executives attending a China-U.S. Internet Industry Forum in Beijing this week sought to find common ground.

"It's important to have a dialogue on this, but it's also important that the dialogue be a means to an end, and the end is really ending these practices," Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Robert Hormats, who spoke at the forum, told Reuters in an interview.

Last month China's premier, Li Keqiang called for both sides to stop the war of words over hacking.

(Reporting by Terril Yue Jones; Editing by Jonathan Standing and Jon Hemming)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-calls-joint-efforts-u-safeguard-cyberspace-xinhua-112319022--business.html

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Cardinals?spoil Lohse's return, beat?Brewers

By R.B. FALLSTROM

AP Sports Writer

Associated Press Sports

updated 11:17 p.m. ET April 12, 2013

ST. LOUIS (AP) - Shelby Miller's lone regret is it took a lot of work to send Milwaukee Brewers hitters trudging back to the dugout.

The 22-year-old rookie allowed one hit in seven innings, a single by Norichika Aoki to open the game, and the St. Louis Cardinals had just enough to spoil Kyle Lohse's first start as a visitor since 2007 in a 2-0 victory on Friday night.

"He was impressive," closer Mitchell Boggs said. "He's been impressive since he got to St. Louis, so I don't think anybody's surprised by what he's doing."

Miller, a first-round draft pick in 2009, has worked 13 scoreless innings in two career starts at Busch Stadium. Faster outs, Miller reasoned after throwing 113 pitches, and he might have gone the distance against Milwaukee.

"They were battling me all night, they weren't giving in at all," Miller said. "At the end of the day I found a way to get them out.

"It was usually seven pitches later, but as long as I'm getting them out I guess that's all that matters."

Miller didn't trick the Brewers, held to two hits overall and shut out for the first time this season. He just overpowered them.

"They were trying to catch up with it," manager Ron Roenicke said. "After the first time through, it wasn't like he was surprising them. They just weren't catching up to it."

A near-sellout crowd of 42,528 bundled up on 44-degree night for the second Stan Musial tribute of the opening homestand, featuring a harmonica giveaway and the unveiling of a memorial plaque attached to the iconic Musial statue outside Busch Stadium. Seven members of the Musial family threw simultaneous first pitches and Musial's No. 6 was cut into the outfield grass in center.

David Freese had an RBI single at the end of a three-hit flurry to open the second and Yadier Molina hit his second homer in the seventh for the Cardinals, who have allowed one run during a three-game winning streak.

Lohse, a 16-game winner whom the Cardinals did not attempt to re-sign, allowed two runs in seven innings while throwing 82 pitches - 31 fewer than Miller needed. He received a nice ovation before his first at-bat leading off the third, with hundreds of fans standing.

"It was pretty cool," Lohse said. "I felt like I did my thing here and it was appreciated."

Miller (2-0) had a career-best eight strikeouts in his third career start, one more than he had in his debut against the Reds in the 2012 regular-season finale. He retired his final 17 in order after hitting Alex Gonzalez with one out in the second, and fanned Ryan Braun and Carlos Gomez twice each.

Lohse (0-1) pulled a nice escape in the second, holding the Cardinals to one run after giving up three straight hits. He allowed one hit the next four innings before Molina homered with one out in the seventh.

He's still rounding into form after signing a three-year, $33 million free agent deal on March 25, and facing the Cardinals posed an additional challenge.

"I didn't get ahead of as many guys because I was trying to be really careful knowing that they know me," Lohse said. "I didn't want to groove any first-pitch fastballs or anything."

Lohse, who is 30-18 with a 3.39 ERA at Busch Stadium, made his first start in St. Louis in an opposition uniform since a 5-1 win for the Reds on June 7, 2007.

Trevor Rosenthal retired the side in order in the eighth and Boggs stranded two runners in the ninth, striking out Braun and Rickie Weeks to earn his second save in four chances to wind up a game played in 2 hours, 15 minutes.

"I take a lot of pride in what I do," Boggs said. "That was a big one for me and a little emotion shows."

Carlos Beltran led off the first with a broken-bat single that gave him a .575 average (23 for 40) against Lohse, and the Cardinals had runners on second and third after Braun, leaving his feet at the last second on a running attempt, couldn't hang onto Molina's double to the gap to left-center. Freese singled up the middle on the next pitch to put St. Louis ahead, but Lohse got eighth-place hitter Pete Kozma on a called third strike and Miller grounded into a double play.

NOTES: Aoki is 12 for 25 during a six-game hitting streak. ... Cardinals rookie Matt Adams, the backup first baseman, was on the bench despite his .643 average. "He's done a nice job for them," Brewers manager Ron Roenicke said before the game. "Hopefully, he's not in there a lot." ... The Brewers Alex Gonzalez got hit by a pitch on the left hand in the second and was taken out the next inning. X-rays were negative.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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