– Paul Ryan, a man who is not running for president and swears that he doesn't want the job, continues to get about as much press about it as the official remaining candidates. In his Politico Playbook on Monday, Mike Allen talks to a Republican in the know who "sees a 60% chance of a convention deadlock, and a 90% chance that delegates turn to Ryan—ergo, a 54% chance that Ryan, who'll start the third week of July as chairman of the Republican National Convention, will end it as the nominee." Ryan, meanwhile, tells the Times of Israel while on a visit to Jerusalem that he's not interested. "No, I've already said that that's not me," he tells the newspaper. Of course, as Allen and Steve Benen at MSNBC point out, Ryan said much the same thing about becoming House speaker before accepting the job as John Boehner's successor. Saying he doesn't want the job gives him "maximum leverage" and sets up a scenario in which he's "begged to do it," writes Allen. Benen thinks those in the GOP hoping for just this scenario should be careful: "The Republican Party would find itself in late July with a presidential nominee who has no campaign infrastructure, no platform, no stump speech, no staff, and no money."

Expand this summary.

There are three Republican presidential candidates left in the race, and chances are, one of them will be the party’s nominee. On “Fox News Sunday” yesterday, Chris Wallace asked RNC Chairman Reince Priebus the question that’s on the minds of many: Isn’t it possible, at a contested convention, that the nomination could go to someone who isn’t already a candidate?

 Priebus described such as a scenario as an “extreme hypothetical,” which he considers “highly unlikely.” The Republican leader twice said it’s “possible” for a non-candidate to end up as the nominee, but Priebus reiterated his belief that the Republican ticket will be led by “one of the three people [currently] running.”

 And yet, some in Priebus’ party can’t seem to let go of their dream. Politico reported this morning there are still “top” Republican insiders talking up the idea of nominating House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).

 On the eve of the Wisconsin primaries, top Republicans are becoming increasingly vocal about their long-held belief that Speaker Paul Ryan will wind up as the nominee, perhaps on the fourth ballot at a chaotic Cleveland convention. One of the nation’s best-wired Republicans, with an enviable prediction record for this cycle, sees a 60 percent chance of a convention deadlock and a 90 percent chance that delegates turn to Ryan – ergo, a 54 percent chance that Ryan, who’ll start the third week of July as chairman of the Republican National Convention, will end it as the nominee.

 The piece, from Politico’s Mike Allen, added that the Wisconsin congressman is “more calculating and ambitious than he lets on.” It added that Ryan “is running the same playbook he did to become speaker: saying he doesn’t want it, that it won’t happen. In both cases, the maximum leverage is to not want it – and to be begged to do it.”

 The Speaker happens to be in Israel right now, but he called into Hugh Hewitt’s conservative radio show this morning to once again he rejects the speculation. “I think you need to run for president in order to be president,” Ryan said . “I’m not running for president, so, period. End of story.”

 Except, it’s probably not the end of the story.

 The Republicans and pundits keeping these embers burning have been quick to note, accurately, that Paul Ryan made similar comments after John Boehner’s retirement, saying he wouldn’t be a candidate for Speaker. The Wisconsin Republican, we now know, can be talked into accepting great power when it’s offered to him on a platter – which means the speculation will continue, probably until the convention itself.

 But so long as the chatter continues, let’s keep a few relevant details in mind. The first is the simple fact that if Republicans hold 50+ nominating contests over a six-month period, and then nominate someone who did not run for president – and has said repeatedly that he does not want to be president – the prospect of party-wide chaos shouldn’t be dismissed too quickly.

 Second, the assumption that Paul Ryan represents electoral magic for the GOP continues to be wrong. The Speaker was on the Republican ticket four years ago – when he failed to win his home state – and recent polling suggests the American mainstream doesn’t share the Beltway’s affection for the GOP House leader.

 Finally, let’s say for the sake of conversation that all of the obvious hurdles simply disappear. Let’s imagine convention delegates were willing to embrace Ryan without controversy; the Speaker decided he wouldn’t mind being president after all; the party wouldn’t fracture; and polls turned in his favor. Even then, the idea would be dubious on the merits: The Republican Party would find itself in late July with a presidential nominee who has no campaign infrastructure, no platform, no stump speech, no staff, and no money. ||||| POLITICO Playbook: Crisis

 Speaker Nancy Pelosi is essentially in open war with President Donald Trump. | Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

 DRIVING THE DAY

 IS THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT IN A STATE OF CRISIS? … There’s no doubt we have gotten accustomed to lurching from standoff to standoff, diplomatic row to global skirmish. But over the past few days, it feels as if the crisis in our government has hit a new inflection point.

 -- WE ARE NOW ON DAY 27 of a government shutdown centered on whether the U.S. should build a new barrier on the southern border with Mexico. Hundreds of miles of barriers already exist. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have been willing to blink, and both sides appear to be growing increasingly dug in. The shutdown is continuing ad infinitum. Ratings agencies and economic forecasters have warned Congress to shape up, or face huge consequences. Ben White on the growing number of recession warnings

 -- AT THE SAME TIME, the Trump administration is forcing some workers to come back to work with no pay. The agents whom the government has hired to ensure people don’t board our airliners with bombs and weapons -- TSA employees -- are working without pay. So are the people protecting the president of the United States. NYT’s Katie Rogers and Alan Rappeport on people coming back to work without pay

 -- SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI is in open war with PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, and has essentially rescinded her invitation for the president to speak to the nation from the Capitol in the annual State of the Union. The situation she lays out is quite dire: She expressed concern that the government cannot protect the building, which will be filled with almost the entire government. It also had the additional political benefit of being a kick to the groin to the president.

 DHS SECRETARY KIRSTJEN NIELSEN said publicly DHS and the Secret Service are ready to protect the Capitol for this event. HOUSE MINORITY WHIP STEVE SCALISE (R-LA.) indicated if Trump shows up at the Capitol anyway, they’ll find a place for him to speak.

 -- MEANWHILE … A SENIOR HOUSE REPUBLICAN, Steve King of Iowa, was admonished by his leadership, and in some cases asked to leave Congress, because he voiced support for white supremacy. He has been stripped of his committee assignments. This comes after years of racist statements.

 LOOK AT ALL OF THE AVAILABLE EVIDENCE, and ask yourself a simple question: Do you believe the government is poised to function over these next two years? Do you believe that these two parties are poised to pass the USMCA -- the new trade deal with Canada and Mexico? Do you believe a big infrastructure package is right around the corner? How about the debt limit -- will that be lifted easily?

 Good Thursday morning. JOHN KASICH, who recently signed up as a CNN contributor, is raising money off of it. His email solicitation

 NEW PBS NEWSHOUR/NPR/MARIS POLL: “With the 2020 presidential election already underway, 57 percent of registered voters said they would definitely vote against President Donald Trump, according to the latest poll from the PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist. Another 30 percent of voters said they would cast their ballot to support Trump, and an additional 13 percent said they had no idea who would get their vote.” PBS

 A message from the National Retail Federation: Tariffs imposed by Washington are having a negative impact on Main Street retailers in communities across the country. Scroll down to learn more. http://bit.ly/2TJDuvH

 THE PELOSI-VS.-TRUMP STORIES …

 -- JOHN BRESNAHAN, HEATHER CAYGLE and RACHAEL BADE: “‘She’s satin and steel’: Pelosi wages war on Trump”: “Donald Trump may have finally met his match in Nancy Pelosi. As the partial government shutdown grinds on with no end in sight, the struggle between the president and the speaker is becoming an unprecedented political fight — with the fallout likely to extend far beyond this episode.

 “Pelosi privately refers to Trump as the ‘whiner in chief.’ She’s questioned his manhood. She calls out Trump’s lies to his face and openly wonders whether he’s fit for the job. She mocks Trump for his privileged upbringing and his lack of empathy for the less fortunate. She jokes with other senior Democrats that if the American public saw how Trump acts in private, they’d ‘want to make a citizen’s arrest.’” POLITICO

 -- WAPO’S PAUL KANE, PHIL RUCKER and JOSH DAWSEY: “‘She wields the knife’: Pelosi moves to belittle and undercut Trump in shutdown fight”

 The most reliable politics newsletter. Sign up for POLITICO Playbook and get the latest news, every morning — in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.

 INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE -- NYT’S MAGGIE HABERMAN and ANNIE KARNI, “In a West Wing in Transition, Trump Tries to Stand Firm on the Shutdown”: “President Trump has insisted that he is not going to compromise with Democrats to end the government shutdown, and that he is comfortable in his unbendable position. But privately, it’s sometimes a different story. ‘We are getting crushed!’ Mr. Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, after watching some recent coverage of the shutdown, according to one person familiar with the conversation. ‘Why can’t we get a deal?’ ...

 “Mr. Trump has told [his senior staffers] he believes over time the country will not remember the shutdown, but it will remember that he staged a fight over his insistence that the southern border be protected. ... Unlike his predecessors, according to White House officials, Mr. Mulvaney is not interested in challenging what has revealed itself to be the one constant in the Trump White House: the special status reserved for Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, the president’s family members and senior advisers, in the West Wing.

 “Mr. Mulvaney’s more hands-off approach to the family members has allowed Mr. Kushner to position himself among lawmakers on Capitol Hill as the person who can deliver to Mr. Trump what he wants. The dynamic, according to multiple White House officials, is similar to the opening days of the administration, when the staff to the new president was just beginning to meet with Washington officials and Mr. Kushner often told people that ‘everything runs through me.’” NYT

 THE ATLANTIC’S ELAINA PLOTT on SHAHIRA KNIGHT: “Trump’s Chief Shutdown Negotiator Is Unknown to Most Americans”

 SEXUAL HARASSMENT WATCH -- HOLLY OTTERBEIN and ALEX THOMPSON: “Sanders faces former staffers about sexual harassment on 2016 campaign”: “Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) met Wednesday with a group of former staffers who have raised concerns about allegations of sexual harassment and violence during his 2016 presidential campaign and have urged him to make reforms if he runs again next year.

 “Sanders did not respond to a reporter’s questions as he entered the meeting through a private door at a hotel in Washington. The former aides sought a meeting with Sanders to ‘discuss the issue of sexual violence and harassment on the 2016 campaign, for the purpose of planning to mitigate the issue in the upcoming presidential cycle,’ according to a copy of a letter first reported by POLITICO.” POLITICO

 -- BUZZFEED’S ZOE TILLMAN: “A Lawsuit Claims Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee Retaliated Against A Staffer Who Planned To Sue The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Over An Alleged Rape”: “A former staffer for Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee claims in a new lawsuit that the lawmaker retaliated against her and fired her because she was planning to pursue legal action over an alleged rape by a former employee of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. The woman, identified in court papers by the pseudonym Jane Doe, alleges she was raped in October 2015, when she was a 19-year-old intern for the CBCF, by the foundation’s intern coordinator at the time, Damien Jones.” BuzzFeed

 AOC UPDATE -- “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a social media star, to school House Democrats on Twitter use,” by USA Today’s Eliza Collins: “The House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee is hosting a session Thursday morning with Ocasio-Cortez of New York (@AOC – 2.42 million followers) and Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut (@jahimes – 76,500 followers) ‘on the most effective ways to engage constituents on Twitter and the importance of digital storytelling.’” USA Today

 THE INVESTIGATIONS … “Rudy Giuliani says Trump didn’t collude with Russia but can’t say if campaign aides did,” by CNN’s Caroline Kelly: “In an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo on ‘Cuomo Prime Time,’ Giuliani, a former New York mayor and Trump's attorney, said he doesn't know if other people in the campaign, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, were working with the Kremlin during the 2016 presidential race.

 “‘I never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or people in the campaign,’ Giuliani said. He added, ‘I said the President of the United States. There is not a single bit of evidence the President of the United States committed the only crime you can commit here, conspiring with the Russians to hack the DNC.’” CNN

 -- “GOP wants Mueller transparency — with caveats,” by Darren Samuelsohn: “Senate Republicans are sending signals they want it both ways on special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report: They are calling for transparency while still giving themselves an out if crucial parts are withheld. It’s a talking point that echoes the line William Barr, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be attorney general, used in his confirmation hearing this week. Barr vowed to publicly release as much of Mueller’s findings as he can, ‘consistent with the regulations and the law.’” POLITICO

 -- ABC’S ELIANA LARRAMENDIA and JAMES HILL: “Michael Cohen fears Trump rhetoric could put his family at risk: Sources”: “Michael Cohen is having reservations about his highly anticipated public appearance before Congress next month, fearing that President Donald Trump’s frequent diatribes against him could put his family in danger, according to sources close to Cohen.” ABC

 A message from the National Retail Federation:

 CNN’S MANU RAJU and JEREMY HERB: “Effort to ease Russian sanctions boosted by former Louisiana senator”: “Former Republican Sen. David Vitter is lobbying on behalf of companies linked to a Russian oligarch with ties to President Vladimir Putin, aligning himself with Trump administration efforts to ease sanctions on his clients, according to documents filed with the Justice Department.”

 “Vitter, who has registered as a foreign agent, lobbied with several countries' ambassadors and the Treasury Department to ease punishing sanctions imposed on major aluminum firms tied to oligarch Oleg Deripaska. After the Treasury Department agreed last month and eased the sanctions, Vitter was spotted in the Senate ahead of critical votes taking aim at the Trump administration move.” CNN

 TRUMP’S THURSDAY -- The president will leave the White House at 10:45 a.m. to go to the Pentagon. At 11 a.m., Trump will participate in the missile defense review announcement. He will then return to the White House.

 PLAYBOOK READS

 PHOTO DU JOUR: Furloughed federal employees get free lunch at a pop-up staged by chef José Andrés during the partial government shutdown Wednesday. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images

 THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION -- “Top HUD official’s departure follows disagreements over housing policy and Puerto Rico disaster funds,” by WaPo’s Tracy Jan, Arelis Hernández, Josh Dawsey and Damian Paletta: “Deputy Secretary Pam Patenaude, second-in-command at the agency helmed by Ben Carson and widely regarded as HUD’s most capable political leader, is said to have grown frustrated by what a former HUD employee described as a ‘Sisyphean undertaking.’ ...

 “Trump told then-White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and then-Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney that he did not want a single dollar going to Puerto Rico, because he thought the island was misusing the money and taking advantage of the government ... Patenaude told White House budget officials during an early December meeting in the Situation Room that the money had been appropriated by Congress and must be sent.” WaPo

 -- “Pentagon seeks to expand scope and sophistication of U.S. missile defenses,” by WaPo’s Paul Sonne: “The Trump administration is seeking to expand the scope and sophistication of American missile defenses on a scale not seen since President Ronald Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ initiative in a new strategy that President Trump plans to roll out personally on Thursday alongside military leaders at the Pentagon.” WaPo

 Playbook PM Sign up for our must-read newsletter on what's driving the afternoon in Washington. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.

 BANNON WATCH -- STEVE BANNON predicted Tuesday night that Trump will appoint four justices to the Supreme Court as president and that Clarence Thomas may retire so that the president could pick someone to replace him, according to two people at his speech at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia.

 He also said in front of the 250 people gathered at the Loews Hotel that Trump will run in 2020; but if he doesn’t, a Nikki Haley/Mike Pompeo slate would be a winning ticket. Bannon’s a fan of Ocasio-Cortez and said he admires her “grit.” He also said that the U.S. economic war with China is just starting (and that he believes the U.S. is winning) and will grow to encompass more than just trade disputes. Pic

 A message from the National Retail Federation:

 TRUMP INC. -- “Federal agency ‘improperly’ ignored constitutional concerns before allowing Trump to keep lease to his hotel, internal watchdog says,” by WaPo’s Jonathan O’Connell and David Fahrenthold: “The General Services Administration ‘ignored’ concerns that President Trump’s lease on a government-owned building — the one that houses his Trump International Hotel in Washington — might violate the Constitution when it allowed Trump to keep the lease after he took office, according to a new report from the agency’s inspector general. Trump’s company won the lease several years before he became president.

 “After Trump was elected, the agency had to decide whether his company would be allowed to keep its lease. At that time, the inspector general found, the agency should have determined whether the lease violates the Constitution’s emoluments clauses, which bar presidents from taking payments from foreign governments or individual U.S. states. But it did not, according to the report issued Wednesday.” WaPo

 CHINA WATCH -- “Huawei Targeted in U.S. Criminal Probe for Alleged Theft of Trade Secrets,” by WSJ’s Dan Strumpf, Nicole Hong and Aruna Viswanatha: “Federal prosecutors are pursuing a criminal investigation of China’s Huawei Technologies Co. for allegedly stealing trade secrets from U.S. business partners, including technology used by T-Mobile US Inc. to test smartphones, according to people familiar with the matter.

 “The investigation grew in part out of civil lawsuits against Huawei, including one in which a Seattle jury found Huawei liable for misappropriating robotic technology from T-Mobile’s Bellevue, Wash., lab ... The probe is at an advanced stage and could lead to an indictment soon.” WSJ

 MEDIAWATCH -- NYT’s Michael Grynbaum: “David Haskell, a longtime deputy editor at New York magazine, will become its editor in chief on April 1, inheriting a glossy biweekly and a suite of websites devoted to pursuits like fashion, food, shopping and politics.” NYT

 PLAYBOOKERS

 SPOTTED: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and his wife Louise Linton eating dinner with Bret Baier and his wife Amy at Prime Rib last night … Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) at Brothers and Sisters in Adams Morgan ... Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) having dinner at the Monocle with a few other people.

 HARVARD INSTITUTE OF POLITICS has named its spring 2019 fellows. Resident fellows include: former Reps. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) and Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), Andrew Gillum, Aisha Moodie-Mills, Catherine Russell and Michael Zeldin. The spring visiting fellows include: Gary Cohn, former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), Mitch Landrieu and Michael Nutter.

 BIRTHWEEK (was yesterday): Jim Durette, deputy COS for Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) (hat tip: Hank)

 BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Steve Rabinowitz, president and co-founder of Bluelight Strategies. How he got his start in politics: “Moved to Washington to volunteer, then work for my local congressman Mo Udall when he ran for president and I was but 18. Then worked, also nationally, for Presidents Jerry Brown, John Anderson, Gary Hart, Walter Mondale, Paul Simon, Mike Dukakis and Bob Kerrey’s presidential campaigns before finally working for that Bill Clinton guy. My non-political friends used to call me ‘the kiss of death.’ But I was the first among my political cohort to truly learn how a mult box worked and what the color temperature of light was.” Playbook Plus Q&A

 BIRTHDAYS: former first lady Michelle Obama is 55 ... Rebecca Buck, CNN political reporter (hubby tip: Brendan) … Maury Povich is 8-0 ... former FCC Chairman Newton Minow is 93 ... Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is 65 ... POLITICO’s Steve Shepard and Joanne Kenen ... John Wagner, WaPo national political reporter, is 5-0 ... Alyssa Franke of EMILY’s List ... Al Shofe … Nikki Schwab, Washington reporter at The Daily Mail ... NBC News’ Alex Moe ... POLITICO Europe’s Alba Pregja … Jim Free is 72 ... David Avella, chairman of GOPAC ... Chris Jones, SVP/senior director of U.S. talent acquisition at BCW Global ... Cynthia Kroet ... Stephen Gilmore ... Bill Galston is 73 … Jeremy Pelofsky of Finsbury ... Julie Alderman of Planned Parenthood (h/t Londyn Marshall) ...

 … Tommy Joyce (h/ts Lauren Ehrsam and Ed Cash) ... Kousha Navidar … Robert E. Lewis Jr. is 4-0 ... photographer Steven Purcell is 56 … Elizabeth Hays Bradley (h/t Jon Haber) ... Dan Gilbert is 57 ... Charlotte Rediker ... Becca Sobel ... Julie Barko Germany ... John Seabrook is 6-0 ... Mary Clare Rigali, analyst at Albright Stonebridge ... Edelman’s Katherine Wiet and Kurt Hauptman ... Haris Alic ... Karlygash Faillace ... Doug Wilder is 87 ... Alyssa Roberts ... Barbara Riley ... YouTube alum Vadim Lavrusik ... Taylor Barden ... Warren Cathedral is 58 ... Robbie Hughes is 37 ... Amit Jani ... John M. Gillespie ... Noelani Bonifacio ... Tegan Millspaw Gelfand ... Mark Pieschel … John Hoyt (h/t Teresa Vilmain) … Mike Spahn, COS to Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), is 4-0 (h/t Maureen Knightly)

 A message from the National Retail Federation: Tariffs imposed by Washington are coming directly out of the pocketbooks of American small business owners and consumers. As the owner of a Texas luggage shop said, "This could be such a detrimental impact on our business." Listen to the stories of local retailers impacted by tariffs at http://bit.ly/2TJDuvH. ||||| House Speaker Paul Ryan on Sunday rebuffed relentless speculation that he might emerge from Republican infighting as the GOP’s presidential candidate, telling The Times of Israel that there were “lots of reasons” why he hadn’t run for president this time, and that he wasn’t about to change his mind.

 Speaking soon after arriving in Jerusalem at the start of a visit, Ryan assessed that a Donald Trump victory in Tuesday’s primary in Wisconsin — Ryan’s home state — would put the billionaire front-runner on course to clinching the Republican nomination, while a Ted Cruz victory would make an open convention more likely. And he noted that “Cruz is doing pretty well. He’s pulling ahead in polls.”

 But Ryan, the VP candidate on Mitt Romney’s 2012 ticket, was quick to stress that “I’m the co-chair of the convention, so I’m perfectly neutral on this.”

 Pressed, nonetheless, on how he might respond if prevailed upon to come forward as the nominee who could heal a divided party, Ryan was adamant: “No, I’ve already said that that’s not me.

 “I decided not to run for president,” Ryan elaborated. “I think you should run, if you’re going to be president. I think you should start in Iowa and run to the tape.”

 Asked why he had opted to stay out of the race this time, Ryan, 46, who is married with a daughter and two sons, said there were “lots of reasons” including “Phase of life: I have a young family.” He said he had “thought I could make a huge difference” in his former position as head of the House Ways and Means Committee, “and still be the kind of dad and husband I want to be.”

 What’s more, he added, “We had 17 people running. We had a deep bench of qualified people. So I thought we had that fairly well taken care of.”

 Ryan said he ascribed the rise of Trump and anti-establishment Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders to “deep anxiety” among Americans over the “flat” economy and threats to national security.

 Ryan’s trip to Israel is his first overseas visit since he assumed the Speaker’s office last October, and he said it was highly important for him to have come to Israel on the first day of his first foreign trip in the job, “to buttress and reinforce our alliance and my belief in a stronger alliance between our two countries.”

 The Times of Israel’s full interview with Paul Ryan will be published on Monday. |||||


Photo by 1000 Words/Shutterstock

 Debra Harrell, 46, let her 9-year-old daughter play outside alone at the park. The South Carolina child had a cellphone she could use to call her mother in case of emergency. On the girl’s third day alone at the park, someone asked her where her mother was. The girl said her mom was at work. (Harrell works at McDonald’s and didn’t want her daughter to have to sit inside the restaurant for hours on a beautiful summer day.) The result? Harrell was arrested for “unlawful conduct towards a child” and put in jail; her daughter is now in the custody of the department of social services.

 Most commentators—save for a few busybodies interviewed by the local news who nattered on about the possibility of the child being abducted by a strange man, something that’s extremely rare—think that authorities went way too far in arresting Harrell. It angers me, as a citizen, to see the police overreach this way. How is it benefiting this child to be put in the custody of social services? And since I'm a parent, Harrell’s arrest scares me: How can I appropriately parent my child when doing something that seems relatively safe, if out of fashion, can get you arrested?

 Advertisement

 I asked Dorothy Roberts, a professor of law, sociology, and civil rights at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare, if state laws give any specifics about how parents should behave. As in, if you leave a child of X years alone for Y amount of time, it’s a crime. Roberts responded via email:

 The short answer is that every state has its own child maltreatment laws and definitions of neglect—and they are all very vague with no specifics. Most include within neglect failure to provide adequate supervision. South Carolina's child welfare law is actually more specific than most, but still doesn't specify the age—"supervision appropriate to the child's age and development." But how does the judge/jury determine what's appropriate? I don't know of any law that specifies the age or the precise nature of failure to supervise.

 Roberts further explained that states determine whether to treat neglect as a crime or as a child welfare matter. She says it is “recent and rare” for the parent to be charged with a crime and adds that the vagueness of the statutes leave “a lot of room for discretion by social workers, police, judges, and prosecutors, to determine which/whose failures to supervise to pursue. This allows race, class, and gender biases to influence decisions in both the child welfare and criminal justice systems.”

 Certainly those biases could be at play here: Harrell is black, and class is definitely behind how her situation came to be in the first place. As Jonathan Chait points out in New York magazine, when welfare reform was passed in the '90s, single mothers were pushed into low-paying, full-time work that did not provide enough income to afford child care. ||||| 1) Parents ought to enjoy broad latitude in bringing up their children. There are obviously limits. The state ought to intervene if a child is being abused. But letting a 9-year-old go to the park alone doesn't come close to meeting that threshold. Honestly, it seems a bit young to me, but I don't know the kid or the neighborhood, it doesn't sound as though the mother had any great option, and as I didn't give birth to the kid, support her, and raise her for 9 years, it isn't my call.

 2) By arresting this mom (presumably causing her to lose her job) and putting the child in foster care, the state has caused the child far more trauma than she was ever likely to suffer in the park, whatever one thinks of the decision to leave her there. Even if the state felt it had the right to declare this parenting decision impermissible, couldn't they have given this woman a simple warning before taking custody?

 3) The state's decision is coming at a time when it is suffering from a shortage of foster families, as well as a child protective services workforce so overwhelmed that serious child abuse inquiries are regularly closed in violation of policy.

 Perhaps most concerning of all are the surfeit of cases where child protective services censures parents for ostensibly jeopardizing a kid's safety in a manner that is totally disconnected from any statistical realities about the actual dangers faced. This point was made superbly in a Salon article written by a mother who was cited by police for leaving her kid in a car while briefly running into a store–even though it wasn't a hot day, she was gone for mere minutes, and the kid was in no danger. She relayed a conversation she later had with a Free Range Kids founder.

 “Listen,” she said at one point. “Let’s put aside for the moment that by far, the most dangerous thing you did to your child that day was put him in a car and drive someplace with him. About 300 children are injured in traffic accidents every day—and about two die. That’s a real risk. So if you truly wanted to protect your kid, you’d never drive anywhere with him. But let’s put that aside. So you take him, and you get to the store where you need to run in for a minute and you’re faced with a decision. Now, people will say you committed a crime because you put your kid ‘at risk.’ But the truth is, there’s some risk to either decision you make.” She stopped at this point to emphasize, as she does in much of her analysis, how shockingly rare the abduction or injury of children in non-moving, non-overheated vehicles really is. For example, she insists that statistically speaking, it would likely take 750,000 years for a child left alone in a public space to be snatched by a stranger. “So there is some risk to leaving your kid in a car,” she argues. It might not be statistically meaningful but it’s not nonexistent. The problem is,” she goes on, “there’s some risk to every choice you make. So, say you take the kid inside with you. There’s some risk you’ll both be hit by a crazy driver in the parking lot. There’s some risk someone in the store will go on a shooting spree and shoot your kid. There’s some risk he’ll slip on the ice on the sidewalk outside the store and fracture his skull. There’s some risk no matter what you do. So why is one choice illegal and one is OK? Could it be because the one choice inconveniences you, makes your life a little harder, makes parenting a little harder, gives you a little less time or energy than you would have otherwise had?” Later on in the conversation, Skenazy boils it down to this. “There’s been this huge cultural shift. We now live in a society where most people believe a child can not be out of your sight for one second, where people think children need constant, total adult supervision. This shift is not rooted in fact. It’s not rooted in any true change. It’s imaginary. It’s rooted in irrational fear.”

 The cultural shift certainly doesn't seem to be rooted in empiricism. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| A North Augusta mother is behind bars after officers said she left her 9-year-old daughter alone at a park while she went to work.

 Debra Lynn Harrell, 46, is charged with unlawful neglect toward a child, according to the North Augusta Department of Public Safety.

 Officers responded to a park on Old Edgefield Road around 2 p.m. Monday, according to an incident report. A woman told officers that a girl had been playing in the park since 9:30 a.m. with no adult supervision.

 The woman told officers that she asked the girl where her mother was and she told her that her mother dropped her off before going to work, according to the report. She also told the woman that her mother drops her off at the park all the time so she can play while her mother is at work.

 The girl also said that she sometimes walks over to the McDonald's inside Walmart to buy lunch, according to the report.

 Officers took the girl to police headquarters and contacted her mother. Harrell confessed to officers that she left her daughter alone at the park. She was arrested and booked into jail.

 The Department of Social Services took custody of the child.

 Copyright 2014 WFXG. All rights reserved. |||||

Write a summary.

– Should sending your kid to play alone at a local park land you in jail? Because that's what happened to Debra Harrell. The 46-year-old South Carolina mom repeatedly sent her 9-year-old daughter to a well-trafficked park while she went to work at McDonald's. When the parents of other children at the park found out, they called police, who arrested Harrell and charged her with unlawful conduct toward a child. The daughter has been placed in state custody. Local news outlets first reported the story on July 1, but it's been getting wider attention lately thanks to an indignant post on Reason from "Free Range Kids" advocate Lenore Skenazy. And so far, pretty much everyone agrees that the arrest is senseless and wrong. Some reactions: Skenazy notes that the original news reports make it sound like Harrell "committed a serious, unconscionable crime," as locals speculate that the girl could have been kidnapped. "To which I must ask: In broad daylight? In a crowded park? Just because something happened on Law & Order doesn't mean it's happening all the time in real life." "Since I'm a parent, Harrell’s arrest scares me: How can I appropriately parent my child when doing something that seems relatively safe, if out of fashion, can get you arrested?" asks Jessica Grose at Slate. One law professor tells Grose that the statutes for child welfare laws are often broadly written, giving police lots of latitude—and allowing "race, class, and gender biases to influence decisions." That could be the case here, because Harrell is black, and her poverty helped cause the situation. "The story is a convergence of helicopter parenting with America’s primitive family policy," writes Jonathan Chait at New York. "Our welfare policy is designed to make everybody, even single mothers, work full-time jobs. The social safety net makes it difficult for low-wage single mothers to obtain adequate child care. And society is seized by bizarre fears that children are routinely snatched up by strangers in public places," which is actually an exceedingly rare phenomenon. "The state has caused the child far more trauma than she was ever likely to suffer in the park," writes Conor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic, and they're taking the child at a time when the state has a shortage of foster families. And there's no empirical evidence saying the child would be safer, say, sitting at McDonald's. "The actual safety of a given kid is not being rigorously determined. State employees are drawing on their prejudices to make somewhat arbitrary judgment calls."


– Two alleged burglars essentially directed police to their apartment in New Jersey when they failed to pay their taxi driver, authorities say. Kenneth Burke, 46, and Timothy Foote, 38, took a taxi to a home in Deal on Friday, went inside, then emerged with a TV and liquor bottles, police tell the Philly Voice. The taxi driver then dropped the men at an apartment in Asbury Park, but they refused to pay, police say. When the driver alerted police, officers checked the home in Deal and found it had been burglarized, per NJ.com. Burke and Foote now face burglary, theft, and other charges, and are held on $20,000 bail.

Expand this summary.

DEAL -- Deal police said they arrested two men who took a taxi to burglarize a house in town and then refused to pay the driver when they drove back to an apartment in Asbury Park with the stolen goods.

 Kenneth Burke, 46, and Timothy Foote, 38, of Ocean Township, called for a taxi to a home on Norwood Avenue in Deal on Friday night, said Deal police Sgt. Brian Egan.

 Egan said they instructed the taxi driver to wait outside before they returned a short time later with a television set and some liquor bottles. He said the driver then took them to an apartment in Asbury Park, where they got out without paying the fare.

 The driver called Asbury Park police reporting the beat fare and the suspicious activity of the customers, Egan said.

 After being alerted by Asbury Park police at 10:31 p.m., Deal officers checked the house and determined it had just been burglarized, he said.

 Burke and Foote were charged with burglary, conspiracy to commit burglary, criminal trespass and theft. They were being held in the Monmouth County jail in Freehold on $20,000 bail each.

 The stolen items were returned to the homeowner, Egan said.

 MaryAnn Spoto may be reached at mspoto@njadvancemedia.com . Follow her on Twitter @MaryAnnSpoto . Find NJ.com on Facebook ||||| Two men from the Jersey Shore are facing criminal charges after police say they allegedly took a taxi cab to rob a house and then did not pay their fare, officials said Wednesday.

 The Asbury Park Police Department were asked to respond to respond to a possible robbery in Deal Township in Monmouth County, New Jersey, around 10:30 p.m. on Nov. 4.

 A taxi driver called authorities after Kenneth Burke, 46 from Asbury Park and Timothy Foote, 38 of Ocean Township, are accused of allegedly taking the car to a house and asking the driver to wait in the car, according to the Deal Police Department.

 The two then allegedly returned to the car with a TV and a handful of liquor bottles. The driver called police after he took the two to an apartment in Asbury Park and they did not pay their total.

 The stolen goods were later returned to the homeowner, police said.

 Burke and Foote are charged with burglary, conspiracy to commit burglary, criminal trespassing and theft. They were taken to Monmouth County Correctional Institution and their bail was set at $20,000.

 Their court dates are pending. |||||


Article:

Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| Page Content

 Inheritance Tax

 Inheritance tax is imposed as a percentage of the value of a decedent's estate transferred to beneficiaries by will, heirs by intestacy and transferees by operation of law. The tax rate varies depending on the relationship of the heir to the decedent.

 The rates for Pennsylvania inheritance tax are as follows:

 0 percent on transfers to a surviving spouse or to a parent from a child aged 21 or younger;

 4.5 percent on transfers to direct descendants and lineal heirs;

 12 percent on transfers to siblings; and

 15 percent on transfers to other heirs, except charitable organizations, exempt institutions and government entities exempt from tax.

 Property owned jointly between spouses is exempt from inheritance tax.

 Effective for estates of decedents dying after June 30, 2012, certain farm land and other agricultural property are exempt from Pennsylvania inheritance tax, provided the property is transferred to eligible recipients. For more information about the exemptions and related requirements, please review Inheritance Tax Informational Notice 2012-01.

 Inheritance tax payments are due upon the death of the decedent and become delinquent nine months after the individual's death. If inheritance tax is paid within three months of the decedent's death, a 5 percent discount is allowed.

 For further information and answers to commonly asked questions, please review the brochure, Pennsylvania Inheritance Tax and Safe Deposit Boxes.

 For detailed and historic Pennsylvania inheritance tax information, please review the Tax Compendium. |||||
What is a summary?

– Roland Bosee Jr., 68, and Nino Esposito, 78, have been inseparable since they first met in 1970. "You meet someone and it just clicks," Esposito told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last month. So with the SCOTUS decision over the summer to legalize gay marriage, the men looked forward to finally tying the knot. But one issue is holding them back: Esposito is technically Bosee's father, because he adopted him in 2012. "We thought never in our lifetime—or in 20 lifetimes—...same-sex marriage [would] happen," Bosee said, adding to CNN that the adoption "gave us the most legitimate thing available to us" at the time. Even though they petitioned to have the adoption annulled, Allegheny County Judge Lawrence O'Toole —known for being progressive on LGBT issues—rejected that plea, noting that adoptions are typically only dissolved when fraud is involved and that nixing theirs "would place in jeopardy and imperil adoption decrees generally." Adoptions of this sort are often sought to cement legal status for financial and other reasons, as well as to strengthen emotional ties. The men said it was both: Esposito told the Post-Gazette "we felt we lacked a family of our own," but they also discovered that any money they inherited from each other would be subject to a much greater inheritance tax if they weren't considered relatives. One person on the couple's side: Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, who tells the Post-Gazette, "I wasn't aware that LGBT couples were turning to this method. I can't even imagine having to get an adoption petition approved … to visit a loved one in the hospital." Casey has written a letter of support to AG Loretta Lynch, asking her office to "consider issuing guidance" in cases like this; her office is reviewing it, a rep tells CNN. (The gay marriage decision held up a heterosexual couple's divorce.)


Write an article based on this summary:

– The Federal Reserve Bank of New York knew something fishy was going on with the Libor rate as far back as August 2007, it has revealed. "We received occasional anecdotal reports from Barclays of problems with Libor," a spokesman said in a statement. The following spring, before any media reports on the matter had broken, it "made further inquiries of Barclays" about its Libor submissions, and even submitted ideas to reform the system to the British government, Reuters reports. The Fed is likely to face criticism that it didn't do more. "Obviously they considered this to be within their orbit," says one Yale scholar. Barclays today released documents showing it contacted the Fed about Libor a dozen times. "This chronology shows clearly that our people repeatedly raised with regulators concerns," it said. Barclays remains under intense political pressure. In a bid to ease it, ex-CEO Robert Diamond today announced that he would voluntarily forfeit about $31 million in bonuses, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Guards stand at the door for the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, May 2, 2011.

 The Federal Reserve Bank of New York may have known as early as August 2007 that the setting of global benchmark interest rates was flawed. Following an inquiry with British banking group Barclays Plc in the spring of 2008, it shared proposals for reform of the system with British authorities.

 The role of the Fed is likely to raise questions about whether it and other authorities took enough action to address concerns they had about the way Libor rates were set, or whether their struggle to keep the banking system afloat through the financial crisis meant the issue took a backseat.

 A New York Fed spokesperson said in a statement that "in the context of our market monitoring following the onset of the financial crisis in late 2007, involving thousands of calls and emails with market participants over a period of many months, we received occasional anecdotal reports from Barclays of problems with Libor.

 "In the spring of 2008, following the failure of Bear Stearns and shortly before the first media report on the subject, we made further inquiry of Barclays as to how Libor submissions were being conducted. We subsequently shared our analysis and suggestions for reform of Libor with the relevant authorities in the UK."

 The Fed statement did not provide the precise timing of the communication with the British authorities. Bear Stearns collapsed in early March 2008 and was then acquired by JPMorgan.

 Meanwhile, legislators on Capitol Hill have signaled they are interested in learning more about what Fed officials knew with regards to allegations of Libor manipulation.

 On July 9, Rep. Randy Neugebauer, chairman of a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, sent a letter to the New York Fed asking for transcripts of any "communications with Barclays regarding the setting of interbank offered rates from August 2007 to November 2008."

 In the letter, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, the Texas Republican asked New York Fed President William Dudley to provide the transcripts by Friday.

 Tim Johnson, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, said on Tuesday he was concerned by the allegations of the potential "widespread manipulation" of Libor and had directed his staff to schedule briefings on the issue.

 Johnson also said the committee planned to ask Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke about the allegations at hearings later this month.

 Barclays last month agreed to pay $453 million to British and U.S. authorities to settle allegations that it manipulated Libor, a series of rates set daily by a group of international banks in London across various currencies.

 The rates are an integral part of the world financial system and have an impact on borrowing costs for many people and companies as they are used to price some $550 trillion in loans, securities and derivatives.

 By manipulating Libor, banks could have made profits or avoided losses by wagering on the direction of interest rates. During the enormous liquidity problems in the financial crisis they could, by reporting lower than actual borrowing costs, have signaled that they were in better financial health than they really were.

 So far, the scandal has been more of a British affair, prompting the resignation of Barclays top three executives, condemnation from the British government amid a public outcry, and questions about the lack of oversight from British regulators.

 The Bank of England's Deputy Governor Paul Tucker on Monday even had to deny suggestions that government ministers had pressured him to encourage banks to manipulate Libor.

 But the deepening investigation by regulators in Britain, the United States, and other countries is expected to uncover problems well beyond Barclays and British banks.

 More than a dozen banks are being investigated for their roles in setting Libor, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Deutsche Bank, HSBC Holdings Plc, UBS and Royal Bank of Scotland..

 JAWBONING

 Regulators, including the New York Fed, had a responsibility "to force greater integrity and cooperation," and it had clearly reviewed the situation and had the resources to investigate, said Andrew Verstein, an associate research scholar at Yale University, who has written about Libor. "Obviously they considered this to be within their orbit."

 Many of the requests for improper Libor submissions came from traders in New York.

 As one of the world's most powerful regulators, the New York Fed has the power to "jawbone" banks to force them to make tough decisions, said Oliver Ireland, former associate general counsel at the Federal Reserve in Washington and now a lawyer at Washington law firm Morrison & Foerster.

 Still, he said by the autumn of 2008, the New York Fed's focus was locked on the impact of the meltdown of Lehman Brothers and AIG as it sought to prevent a global economic disaster.

 Barclays said in documents released last Tuesday that it first contacted Fed officials to discuss Libor on August 28, 2007, at a time when credit problems arising from the U.S. housing bust were beginning to mount. It communicated with the Fed twice that day.

 Between then and October 2008, it communicated another 10 times with the U.S. central bank about Libor submissions, including Libor-related problems during the financial crisis, according to the documents.

 In its document listing those meetings as well as ones with British authorities, Barclays said: "We believe that this chronology shows clearly that our people repeatedly raised with regulators concerns arising from the impact of the credit crisis on LIBOR setting over an extended period."

 As a bank doing business in the United States, Barclays U.S. operations would have come under the Fed's purview. This would have been even more the case after it acquired the investment banking and trading operations of the bankrupt Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

 Officials with the New York Fed talked to authorities in Britain about problems with the calculation of Libor and also heard from market participants about whether an alternative could be found for Libor, people familiar with the situation said.

 In early 2008, questions about whether Libor reflected banks' true borrowing costs became more public. The Bank for International Settlements published a paper raising the issue in March of that year, and an April 16 story in the Wall Street Journal cast doubts on whether banks were reporting accurate rates. Barclays said it met with Fed officials twice in March-April 2008 to discuss Libor.

 "FIXING LIBOR"

 According to the calendar of then New York Fed President, Timothy Geithner, who is now U.S. Treasury Secretary, it even held a "Fixing LIBOR" meeting between 2:30-3:00 pm on April 28, 2008. At least eight senior Fed staffers were invited.

 It is unclear precisely what was discussed at this meeting or who attended. Among those invited, along with Geithner, was William Dudley, who was then head of the Markets Group at the New York Fed and who succeeded Geithner as its president in January 2009. Also invited was James McAndrews, a Fed economist who published a report three months later that questioned whether Libor was manipulated.

 "A problem of focusing on the Libor is that the banks in the Libor panel are suspected to under-report the borrowing costs during the period of recent credit crunch," said that report in July 2008 that examined whether a government liquidity facility was helping ease pressure in the interbank lending market.

 When asked for comment, McAndrews directed questions to a New York Fed spokeswoman. Dudley could not be immediately reached for comment.

 To be sure, the Fed's reports have sometimes been inconclusive. One from last month - only shortly before the Barclays settlement was announced - found that "while misreporting by Libor-panel banks would cause Libor to deviate from other funding measures, our results do not indicate whether or not such misreporting may have occurred."

 However, a 2010 draft of a related paper had said that banks appeared to be paying higher rates to borrow from other banks during the financial crisis compared with the levels they reported.

 One step the New York Fed could have taken in 2008 when questions initially were raised was to find a way to get its staff embedded in the Libor calculation process, Yale's Verstein said.

 There, they could use the Fedwire Funds Service - an electronic system through which banks settle interbank loans between one another - as a backstop to measure whether banks were accurately reporting borrowing costs. Then after the financial crisis had passed, regulators could have helped "urge on a newer and better system," he said.

 The New York Fed was not part of the Barclays settlement, which was the first major resolution in the Libor probe.

 The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Financial Services Authority in Britain, settled with Barclays.

 NO ULTIMATE RESPONSIBILITY

 The scandal has thrown into sharp relief a potential regulatory gap: No single regulator appears to have had ultimate responsibility for making sure rates banks submitted were honest.

 On Monday, the Bank of England's Tucker called the issue of banks improperly submitting rates a "cesspit."

 In documents released with the Barclays settlement, the CFTC said Barclays traders on a New York derivatives desk asked another Barclays desk in London to manipulate Libor to benefit trading positions.

 "For Monday we are very long 3m (three-month) cash here in NY and would like the setting to be set as low as possible," a New York trader emailed in 2006 to a person responsible for setting Barclays rates.

 Darrell Duffie, a Stanford University finance professor who has followed the Libor issue for several years, said that he believed regulators were "on the case reasonably quickly" after questions were raised in 2008.

 "It appears that some regulators, at least at the New York Fed, indeed knew there was a problem at that time. New York Fed staff have subsequently presented some very good research on the likely level of distortions in Libor reporting," Duffie said. "I am surprised, however, that the various regulators in the U.S. and UK took this long to identify and act on the misbehavior."

 (Editing by Martin Howell, Simon Cameron-Moore and Andrea Ricci) ||||| LONDON—Robert Diamond agreed to give up an additional bonus of as much as £20 million ($31 million) as pressure from British lawmakers mounted on the former Barclays PLC chief executive over his role in an interest-rate-rigging scandal and its aftermath.

 Barclays Chairman Marcus Agius, who along with Mr. Diamond is resigning from the bank, disclosed Mr. Diamond's forfeiture at a parliamentary hearing that served as another forum for lawmakers to raise questions about the former CEO's stewardship of the bank and his own testimony before Parliament last week.

 Mr. Agius said that Mr. Diamond, who previously agreed to forgo his ... |||||


Jockey Jose Flores was officially pronounced dead at 12:42 p.m. Thursday, three days after a “sickening” accident in the ninth race at Parx Racing in Bensalem.

 When Flores came out of the starting gate Monday, it was ride No. 28,684 in a career that was among the very best in the history of Pennsylvania horse racing. The jockey, 56, was riding 14-1 shot Love Rules in a 6-furlong race. Just three weeks before, Flores had won a race on Love Rules by 4 lengths. Monday, horse and rider were on the lead when, with absolutely no warning, the horse went down and Flores was off, hitting the ground headfirst.

 Nobody will ever know for sure, but it’s likely that initial shock was the cause of the massive cranial damage that caused his death after he was placed on life support at Aria Frankford Torresdale Hospital.

 “It’s unbelievable, just sickening,” said Scott Lake, the all-time leading trainer at Parx and a man who has known Flores since 1991 when they both getting started at Penn National. “He was just tremendous, a nice guy, always a professional.”

 Flores won 4,650 races in a career that began in 1987. His mounts won more than $64 million. His longtime agent, Dave Yanuzzi, is certain Flores would have been at more than 5,000 wins had he not suffered several serious injuries in the last 3 1/2 years.

 When Yanuzzi asked Flores whether he wanted to keep going after his last previous injury, the jockey told him: “You don’t understand. I love this. What else would I do? Where else would I go?”

 They canceled racing at Parx on Tuesday, but plan to resume Saturday. ||||| Legendary Pennsylvania Jockey Dies After Headfirst Fall ... in Horse Racing Accident

 Legendary Pennsylvania Jockey Dies After Headfirst Fall in Horse Racing Accident

 Breaking News

 Jose Flores, a Pennsylvanian jockey who earned $64 MIL in his storied career, is dead at 57 after a headfirst fall during a race Monday in Philly.

 Flores suffered major head and spine injuries as a result of the accident ... and was pulled off life support on Thursday.

 The tragic incident happened Monday at Parx Racing in Bensalem, Pennsylvania ... when Jose's horse, Love Rules, went down -- launching him from his saddle.

 Flores had compiled 4,650 wins across 3 decades in the sport ... and was reportedly going for the magic number of 5,000.

 Jose is the 157th North American rider to die from a horse-racing accident since 1940.

 He leaves behind a wife and 3 sons. RIP. ||||| In this Sept. 19, 2015 photo, provided by Equi-Photo, jockey Jose Flores poses at Parx Racing in Bensalem, Pa. Flores, 56, who was among the best jockeys in Pennsylvania history, died Thursday, March... (Associated Press)

 In this Sept. 19, 2015 photo, provided by Equi-Photo, jockey Jose Flores poses at Parx Racing in Bensalem, Pa. Flores, 56, who was among the best jockeys in Pennsylvania history, died Thursday, March 22, 2018, of injuries suffered in a racing accident, Parx Racing said in a statement. Flores was racing... (Associated Press)

 In this Sept. 19, 2015 photo, provided by Equi-Photo, jockey Jose Flores poses at Parx Racing in Bensalem, Pa. Flores, 56, who was among the best jockeys in Pennsylvania history, died Thursday, March 22, 2018, of injuries suffered in a racing accident, Parx Racing said in a statement. Flores was racing... (Associated Press) In this Sept. 19, 2015 photo, provided by Equi-Photo, jockey Jose Flores poses at Parx Racing in Bensalem, Pa. Flores, 56, who was among the best jockeys in Pennsylvania history, died Thursday, March... (Associated Press)

 PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A renowned jockey who was among the best in Pennsylvania history died Thursday of injuries suffered in a racing accident.

 Parx Racing announced the death of Jose Flores, 56, who was racing Monday at the suburban Philadelphia track when his horse went down and Flores was thrown off. The jockey hit the ground headfirst and suffered a massive trauma.

 He was removed from life support Thursday afternoon.

 Flores won 4,650 races in a career that spanned more than three decades. He was the top career earner at Parx, formerly known as Philadelphia Park.

 "It's unbelievable, just sickening," Scott Lake, the top trainer at Parx, who has known Flores since 1991, told The Philadelphia Inquirer. "He was just tremendous, a nice guy, always a professional."

 Flores' mounts earned $64 million in nearly 29,000 career starts, according to the Equibase thoroughbred database.

 Parx called Flores an "outstanding jockey" and expressed condolences to his family.

 The Jockeys' Guild said Flores is the 157th jockey to die in a racing accident in unofficial records going back to 1940. The group said that before Flores, it had no record of a jockey ever being killed in an accident at a Pennsylvania track. |||||

Write a summary.

– A renowned jockey who was among the best in Pennsylvania history died Thursday of injuries suffered in a racing accident, the AP reports. Parx Racing announced the death of Jose Flores, 56, who was racing Monday at the suburban Philadelphia track when his horse went down and Flores was thrown off. The jockey hit the ground headfirst and suffered a massive trauma. He was removed from life support Thursday afternoon. Flores won 4,650 races in a career that spanned more than three decades. He was the top career earner at Parx, formerly known as Philadelphia Park. TMZ calls him "legendary." "It's unbelievable, just sickening," Scott Lake, the top trainer at Parx, who has known Flores since 1991, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "He was just tremendous, a nice guy, always a professional." Flores' mounts earned $64 million in nearly 29,000 career starts, according to the Equibase thoroughbred database. Parx called Flores an "outstanding jockey" and expressed condolences to his family. The Jockeys' Guild said Flores is the 157th jockey to die in a racing accident in unofficial records going back to 1940. The group said that before Flores, it had no record of a jockey ever being killed in an accident at a Pennsylvania track. The Inquirer says there was "absolutely no warning" before the horse, Love Rules, went down. Flores is survived by a wife and three sons.


Write an article based on this summary:

– Virginia's attorney general learned all about the dangers of Twitter yesterday, when he sent out a tweet that made at least one writer think he wanted to "service bin Laden, sexually, in the great beyond." The offending tweet from Ken Cuccinelli: "How much would I give to be one of the 72 Virginans Osama is 'hanging out' with since Sunday?" Of course, some assumed he meant "virgins," which led to quite an uproar, reports the Virginian-Pilot. "Is Cuccinelli a virgin, or was he—perhaps more disturbingly—shooting for 'Virginians' with this tweet?" wondered Jason Linkins on the Huffington Post. Turns out Cuccinelli was, in fact, aiming for "Virginians," in reference to a joke that went around the Internet recently. (Think bin Laden being greeted after death by 72 such names as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, rather than the virgins he expected—read the entire joke here.) Cuccinelli quickly clarified his tweet, and even spelled Virginians correctly the second time around—but apparently didn't pick up on his initial typo.

72 Virginians waiting

 Posted by KEVIN on March 28, 192002 at 11:10:34

 After getting nailed by a Daisy Cutter, Osama made his way

 to the pearly gates. There, he is greeted by George Washington.

 "How dare you attack the nation I helped conceive!" yells Mr.

 Washington, slapping Osama in the face.

 Patrick Henry comes up from behind. "You wanted to end the

 Americans' liberty, so they gave you death!" Henry punches

 Osama on the nose.

 James Madison comes up next, and says "This is why I allowed

 the Federal government to provide for the common defense!"

 He drops a large weight on Osama's knee.

 Osama is subject to similar beatings from John Randolph of

 Roanoke, James Monroe, and 65 other people who have the

 same love for liberty and America. As he writhes on the ground,

 Thomas Jefferson picks him up to hurl him back toward the gate

 where he is to be judged.

 As Osama awaits his journey to his final very hot destination,

 he screams "This is not what I was promised!"

 An angel replies "I told you there would be 72 Virginians

 waiting for you. What did you think I said?"

  ||||| I'm really not sure if this is an example of a bit of tweet-snark gone terribly awry, or maybe an account that's been hacked, but Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has sent one of the strangest tweets ever in response to the death of infamous terrorist Osama bin Laden.

 How much would I give to be one of the 72 Virginans Osama is 'hanging out' with since Sunday? Ken Cuccinelli

 KenCuccinelli

 For real: what is going on here? Why is Cuccinelli going all Mitch Albom on Osama bin Laden? Does he really want to service bin Laden, sexually, in the great beyond? Maybe he plans to give the dead terrorist the "blue balls?" And is Cuccinelli a virgin, or was he -- perhaps more disturbingly -- shooting for "Virginians" with this tweet? It's possible that Cuccinelli is trying to say that he wishes he had been part of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group, more informally known as "SEAL Team Six," who conducted the raid on bin Laden's compound and who are garrisoned in Virginia at the Naval Air Station's Dam Neck Annex. But this would be an odd way of communicating that desire.

 At any rate, until I hear otherwise, I'm just going to assume that Ken Cuccinelli wants to make love to Osama bin Laden in hell. Keep calm and carry on!

 UPDATE: 10:43 AM -- It may be that Cuccinelli is referencing a (very poorly written) joke. In which case, here are some suggestions for "best practices" on Twitter. First, it's "Virginians." Second, you might want to include a link to the joke in your tweet, so that people don't think you've taken complete leave of your senses.

 Would you like to follow me on Twitter? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here. ||||| RICHMOND

 Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was reminded of the political pitfalls of social media Wednesday when Twitter and some online news sites went wild over a tweet he sent about the death of Osama bin Laden.

 "How much would I give to be one of the 72 Virginans Osama is 'hanging out' with since Sunday?" Cuccinelli wrote.

 The attorney general was referring to a joke about bin Laden's death that's made the rounds on the Internet. It places bin Laden at the gates of heaven, taking drubbing after drubbing from George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Patrick Henry, among others.

 As they're about to send him to the underworld, bin Laden screams, "This is not what I was promised!" An angel replies, "I told you there would be 72 Virginians waiting for you. What did you think I said?"

 The joke apparently wasn't as well-known as Cuccinelli thought, and his misspelling of "Virginian" didn't help.

 A Huffington Post writer seized on the tweet.

 "Is Cuccinelli a virgin, or was he - perhaps more disturbingly - shooting for 'Virginians' with this tweet?" Jason Linkins wrote on the news site, guessing Cuccinelli might have been wishing he'd been part of the Virginia Beach-based Navy SEAL unit credited with taking out bin Laden in Pakistan.

 "But this would be an odd way of communicating that desire," Linkins added. "At any rate, until I hear otherwise, I'm just going to assume that Ken Cuccinelli wants to make love to Osama bin Laden in hell."

 Linkins later discovered the Virginians joke and posted an update with a link to it.

 Cuccinelli also tried to clarify with a follow-up: "It seems some were confused by my earlier tweet. Read it closely:... 72 Virginians... "

 Julian Walker, (804) 697-1564, julian.walker@pilotonline.com |||||


Article:

CHICAGO (CBS) — It seemed like a typical corner store, but police sources say clerks were selling something sinister inside.

 The store in Lawndale was shut down after a Chicago Police investigation found clerks selling potentially deadly synthetic cannabis. It’s not known whether the store is linked to any recent illnesses in the Chicago area, from the product.

 “We want to alert people to the dangers of using synthetic cannabinoids,” Jennifer Layden, the chief medical officer of the Illinois Department of Public Health, told CBS 2’s Suzanne LeMignot.

 Since March 10, Layden says, there have been 17 cases of severe bleeding in people using synthetic cannabinoids.

 “With this particular cluster, what we are seeing is people are coming in with various types of bleeding,” Layden said. “Whether it’s nose bleeds, bleeding from their gums, bleeding in their urine. Very severe bleeding that’s prompting them to go to the emergency room.”

 “People have reported purchasing it from various convenience stores, dealers or acquiring it from friends. The vast majority have reported acquiring the product in the Chicagoland area.”

 Layden says the synthetic cannabinoids are made up of hundreds of various chemicals and can impact brain function, create hallucinations, delusions and even violent behavior.

 Layden says they’re investigating right now, to identify a common product, that could link all the cases.

 Layden says the synthetic cannabinoids are made up of hundreds of various chemicals and can impact your brain function, create hallucinations, delusions and even violent behavior. Layden says they’re investigating right now, to identify a common product, that could link all the cases. ||||| State and local health officials have issued a warning about a synthetic pot in Illinois that has caused users to experience severe bleeding.

 On Friday, the Illinois Department of Public Health reported that 32 people in the past few weeks visited emergency rooms with severe bleeding after using a synthetic cannabinoid product. That’s up from the 22 cases the state reported just the day before.

 The department also released a geographic breakdown, reporting eight cases in Chicago, four in suburban Cook County and one each in Will, DuPage, Kane and McLean counties. The hot spot seems to be the Peoria area, with Tazewell County reporting 10 cases and neighboring Peoria County six.

 Most of those affected were in the Chicago area, but health officials warned the contaminated products also could be present elsewhere across the state, said department spokeswoman Melaney Arnold.

 The health department said Thursday that symptoms have included bleeding from the eyes and ears. On Friday, officials clarified that while this can happen, those affected in Illinois have reported other symptoms, like coughing up blood, blood in urine, bloody noses, bleeding gums and, for women, heavier than usual menstrual flow.

 Though synthetic pot has long been considered dangerous, severe bleeding is not a known side effect, said Dr. Melissa Millewich, an emergency room physician at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove.

 “This bleeding is not expected, at least in such a significant population so quickly,” she said.

 Despite a statewide ban, Arnold said manufacturers could be slightly tweaking the molecular makeup of the products as a way to “get around” the law, allowing for them to be sold legally. They are also sold on the street, she said, and those experiencing the bleeding said they obtained the products in convenience stores and from dealers and friends.

 Health officials reported 32 people who experienced the symptom since March 7, and they continue to track the situation, Arnold said. So far, there are no deaths reported.

 A change in the latest formula could be behind the new, dangerous symptom, Millewich said. Because health officials don’t know the exact makeup of the products, it’s unclear what’s causing the bleeding, she added.

 While there have been no such cases at Good Samaritan’s ER, Millewich said, synthetic pot, often called “fake weed,” “K2” or “spice,” has previously displayed life-threatening symptoms like kidney failure, along with psychosis.

 “People don’t realize how dangerous this is,” she said.

 The man-made substance is a mixture of hundreds of chemicals, often called cannabinoids because they affect the same brain cell receptors as the main ingredient in marijuana. Cannabinoids are sometimes sprayed on plant material for smoking, or are sold as liquids to be vaporized and inhaled in e-cigarettes and other devices, the health department’s warning said. The products are also sometimes referred to as herbal or liquid incense.

 Recent patient reports of severe bleeding led health officials to warn the public not to use any synthetic cannabinoid products.

 While those affected by the outbreak admitted using cannabinoids, it’s been difficult to determine their exact source for the substance, Arnold said.

 Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the public health department, says there’s an erroneous perception that synthetic cannabinoids are a safe and legal alternative to marijuana.

 Shah says they're unsafe because it's difficult to know what chemicals they contain or what an individual's reaction will be.

 A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found there’s also an association between teens who use synthetic pot and a heightened risk for violent behavior, risky sex and abuse of other drugs.

 Anyone who uses these drugs and experiences unexplained bleeding or bruising is advised to call 911 or have someone take them to an emergency room.

 Associated Press contributed.

 kthayer@chicagotribune.com

 Twitter @knthayer |||||
What is a summary?

– Synthetic pot is causing a bloody mess in the Chicago area. "What we are seeing is people are coming in with various types of bleeding,” CBS Chicago quotes the chief medical officer of the Illinois Department of Public Health as saying. “Whether it’s nose bleeds, bleeding from their gums, bleeding in their urine. Very severe bleeding that’s prompting them to go to the emergency room.” Officials have reported 22 people taken to the ER with severe bleeding connected to synthetic cannabinoid products since March 7, the Chicago Tribune reports. In addition to the above symptoms, fake weed users are bleeding from their eyes and ears, as well as coughing up blood. Officials say there have so far been no deaths connected with the synthetic pot. While synthetic pot can present a host of health risks, severe bleeding is not a known side effect. “This bleeding is not expected, at least in such a significant population so quickly,” says one area ER physician. The director of toxicology for the NorthShore University HealthSystem tells NBC Chicago the tainted synthetic pot—which is typically made of hundreds of chemicals—could contain some sort of blood thinner or anticoagulant. Patients have reported getting synthetic pot from dealers, friends, and convenience stores, and officials are trying to identify a single product linking the cases. Officials seized some synthetic pot—also known as K2 and spice—from a Chicago mini-mart, but no arrests have been made. Officials warn that while most of the bleeding has been in the Chicago area, the tainted synthetic pot may have spread throughout the state.


Cartwheeling Substitute Teacher Exposed Self To High School Choir Class, Police Charge Share

 Tweet

 A substitute teacher was arrested yesterday for indecent exposure after she performed a cartwheel in a high school choir class “with no under garments on,” police allege.

 According to cops, Lacey Sponsler, 34, exposed herself to students last Friday at Pawhuska High School in Pawhuska, a city about 50 miles north of Tulsa.

 Sponsler, seen at right, was wearing a long dress, but no underwear, “which caused her to expose herself to the students in this class,” cops allege. “This act was captured by a student on their cell phone,” said Police Chief Scott Laird.

 As detailed in a probable cause affidavit, as Sponsler (seen above) performed the cartwheel in the “Junior High Choir room,” her dress was “flipped up,” exposing her buttocks. An officer who reviewed the video of the incident added, “I further noticed that the Defendant was not wearing any type of underwear.”

 A 17-year-old female student told police that Sponsler “had said that she was not wearing underwear before performing the cartwheel,” which exposed her “bare vagina.” The student noted that she saw Sponsler’s “vagina open and close, as her legs were in the air.” The girl also told police that Sponsler “had been talking about using drugs” and commented on how she “thought fourteen year old boys were like men.”

 When questioned by police, Sponsler initially denied performing the cartwheel in class. When told that a student captured the cartwheel in a Snapchat video, Sponsler replied that she “did not remember performing a cartwheel or exposing her vagina and buttocks.”

 Sponsler told police that she was “just dancing with the students” and "trying to be a cool teacher."

 According to court records, Sponsler pleaded guilty in 2008 to marijuana possession, public intoxication, and possession of drug paraphernalia (for which she received a two-year deferred sentence, was fined $1100, and was ordered to perform 100 hours of community service). In December 2009, a judge ruled that Sponsler violated her probation, in part because she had not disclosed being questioned by police investigating an accused meth cook. Sponsler told cops that she had been present in the suspect’s home when he was manufacturing the drug, adding that the man was “careless when he cooks.”

 In September 2011, Sponsler pleaded guilty to possession of methamphetamine and marijuana in the presence of a child and possession of drug paraphernalia. She was sentenced to a three-year deferred sentence. As part of that plea deal, prosecutors dropped a burglary charge against Sponsler, who is pictured below in a mug shot snapped yesterday. ||||| Pawhuska police arrested a 34-year-old substitute teacher Tuesday after they say she exposed herself while performing a cartwheel.

 They said it happened in the junior high school choir room.

 According to the Pawhuska Police Department’s Facebook page, the substitute teacher, identified as Lacey Sponsler performed a cartwheel with no undergarments on and exposed herself.

 They said a student recorded it on the student’s cell phone.

 In the arrest affidavit, when questioned by police, they said Sponsler denied the incident, but when told about the cell phone video, she stated she "did not remember performing a cartwheel" or exposing herself.

 Police said officers took Sponsler into custody Tuesday afternoon.

 Jail records show is being held on a complaint of indecent exposure. |||||

Write a summary.

– In what may be one of its more unusual Facebook posts of 2017, the police department in Pawhuska, Okla., has reported on an incident that took place Friday in a junior high school choir room. The alleged perp, per KOTV and the Smoking Gun: Lacey Sponsler, a 34-year-old substitute teacher. The purported crime: showing off her cartwheel skills sans underwear. Per a probable cause affidavit, a 17-year-old female student says that Sponsler had announced she wasn't wearing undergarments, as well as dished about using drugs and how "14-year-old boys were like men." Then, captured in a video cops say a student shot on a cellphone, Sponsler allegedly did a cartwheel and caused her dress to "[flip] up," showing her buttocks. The female student said in the affidavit she saw Sponsler's exposed vagina "open and close" as her legs swung up in the air. Police arrested Sponsler, who initially denied the incident, on charges of indecent exposure and took her into custody Tuesday. After cops told her there was a video, Sponsler said she "did not remember" doing the cartwheel. According to the police report, Sponsler told cops she was simply "trying to be a cool teacher" and was only "dancing" with some students. Sponsler has pleaded guilty in the past to possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia, as well as to public intoxication, per the Smoking Gun. (An Arizona teen said to have flashed his private parts in a yearbook photo lucked out.)


Summarize this article:

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Kevin Connolly: "As Israel blamed Hamas... so Hamas in turn blamed Israel"

 A truce between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza has ended amid fresh air strikes which Israel says were countering rocket fire.

 Palestinian group Hamas said the wife and child of its military commander Mohammed Deif were killed in the raids.

 Israel said about 50 rockets were launched from Gaza on Tuesday, but there were no injuries reported.

 Talks in Cairo to end the violence broke up with no deal, and Israeli delegates said they would return home.

 Trading blame

 Officials say 2,016 Palestinians and 66 Israelis have died since Israel began its offensive on Gaza on 8 July.

 Azzam al-Ahmad, the lead Palestinian negotiator and a senior member of the Fatah movement, blamed Israel for the failure to reach a deal.

 "There was an Israeli decision to make the Cairo talks fail," he said in quotes carried by Reuters news agency.

 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Palestinian negotiator Azzam al-Ahmed accused Israel of trying to force its position

 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev: "A ceasefire has to be a two-way street"

 However, Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said that rocket fire from Gaza had "made continuation of talks impossible" and "destroyed the premise upon which the talks were based".

 The US has voiced concern about the renewed hostilities, and blamed Hamas, the Gaza-based Palestinian Islamist group.

 "Israel has the right to defend itself against such attacks," state department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters.

 Israeli officials said the first three rockets landed in open fields near Beersheba, causing no injuries. Two were intercepted over Netivot.

 Later, longer-range rockets targeted Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the Israeli military said - and warning sirens have sounded around southern and central Israel.

 Witnesses in Gaza reported several Israeli air strikes, from Beit Lahiya in the north to Rafah in the south.

 Image copyright AFP Image caption Palestinian civilians are once against fleeing from Israeli attacks

 Image copyright AFP Image caption Many have set up temporary homes in what they hope are safer areas

 Image copyright EPA Image caption Israel had warned that its forces were prepared to retaliate if Gaza militants resumed rocket fire

 Analysis: Sally Nabil, BBC News, Cairo

 The picture was bleak even before the fighting resumed, and there was not much optimism among the members of the Palestinian delegation.

 The gaps between the two parties were too wide to bridge.

 The Egyptian mediators had tried to work on getting the blockade of Gaza eased without asking Hamas to lay down its weapons, a key Israeli demand.

 They were keen to delay discussing the more thorny issues, like the construction of a seaport and airport in Gaza. But even that plan did not bear fruit.

 Meeting deadlocked

 The Israeli delegation had walked out of the Cairo meeting just hours before a midnight deadline, leaving the fate of the negotiations in question.

 But even before that Azzam al-Ahmad told Reuters that there had been "no progress on any point", with big gaps remaining between the two sides.

 Palestinian representatives said Israel was seeking guarantees that Hamas and other factions in Gaza would be disarmed, while the Palestinians were demanding an end to the Israeli and Egyptian blockades of Gaza, and the establishment of a seaport and airport.

 Hamas insists it will not give up its weapons, while Israel wants to maintain some control over Gaza's crossings to prevent arms smuggling.

 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Smoke could be seen rising from the Gaza Strip following the breakdown of the ceasefire

 Israel launched Operation Protective Edge on 8 July with the aim of ending rocket fire. It also sought to destroy tunnels dug under the frontier with Israel used by militants to launch attacks.

 The Palestinian health ministry says that 2,016 Palestinians have been killed since the offensive began, including 541 children and 250 women.

 The Israeli authorities say 64 Israeli soldiers have been killed, along with two Israeli civilians and a Thai national. ||||| JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military says three rockets have been fired from the Gaza Strip, breaking a temporary cease-fire amid negotiations over the war between Israel and Hamas.

 The military says three rockets landed in open fields Tuesday near the southern city of Beersheba.

 Israel launched the war on July 8 to stop incessant rocket fire from Gaza. Currently, Egypt is trying to broker a longer cease-fire to end the war.

 In more than a month of fighting, nearly 2,000 Palestinians have been killed, the majority of them civilians. Israel lost 67 people, all but three of them soldiers. ||||| JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military says it has carried out a series of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip in response to renewed rocket fire. There was no immediate word on casualties from the strikes.

 In a statement Tuesday, the military accused Palestinian militants of violating a cease-fire and said it maintains "both defense and striking capabilities in order to address the renewed aggression."

 The airstrikes came minutes after Palestinian militants fired three rockets into Israel, breaking a temporary cease-fire and endangering negotiations in Egypt over ending a monthling war between Israel and Hamas. Authorities said the rockets landed in open areas and caused no injuries. ||||| JERUSALEM — As the latest short-term cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip collapsed Tuesday, rockets from Gaza reached Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and Israel resumed airstrikes in Gaza. But the most telling move came in Cairo, where Israel yanked its team from talks aimed at a more durable truce.

 The prospect of a negotiated and lasting peace had seemed distant from the start of the Cairo talks as each side set bottom-line goals that the other rejected.

 After weeks of intermittent negotiations and fighting, analysts said that Israel’s leadership might well have considered it preferable to let the conflict continue at a low simmer and end informally rather than give concessions that could be seen as rewarding militants who fired about 3,000 rockets into Israel, penetrated its territory through tunnels, and killed 64 soldiers over a month of bloody battle.

 “My approach would be not to go for any agreement with Hamas, because any agreement would give them something, and that’s a mistake,” said Dan Meridor, a former Israeli minister who served in several governments. “If the deal is seen by people as a victory for Hamas, that’s bad for us, it’s bad for the future, and bad for deterrence.”

 Continue reading the main story Video

 Israel’s walking away from the talks leaves Hamas — and the broader Palestinian leadership that has been negotiating in Cairo — with little to show for its war effort. Gaza is devastated: About 2,000 residents were killed, mostly civilians, and perhaps 100,000 rendered homeless as neighborhoods were reduced to rubble.

 Buoyed in the Palestinian public for having achieved more militarily than in previous violent exchanges with Israel, Hamas is nonetheless under extreme pressure to deliver a tangible change to daily life in Gaza. During the war, the rising death toll put pressure on Israel. But during the cease-fire Hamas finds itself with diminished leverage, and so has resorted to threatening and provoking Israel.

 It sent a flurry of rockets that reached Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and on Monday the group’s armed wing even invited a Reuters crew inside a tunnel like the ones through which it repeatedly attacked Israeli soldiers last month, showing off masked gunmen talking tough.

 Muhammad Walid Tushtash, who runs a supermarket in Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp, reflected the hopes of many of his neighbors that the suffering would be compensated by Israel’s yielding to Palestinian demands for a lifting of restrictions on travel and trade.

 “The definition of victory for us is when the occupation submits to the conditions,” Mr. Tushtash, 29, said in a recent interview.

 The Palestinian delegation had called for a complete lifting of what it calls Israel’s siege on Gaza, the reopening of border crossings into Egypt and Israel and the building of a seaport and revival of an old airport in the crowded coastal territory. Israel demanded the demilitarization of Gaza with strict international controls to prevent the rebuilding of tunnels its troops destroyed.

 As the temporary halt in hostilities was extended — from an original 72 hours last week, for five more days and then an additional 24 hours that was supposed to last until midnight Tuesday — people involved in the talks said these maximalist demands had been dropped, or postponed.

 Photo

 The focus was instead on more incremental changes in Israeli rules on imports and exports and on an internationally monitored rehabilitation of Gaza. For the Palestinians, it was too little and too late.

 “Israel’s postponement and losing the determination to reach a final agreement is the main reason for the stalemate,” Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said in a statement. “The occupation is wasting opportunities and should stop playing the game of time.”

 Before the cease-fire broke down Tuesday evening, another Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, warned that if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel “does not understand the message and the demands of Gaza through the political language of negotiations in Cairo, we know very well the way that will oblige him to understand it.”

 Hamas denied responsibility for the first round of rockets, fired before 4 p.m. local time. But by 11 p.m., it claimed credit for firing two toward Tel Aviv and two more toward Ben-Gurion International Airport, among others. The Israeli military said about 50 fell before midnight, including one on open ground in Jerusalem.

 After a few hours of quiet, several sirens signaling incoming rockets sounded Wednesday morning between 6 and 7 around Ashkelon, in southern Israel.

 Israel responded to Tuesday evening’s rockets with more than 25 airstrikes in Gaza, the military said, but it declined to specify targets. Witnesses said Israeli F-16 warplanes dropped at least four bombs on a Gaza City house around 9:30 p.m.; the Gaza-based Health Ministry said the strikes killed a man, a woman and a child, and injured 45 others.

 “Electricity is off in the area, and a search among the rubble is going on,” said Noor Al-Dalo, 28, a relative of the homeowner.

 It was unclear on Tuesday night whether the renewed exchange would lead to an escalation, given the exhaustion of the publics on both sides. Israel, which has been condemned by world leaders for the high number of civilian casualties, may be granted some leeway to respond to fire, but that would be likely to disappear if the death toll began to rise quickly. While Hamas may see little choice but to continue launching rockets, analysts said the Palestinians need a deal more than Israel does.

 Azzam al-Ahmed, the head of the Palestinian negotiating team and an ally of President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, said in a late-night news conference that his delegation would also leave Cairo but that he did “not consider that we have withdrawn from the negotiations.” He blamed Israel for the failed talks, saying it did not respond to the Hamas demands.

 Israelis have blamed Khaled Mashal, the exiled political leader of Hamas, and his Qatari sponsors for setting a hard line and thwarting progress.

 Mr. Meridor, the former minister, and other analysts said that even without an agreement, Israel might unilaterally ease the movement of goods through its land crossings for the reconstruction of Gaza, in cooperation with Egypt and perhaps Europe.

 “Israel prefers to end the war without committing itself to lifting the siege in writing,” said Mukhaimer Abusaada, a political scientist at Al-Azhar University in Gaza City. Accusing Israel of exploiting the rocket fire as “an excuse to sabotage the talks,” he added, “A unilateral decision by Israel to gradually lift the siege will deprive Hamas of a sense of victory after this destructive war.”

 Kobi Michael, a former head of the Palestinian desk at Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, said Israel’s move “weakens Hamas — it kills it softly in front of its people.”

 “Israel prefers a de facto cease-fire and reconstruction in a controlled manner in coordination with the Egyptians,” said Mr. Michael, now at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “If Hamas is doomed to be a marginal player, it would prefer to be one without an agreement and not be marginal in an agreement.’

 But Sami Abdel Shafi, a Gaza-based consultant and political commentator, said Israel’s unwillingness to make concessions, and the Palestinian leaders’ lack of leverage to force them, left the people of Gaza in “potentially explosive” despair.

 “The only place to look, and the appropriate place to look, is toward the international community and the United Nations,” he said. “They have to seriously step up to the plate and defuse a situation they will be seen as responsible for if they don’t come forward and push the Israeli government to recognize that people cannot be treated this way.” |||||

– The temporary Gaza ceasefire was broken today when three rockets landed in Israel, its military says, per the AP; the reported attack prompted new Israeli airstrikes within minutes. The rockets landed in fields near Beersheba, southern Israel; no one was hurt, officials say. An Israeli official says the military's new strikes are targeting "terror sites," the BBC reports. The attacks came hours before the scheduled end of the current ceasefire, the New York Times notes, adding that it's not certain who was behind the latest rocket attacks.