Islamists flee French air strikes in Mali

 BAMAKO — French air strikes forced Islamist guerrillas to flee towns in northern Mali and Paris secured new international support for military action as the militants struck back, seizing a small western town.

 The Islamists said they had made a "tactical retreat" from Timbuktu and other key towns where they have imposed a brutal version of Islamic law for nearly 10 months.

 But they struck back in western Mali where they took the small town of Diabaly from the country's weakened army, highlighting the daunting campaign ahead to restore order in the West African nation.

 French jets on Monday hit Douentza, 800 kilometres (500 miles) from Bamako, which the Islamists have held since September. But residents said the fighters had left before the warplanes arrived.

 In Timbuktu, where inhabitants have been executed or had limbs cut off in some of the worst abuses, the Islamists reportedly fled in anticipation of an attack.

 "The mujahideen have left. They are really scared," said one resident in the historic city, where the militants have destroyed centuries-old Muslim monuments.

 In Gao, another northern city held by the Islamists, the jihadists were nowhere to be seen after bombing by Rafale warplanes on Sunday, residents there said.

 At least 60 insurgents were killed in Sunday's assault, according to residents and a security source.

 Mali's Foreign Minister Tieman Hubert Coulibaly said in Paris that he believed more than 100 Islamists had been killed in the four days since France launched operations to stem a guerrilla advance towards Bamako.

 A spokesman for the Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith) group, Senda Ould Boumama, said the withdrawal was a "tactical retreat" to reduce civilian casualties, in comments published on Mauritanian news website Alakhbar.

 A leader of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), vowed revenge. "France has attacked Islam. We will strike at the heart of France," said Abou Dardar of the Al-Qaeda-linked group.

 On top of the use of Rafale fighters and helicopter attacks, about 650 French troops are in Mali to halt the Islamist advance, according to the French defence ministry.

 While jolted by France's arrival, the insurgents remained on the offensive in areas where French troops were not yet operating. The militants seized Diabaly, some 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Bamako.

 "We knew there would be a counter-offensive towards the west," French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told BFM Television.

 "They have taken Diabaly, which is a small town, after heavy fighting and resistance from the Malian army, which was insufficiently equipped at that exact point."

 Le Drian acknowledged that French forces were facing a "difficult" situation in the west, where he said the rebels are well armed.

 France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius hailed the "quasi-unanimous" international backing for the offensive, strongly supported by Mali.

 "We cannot simply push them back, we have to chase them away," Coulibaly told French television after meeting Fabius. "We simply now cannot allow a timeout for these forces to reorganise."

 A meeting of the 15-nation UN Security Council on Mali also expressed unanimous "understanding and support" for the military intervention, France's UN ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters.

 France and other council countries want to speed up the deployment of a UN-mandated 3,300-strong West African intervention force in Mali.

 Nigeria, which will lead the force, plans to have 600 troops on the ground "before next week," President Goodluck Jonathan said. Benin, Ghana, Niger, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Togo have also pledged troops.

 Britain and Canada have offered military transporters to the French military and the United States said it will share intelligence and provide logistical support.

 "I commend France for taking the steps that it has," US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said.

 Algeria said it had closed its 2,000 km (1,250 mile) desert border with northern Mali to stop Islamists crossing into the country.

 The Islamists seized upon the chaos of a military coup in Bamako in March to seize northern Mali, sparking widespread international fears that they could set up a terrorist safe haven.

 The UN Security Council had given approval for a military offensive that UN officials had said could not be launched until September.

 But the Islamist offensive and France's military intervention has led to predictions by diplomats that the plans will be reviewed.

 Copyright © 2013 AFP. All rights reserved. More » ||||| A Malian intelligence agent posted near the central Malian town of Diabaly confirmed that French pilots launched a raid on Monday morning close to the town.

 This picture released by the French Army Communications Audiovisual office (ECPAD) shows French Mirage 2000 D aircraft flying to N'Djamena overnight January 11 to 12, after taking off from the French... (Associated Press)

 A French soldiers patrols under the Eiffel tower, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2013. France has ordered tightened security in public buildings and transport following action against radical Islamists both in Mali... (Associated Press)

 The bombing run marks an expansion of the battle to retake Mali's north. Until Sunday night, the raids had all occurred in distant northern areas. The bombardments near Diabaly follows airstrikes late Sunday 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the locality, in the rice growing region of Anatola, once the site of a major USAID-funded project.

 The agent, who could not be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said that shots rang out near a military base in Diabaly. Soon after, he said French jets flew over the area, dropping bombs. ||||| Media caption The BBC's Mark Doyle reports from the Mali capital Bamako, where he is one of the few correspondents on the ground

 Islamist fighters in Mali have seized a town in government-controlled territory, though France said the Islamists were "in retreat" elsewhere.

 French officials said Diabaly, 400km (250 miles) from the capital, Bamako, was taken in a counter-attack.

 France began a military intervention on Friday in an effort to halt Islamists who took control of northern Mali last year and were advancing towards Bamako.

 The UN Security Council has convened to discuss Mali at France's request.

 Aid workers said many people had been fleeing areas targeted by French air strikes over the past four days.

 It is noticeable that already there are questions being asked about the purposes of Operation Serval Hugh Schofield, BBC News, Paris Mali a risk for 'new' Hollande

 The Islamists began a counter-attack on Diabaly, home to a key Mali army base, on Sunday night, hours after French warplanes had targeted the town.

 French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told BFM television: "They took Diabaly after fierce fighting and resistance from the Malian army that was not able to hold them off at that moment."

 One resident told the BBC that the fighting had lasted for about 10 hours.

 "About five [rebel] vehicles entered the town," he said. "Now they're stationed about 200m (650ft) from the military camp but they haven't taken the camp. They've killed a few soldiers."

 A Malian military source told AFP news agency that rebels had come from the Mauritanian border area after being attacked by French planes.

 Rebels 'in retreat'

 The BBC's Mark Doyle reports from Bamako that although the Islamists are still hundreds of miles away, the war was felt in the Malian capital as the president visited wounded soldiers in hospital there.

 France intensified its air strikes on rebel targets over the weekend, with its aircraft also bombing the town of Gao in eastern Mali. On Monday witnesses told AFP there had been air strikes on Douentza for a fourth consecutive day.

 Analysis Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is the group that worries the French authorities most, but the view amongst most experts is that it does not currently have the capacity and networks on the ground to carry out a serious attack within France in the short term. The more immediate worry for France may be retaliation closer to Mali - there are 6,000 citizens in Mali itself but embassies, businesses and private citizens may all be at risk across North Africa. In the past experts argued that AQIM looked as much like a criminal network as a militant group. However, with the shift of its centre of gravity from Algeria to northern Mali, it acquired a sanctuary which began to change its character. Paris has clearly decided that the short-term risk of increased threat from intervening is outweighed by the importance of denying a militant group a long-term sanctuary. Islamist threat to French interests

 "The developments are in line with our expectations," said Mr Le Drian. "The terrorist groups are in effect in retreat."

 But he said French forces had encountered "heavily armed militants" in the west, where he described the situation as "difficult".

 Rebels of the al-Qaeda-linked Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (Mujao), said that France would pay for its intervention.

 Spokesman Abou Dardar told AFP: "France has attacked Islam. We will strike at the heart of France."

 Separately, militants in Somalia have published a photograph purportedly showing one of two French soldiers killed during a failed hostage rescue attempt. Friday's raid on town of Bulo Marer, south of Mogadishu, came hours after the French intervention in Mali.

 At least 11 Malian soldiers and a French helicopter pilot have died in Mali. More than 100 militants are reported to have been killed.

 Medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres said it had received numerous reports of people being killed or injured in Konna, and that in Douentza, bombardments and fighting were preventing the wounded from making it to hospital.

 MSF said at least 200 people had fled to Mauritania by vehicle, with many more heading to the border on foot.

 African troops pledged

 French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said France's involvement would last "a matter of weeks" and rejected any parallel with the protracted Western mission in Afghanistan.

 He said preparations were "gathering pace" for the deployment of a West African force, including 600 troops from Nigeria, and 500 each from Niger, Burkina Faso, Togo and Senegal, and 300 from Benin.

 "This international mobilisation is essential because France does not want to stand alone alongside Mali," he said.

 Foreign forces in Mali Some 550 French troops in Bamako and Mopti

 French Mirage and Rafale jets

 Nigeria to send 600 troops; Senegal, Burkina Faso and Togo expected to send 500 each, and Benin 300

 UK providing two C17 cargo planes for French effort

 France says further logistics help from Denmark and US France's war in the desert

 France has sent about 550 troops to the central town of Mopti and to Bamako, and a defence ministry official told Reuters troop numbers would increase to 2,500 in coming days.

 The UK is offering logistical support, with two cargo planes made available for a week to support French operations.

 Islamist groups and secular Tuareg rebels took advantage of chaos following a military coup to seize northern Mali in April 2012.

 But the Islamists soon took control of the region's major towns, sidelining the Tuaregs.

 One Islamist group, Ansar Dine, began pushing further south last week, seizing Konna.

 The town has since been recaptured by Malian troops with French aerial support.

 The battle for Mali

 Image caption French forces have bombed rebel bases in Mali, where Islamist rebels have threatened to advance on the capital Bamako from their strongholds in the north. France said it had decided to act to stop the offensive, which could create "a terrorist state at the doorstep of France and Europe".

 Image caption The landlocked area of West Africa was the core of ancient empires going back to the 4th Century. The French colonised Mali, then known as French Sudan, at the end of the 19th Century, while Islamic religious wars created theocratic states in the region.

 Image caption Mali gained independence in 1960 but endured droughts, rebellions and 23 years of military dictatorship until democratic elections in 1992. In the early 1990s, the nomadic Tuareg of the north began an insurgency over land and cultural rights.

 Image caption The insurgency gathered momentum in 2007, and was exacerbated by an influx of arms from the 2011 Libyan civil war. Tuareg nationalists, alongside Islamist groups with links to al-Qaeda, seized control of the north in 2012 after a military coup by soldiers frustrated by government efforts against the rebels.

 Image caption The fighting in the north and the establishment of a harsh form of Islamic law has forced thousands to flee their homes - some estimates say more than half the northern population has fled south or across borders into neighbouring countries. ||||| First, they blunted an Islamist advance, saying the rest of Mali would have fallen into the hands of militants within days. Then on Sunday, French warplanes went on the offensive, going after training camps, depots and other militant positions far inside Islamist-held territory in an effort to uproot the militants, who have formed one of the largest havens for jihadists in the world.

 Some Defense Department officials, notably officers at the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command, have pushed for a lethal campaign to kill senior operatives of two of the extremists groups holding northern Mali, Ansar Dine and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Killing the leadership, they argued, could lead to an internal collapse.

 But with its attention and resources so focused on other conflicts in places like Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya, the Obama administration has rejected such strikes in favor of a more cautious, step-back strategy: helping African nations repel and contain the threat on their own.

 Over the last four years, the United States has spent between $520 million and $600 million in a sweeping effort to combat Islamist militancy in the region without fighting the kind of wars it has waged in the Middle East. The program stretched from Morocco to Nigeria, and American officials heralded the Malian military as an exemplary partner. American Special Forces trained its troops in marksmanship, border patrol, ambush drills and other counterterrorism skills.

 But all that deliberate planning collapsed swiftly when heavily armed, battle-hardened Islamist fighters returned from combat in Libya. They teamed up with jihadists like Ansar Dine, routed poorly equipped Malian forces and demoralized them so thoroughly that it set off a mutiny against the government in the capital, Bamako.

 A confidential internal review completed last July by the Pentagon’s Africa Command concluded that the coup had unfolded too quickly for American commanders or intelligence analysts to detect any clear warning signs.

 Photo

 “The coup in Mali progressed very rapidly and with very little warning,” said Col. Tom Davis, a command spokesman. “The spark that ignited it occurred within their junior military ranks, who ultimately overthrew the government, not at the senior leadership level where warning signs might have been more easily noticed.”

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 But one Special Operations Forces officer disagreed, saying, “This has been brewing for five years. The analysts got complacent in their assumptions and did not see the big changes and the impacts of them, like the big weaponry coming out of Libya and the different, more Islamic” fighters who came back.

 The same American-trained units that had been seen as the best hope of repelling such an advance proved, in the end, to be a linchpin in the country’s military defeat. The leaders of these elite units were Tuaregs — the very ethnic nomads who were overrunning northern Mali.

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 According to one senior officer, the Tuareg commanders of three of the four Malian units fighting in the north at the time defected to the insurrection “at the crucial moment,” taking fighters, weapons and scarce equipment with them. He said they were joined by about 1,600 other defectors from within the Malian Army, crippling the government’s hope of resisting the onslaught.

 “The aid of the Americans turned out not to be useful,” said another ranking Malian officer, now engaged in combat. “They made the wrong choice,” he said of relying on commanders from a group that had been conducting a 50-year rebellion against the Malian state.

 The virtual collapse of the Malian military, including units trained by United States Special Forces, followed by a coup led by an American-trained officer, Capt. Amadou Sanogo, astounded and embarrassed top American military commanders.

 “I was sorely disappointed that a military with whom we had a training relationship participated in the military overthrow of an elected government,” Gen. Carter F. Ham, the head of the Africa Command, said in a speech at Brown University last month . “There is no way to characterize that other than wholly unacceptable.”

 American officials defended their training, saying it was never intended to be nearly as comprehensive as what the United States has done in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We trained five units over five years but is that going to make a fully fledged, rock-solid military?” asked an American military official familiar with the region.

 After the coup, extremists quickly elbowed out the Tuaregs in northern Mali and enforced a harsh brand of Islam on the populace, cutting off hands, whipping residents and forcing tens of thousands to flee. Western nations then adopted a containment strategy, urging African nations to cordon off the north until they could muster a force to oust the Islamists by the fall, at the earliest. To that end, the Pentagon is providing Mauritania new trucks and Niger two Cessna surveillance aircraft, along with training for both countries.

 But even that backup plan failed, as Islamists pushed south toward the capital last week. With thousands of French citizens in Mali, its former colony, France decided it could not wait any longer, striking the militants at the front line and deep within their haven.

 Some experts said that the foreign troops might easily retake the large towns in northern Mali, but that Islamist fighters have forced children to fight for them, a deterrent for any invading force, and would likely use bloody insurgency tactics.

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 “They have been preparing these towns to be a death trap,” said Rudy Atallah, the former director of African counterterrorism policy for the Pentagon. “If an intervention force goes in there, the militants will turn it into an insurgency war.” |||||

Write a summary.

– France's foreign minister is optimistic about the campaign it started in Mali Friday, saying it will be over within "weeks." He rejected a comparison to the Afghanistan war, adding, "we have no intention of staying forever," the BBC reports. The country's defense minister was also positive, saying the mission is "developing favorably," even as Islamist fighters today seized Diabaly, a government-controlled territory 250 miles from the capital of Bamako. A Malian intelligence agent tells the AP that French pilots launched a raid near Diabaly this morning, which marks an expansion of the conflict—until now, raids were occurring in the distant north. The defense minister says Islamists are retreating in the east, but still causing France difficulty in the west. Aides to French President Francois Hollande say they are better trained and better armed than had been expected. More from the conflict: Mali rebels have sworn to take revenge; one leader for al-Qaeda offshoot Mujao tells AFP, "France has attacked Islam. We will strike at the heart of France." French authorities are on high alert for retaliatory attacks on home soil. The European Union will send military trainers to the Malian army late next month or early in March, Reuters reports, but the EU does not plan for those trainers to have any combat role in the country. And NATO says France has not asked it for any help, Reuters adds. A spokesperson says the organization is "concerned" about the situation in Mali and welcomes France's efforts, but "there has been no request, no discussion [within NATO] on the situation in Mali, the alliance as such is not involved in this crisis." Hollande is holding a cabinet meeting to discuss the crisis today, and the UN Security Council will also meet today at France's request. The New York Times takes an extensive look at the crisis and its background, noting that the US for years attempted to stop the Islamic militants from gaining a foothold in the region. But last year, many of the commanders trained by America defected. "It was a disaster," says a senior Malian officer. It was also an American-trained officer who led the coup that eventually overthrew Mali’s elected government. Meanwhile, a west African intervention force is putting together the promised troops who will be sent to Mali though it's not clear when they will arrive.


Article:
NEW YORK One-third of Americans reject the idea of evolution and Republicans have grown more skeptical about it, according to a poll released on Monday.

 Sixty percent of Americans say that "humans and other living things have evolved over time," the telephone survey by the Pew Research Center's Religion and Public Life Project showed (Click here for the full survey).

 But 33 percent reject the idea of evolution, saying that "humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time," Pew said in a statement.

 Although this percentage remained steady since 2009, the last time Pew asked the question, there was a growing partisan gap on whether humans evolved.

 "The gap is coming from the Republicans, where fewer are now saying that humans have evolved over time," said Cary Funk, a Pew senior researcher who conducted the analysis.

 The poll showed 43 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of Democrats say humans have evolved over time, compared with 54 percent and 64 percent respectively four years ago.

 Among religious groups, white evangelical Protestants topped the list of those rejecting evolution, with 64 percent of those polled saying they believe humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.

 "This has been a staple of evangelical Protestantism for nearly 100 years," said Alan Lichtman, an American University history professor and author of "White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement."

 A quarter of those surveyed told Pew that "a supreme being guided the evolution of living things."

 The survey of 1,983 adults in all 50 states was conducted from March 21 to April 8. The margin of error was 3 percentage points, meaning results could vary that much either way.

 (The penultimate paragraph of this story has been corrected to say that one-fourth of all surveyed believe a supreme being guided evolution.)

 (Reporting By Chris Francescani; Editing by Ian Simpson and Jonathan Oatis) ||||| According to a new Pew Research Center analysis, six-in-ten Americans (60%) say that “humans and other living things have evolved over time,” while a third (33%) reject the idea of evolution, saying that “humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.” The share of the general public that says that humans have evolved over time is about the same as it was in 2009, when Pew Research last asked the question.

 About half of those who express a belief in human evolution take the view that evolution is “due to natural processes such as natural selection” (32% of the American public overall). But many Americans believe that God or a supreme being played a role in the process of evolution. Indeed, roughly a quarter of adults (24%) say that “a supreme being guided the evolution of living things for the purpose of creating humans and other life in the form it exists today.”

 These beliefs differ strongly by religious group. White evangelical Protestants are particularly likely to believe that humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. Roughly two-thirds (64%) express this view, as do half of black Protestants (50%). By comparison, only 15% of white mainline Protestants share this opinion.

 There also are sizable differences by party affiliation in beliefs about evolution, and the gap between Republicans and Democrats has grown. In 2009, 54% of Republicans and 64% of Democrats said humans have evolved over time, a difference of 10 percentage points. Today, 43% of Republicans and 67% of Democrats say humans have evolved, a 24-point gap.

 These are some of the key findings from a nationwide Pew Research Center survey conducted March 21-April 8, 2013, with a representative sample of 1,983 adults, ages 18 and older. The survey was conducted on landlines and cellphones in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3.0 percentage points.

 Differences by Religious Group

 A majority of white evangelical Protestants (64%) and half of black Protestants (50%) say that humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. But in other large religious groups, a minority holds this view. In fact, nearly eight-in-ten white mainline Protestants (78%) say that humans and other living things have evolved over time. Three-quarters of the religiously unaffiliated (76%) and 68% of white non-Hispanic Catholics say the same. About half of Hispanic Catholics (53%) believe that humans have evolved over time, while 31% reject that idea.

 Those saying that humans have evolved over time also were asked for their views on the processes responsible for evolution. Roughly a quarter of adults (24%) say that “a supreme being guided the evolution of living things for the purpose of creating humans and other life in the form it exists today,” while about a third (32%) say that evolution is “due to natural processes such as natural selection.”

 Just as religious groups differ in their views about evolution in general, they also tend to differ in their views on the processes responsible for human evolution. For instance, while fully 78% of white mainline Protestants say that humans and other living things have evolved over time, the group is divided over whether evolution is due to natural processes or whether it was guided by a supreme being (36% each). White non-Hispanic Catholics also are divided equally on the question (33% each). The religiously unaffiliated predominantly hold the view that evolution stems from natural processes (57%), while 13% of this group says evolution was guided by a supreme being. Of the white evangelical Protestants and black Protestants who believe that humans have evolved over time, most believe that a supreme being guided evolution.

 Views About Evolution by Party Affiliation

 There are sizable differences among partisan groups in beliefs about evolution. Republicans are less inclined than either Democrats or political independents to say that humans have evolved over time. Roughly two-thirds of Democrats (67%) and independents (65%) say that humans have evolved over time, compared with less than half of Republicans (43%).

 The size of the gap between partisan groups has grown since 2009. Republicans are less inclined today than they were in 2009 to say that humans have evolved over time (43% today vs. 54% in 2009), while opinion among both Democrats and independents has remained about the same.

 Differences in the racial and ethnic composition of Democrats and Republicans or differences in their levels of religious commitment do not wholly explain partisan differences in beliefs about evolution. Indeed, the partisan differences remain even when taking these other characteristics into account. (For more on the link between party and evolution, see our Fact Tank post.)

 Views About Evolution by Demographic Group

 The 2013 Pew Research survey varied the exact wording of the question about evolution to better understand public views on the issue. A random group of respondents was asked about the evolution of “humans and other living things” while others were asked about the evolution of “animals and other living things.” The survey found that the wording focus on animals vs. humans made little difference in beliefs.

 Beliefs about human and animal evolution tend to vary by gender, age and education. Men are somewhat more inclined than women to say that humans and animals have evolved over time. Younger adults are more likely than older generations to believe that living things have evolved over time. And those with more years of formal schooling are more likely than those with less education to say that humans and animals have evolved over time.

 About the Survey

 This report is based on telephone interviews conducted March 21-April 8, 2013, among a national sample of 1,983 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (1,017 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 966 were interviewed on a cellphone). Interviews were completed in English and Spanish by live, professionally trained interviewing staff under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

 A combination of landline and cell random digit dial (RDD) samples were used to reach a representative sample of all adults in the United States who have access to either a landline or cellphone. Both samples were disproportionately stratified to increase the incidence of African-American and Hispanic respondents. Within each stratum, phone numbers were drawn with equal probabilities. The landline samples were list-assisted and drawn from active blocks containing three or more residential listings, while the cell samples were not list-assisted but were drawn through a systematic sampling from dedicated wireless 100-blocks and shared service 100-blocks with no directory-listed landline numbers. Both the landline and cell RDD samples were disproportionately stratified by county based on estimated incidences of African-American and Hispanic respondents.

 The survey questionnaire included a split-form design whereby an additional 2,023 adults were asked a different set of questions, including the questions on animal evolution reported above. The total number of interviews conducted was 4,006. Thus, the data collection involved two simultaneous surveys; where the same question was asked on each form, the results of the two forms can be combined to yield a representative survey of U.S. adults with the full 4,006 respondents.

 Several stages of statistical adjustment or weighting are used to account for the complex nature of the sample design. The weights account for numerous factors, including (1) the different, disproportionate probabilities of selection in each stratum, (2) the overlap of the landline and cell RDD sample frames, and (3) differential non-response associated with sample demographics. Statistical results are weighted to correct known demographic discrepancies, including disproportionate stratification of the sample.

 The survey’s margin of error is the largest 95% confidence interval for any estimated proportion based on the total sample – the one around 50%. For example, the margin of error for the entire sample is +/-3.0 percentage points. This means that in 95 out of every 100 samples drawn using the same methodology, estimated proportions based on the entire sample will be no more than 3.0 percentage points away from their true values in the population. Sampling errors and statistical tests of significance used in this report take into account the effect of weighting. In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls. |||||Summary:

– Sorry, science: Fewer than half of Republicans and white evangelical Protestants in the US believe that humans and other living things have evolved over time, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. Overall, a third of Americans say living things are unchanged "since the beginning of time," and Republicans are growing more likely to say so, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, 67% of Democrats and nearly 80% of white mainline protestants are pro-evolution. Among stats from the survey: 25% of adults say "a supreme being guided human evolution of living things"; 32% believe evolution was guided by nature. 64% of white evangelical protestants and 50% of black protestants don't believe in evolution. In 2009, 64% of Democrats and 54% of Republicans believed in evolution. Today's it's 67% of Democrats and 43% of Republicans. 65% of men and 55% of women believe in evolution. Click for the full survey of 1,983 adults across 50 states.


Write an article based on this summary:

– In a case of life imitating Seinfeld, a 23-year-old guy in South Carolina thought it would be a great idea to play a real-life version of Frogger—and got hit by an SUV for his trouble. The man was talking about the video game with friends—it involves navigating frogs across a busy road—before shouting “go” and running into traffic Monday night, the AP reports. He was hospitalized, but was set to be released yesterday; the driver will likely not be charged. The police chief, not surprisingly, suspects alcohol may have been involved. “I’ve never heard of anything like this,” he tells the Independent Mail. “I had to ask questions to even find out what Frogger is.”

A man has been hospitalized after police in South Carolina say he was hit by an SUV while playing a real-life version of the video game "Frogger."

 Authorities said the 23-year-old man was taken to a hospital in Anderson after he was struck at around 9 p.m. Monday.

 In the "Frogger" arcade game, players move frogs through traffic on a busy road and through a hazard-filled river. Before he was hit, police say the man had been discussing the game with his friends.

 Chief Jimmy Dixon says the man yelled "go" and darted into oncoming traffic in the four-lane highway.

 No charges are expected against the driver. The name of the man who was struck has not been released. He was in stable condition Monday night. ||||| — A 23-year-old man was hit by a sport utility vehicle this week after intentionally stepping out into traffic while he was playing a game.

 Clemson Police Chief Jimmy Dixon is withholding the man’s name, saying that he does not want to cause any more discord for the 23-year-old or for the woman who was driving the SUV that hit him.

 The man was hit Monday night around 9 p.m., and is expected to be released from AnMed Health Medical Center in Anderson later this afternoon .

 Dixon said the man lives in the city but is not a student at Clemson University.

 The man was hit at U.S. 76 and College Avenue in Clemson.

 Before he was hit, the man and two of his friends had been discussing a game known as “Frogger.” The arcade game was released in the early 1980s, and in it, players try to move frogs through a busy road and a dangerous river.

 During the discussion of the game, the man yelled, “Go,” and then started darting into the highway with oncoming traffic.

 He was hit by a white 2010 Lexus SUV.

 No charges are anticipated against the driver of the SUV, Dixon said.

 Dixon said alcohol is suspected to have been a factor in the man’s decision to step out in front of traffic. But the chief cannot confirm that, he said, because there are no blood-alcohol test results available yet.

 “I’ve never heard of anything like this,” Dixon said. “I had to ask questions to even find out what ‘Frogger’ is.” |||||


News article:

BOSTON (AP) — Survivors, first responders and family members of those killed came together Tuesday to mark the anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing with solemn ceremonies.

 The Richard family along with Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick participate in a wreath laying ceremony to commemorate the one year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings,... (Associated Press)

 A Boston Police honor guard is posted outside the Forum restaurant, the site of the second of two bombs that exploded near the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon, Tuesday, April 15, 2014 in Boston.... (Associated Press)

 A law enforcement official searches a man near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, Tuesday, April 15, 2014, in Boston. Vice President Joe Biden is expected to be among the dignitaries Tuesday during... (Associated Press)

 Heather McDade, of Boston, center, reacts while watching a tribute ceremony with others on an over-sized outdoor monitor, Monday, April 14, 2014, on Boylston Street, in Boston. The ceremony is being held... (Associated Press)

 Heather McDade, of Boston, right, reacts while watching a tribute ceremony with others on an over-sized outdoor monitor, Monday, April 14, 2014, on Boylston Street, in Boston. The ceremony is being held... (Associated Press)

 Honor Guard members line up in front of the Forum Restaurant in Copley Square, where a wreath laying ceremony was held to commemorate the one year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, Tuesday,... (Associated Press)

 Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, left, along with the Richard family and family members of Lingzi Lu walk with Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, second from right, as they attend ceremonies to commemorate the... (Associated Press)

 Police on bikes cycle across the Boston Marathon finish line prior to a remembrance ceremony for family members and survivors of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing on Boylston Street in Boston, Tuesday,... (Associated Press)

 People photograph a banner reading "Boston Strong" as it hangs at Rowes Wharf on the first anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, Tuesday, April 15, 2014, in Boston. (AP Photo/Bill Sikes) (Associated Press)

 A law enforcement official patrols the area with a dog near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, Tuesday, April 15, 2014, in Boston. Vice President Joe Biden is expected to be among the dignitaries... (Associated Press)

 "This day will always be hard, but this place will always be strong," former Mayor Thomas Menino told an invitation-only audience of about 2,500 people gathered at the Hynes Convention Center, not far from the marathon finish line where three people died and more than 260 others were injured a year ago.

 In Washington, President Barack Obama planned to observe the anniversary with a private moment of silence at the White House.

 "Today, we recognize the incredible courage and leadership of so many Bostonians in the wake of unspeakable tragedy," Obama said in a statement. "And we offer our deepest gratitude to the courageous firefighters, police officers, medical professionals, runners and spectators who, in an instant, displayed the spirit Boston was built on — perseverance, freedom and love."

 Obama said this year's race, scheduled for Monday, will "show the world the meaning of Boston Strong as a city chooses to run again."

 Vice President Joe Biden was in Boston for the ceremony, and he said the courage shown by survivors and those who lost loved ones is an inspiration for other Americans dealing with loss and tragedy. He praised four survivors who spoke before he did and said that though he's not a Boston sports fan, Boston is an incredible city.

 "We are Boston. We are America. We respond. We endure. We overcome. And we own the finish line," he concluded, to loud applause.

 Earlier in the day, a wreath-laying ceremony drew the families of the three people killed — Martin Richard, Krystle Campbell and Lu Lingzi — as well as relatives of Massachusetts Institute of Technology police Officer Sean Collier, who was killed in the aftermath of the blasts.

 Gov. Deval Patrick, Mayor Martin J. Walsh and Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley were among those who attended the morning ceremony held in a light rain as bagpipes played. O'Malley offered a prayer.

 They were also honored at the Hynes center, where the survivors who spoke included newlywed Patrick Downes and dancer Adrianne Haslet-Davis, both of whom lost their lower left legs in the bombings.

 "We should have never met this way, but we are so grateful for each other," Downes said, describing the sense of community that has developed among the survivors.

 Carlos Arredondo, the cowboy hat-wearing spectator who was hailed as a hero for helping the wounded after the bombings, said he came to the tribute ceremony to support survivors and their families. Biden also mentioned him.

 "You can see how the whole community gathered together to support them and remember," Arredondo told reporters before the program began.

 Boston police Commissioner Williams Evans said the anniversary is an emotional day and brings back "some terrible memories."

 "Hopefully, today brings the city and the families some sense of comfort and some healing," he said before ceremonies began.

 Between 2:30 p.m. and 3 p.m., a flag-raising ceremony and moment of silence will be held at the marathon finish line, to mark the time and place where two bombs exploded on April 15, 2013.

 Authorities say two brothers planned and orchestrated the attack and later shot and killed Collier during an attempt to steal his gun. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died following a shootout with police several days after the bombings. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 20, has pleaded not guilty to 30 federal charges and is awaiting trial. He faces the possibility of the death penalty.

 The Tsarnaevs, ethnic Chechens who lived in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan and the Dagestan region of Russia, settled in Cambridge, outside Boston, more than a decade ago after moving to the U.S. as children with their family.

 Prosecutors have said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left a hand-scrawled confession condemning U.S. actions in Muslim countries on the inside wall of a boat he was found hiding in following the police shootout. ||||| (CNN) -- A moment of silence at the finish line, the tolling of church bells and a solemn flag-raising ceremony capped the first anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing on Tuesday.

 Under a steady rain on Boylston Street, where two homemade bombs last April 15 marked the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States since 9/11, scores gathered in the personification of a slogan that captured the country: "Boston Strong."

 After a stirring rendition of "God Bless America," ordinary people, bombing survivors, first responders and dignitaries -- including Vice President Joe Biden -- bowed their heads in a moment of silence, saw the American flag raised, and sang the national anthem shortly before 3 p.m. on the spot where explosions, carnage, screams and smoke interrupted one of the city's most joyous and popular events one year ago.

 Earlier, thousands gathered to mark the anniversary of a horror that shook the nation.

 "We would never wish the devastation and pain we have experienced on any of you," said Patrick Downes, who was among the many injured in the twin bombings at last year's Boston Marathon. "However, we do wish that all of you, at some point in your lives, feel as loved as we have felt this last year. It has been the most humbling experience of our lives. We hope you feel all the emotion we feel when we say 'thank you.'"

 Downes was a newlywed at the time of the attack. He and his wife, Jessica Kensky, each lost a leg.

 Before the crowd gathered Tuesday at the Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center, he spoke of the three people killed in the blasts and a university police officer killed days later amid efforts to catch the suspects. He called them "guardian angels."

 "Let's show them they live on in our bonds of family, friendship and community and in the infectious spirit we will feel on the third Monday in April for years to come." That's the date of the marathon.

 After a string of speakers, Biden began his remarks by saying, "I've never witnessed a tribute like I heard today." To the survivors, he said, "My God, you have survived and you have soared. You are truly inspiring. I've never heard anything so beautiful as what all of you just said."

 "So much has been taken from you, but you never, never have given up," he said.

 "You have become the face of America's resolve for the whole world to see," Biden said, adding that people all around the world know the pride, courage, and resolve of Bostonians. "That's why the twisted, cowardly terrorists who acted here and in other places do what they do. They try to instill fear so that we will jettison what we value the most and what the world most values about us: an open society, our system of justice, our freedom of religion; our access to opportunity, the free flow of information and ideas."

 The terrorists, Biden said, "wanted to make America afraid so that maybe, maybe, we'd begin to change our ways. That's the objective -- the very soul of who we are. They figured if they instill enough fear, we will change. And it infuriates them that we refuse to bend, refuse to change, refuse to yield to fear.

 "You are Boston strong. But America is strong. ... That's what makes us so proud of this city and this state. What makes me so proud to be an American is that we have never, ever yielded to fear. Never."

 At the marathon, "the whole world witnessed ordinary citizens doing extraordinary things" to help each other, the vice president said.

 "America will never, ever, ever stand down," he said. "We are Boston. We are America. We respond, we endure, we overcome and we own the finish line."

 'Boston strong'

 "Next week, we will run again," said Tom Grilk, executive director of the Boston Athletic Association. "But on this day, in this place, in remembrance and resolve, we gather as citizens of Boston, Boston strong."

 One year ago, "the very fabric of this community was tested to its core," he said, but the city "inspired."

 "You are strong at this broken place," former Mayor Tom Menino told the crowd, adding, "the heartbeat of Boston is a mighty force."

 To those who lost loved ones and to the many who were wounded, Menino said, "whatever you have to do to recover and carry on, know that the people of Boston and I will be right there by your side." Menino was mayor at the time of the attack.

 On April 15, 2013, the Patriots' Day bombings killed three people, including an 8-year-old boy, and wounded at least 264 others. The city then underwent days of fear as the two identified suspects, the Tsarnaev brothers, were on the run. Police say they killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer in the process, and then Tamerlan Tsarnaev was run over by his younger brother, Dzhokhar, as they battled police. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty to 30 counts and is scheduled to go on trial in November.

 Obama: Boston will show it 'chooses to run again'

 "A year ago, tragedy struck at the 117th Boston Marathon," President Obama said in a written statement Tuesday. "Four innocent people were killed that week, and hundreds more were wounded. Today, we remember Krystle Campbell, Lingzi Lu, Martin Richard, and Sean Collier. And we send our thoughts and prayers to those still struggling to recover...

 "One year later, we also stand in awe of the men and women who continue to inspire us -- learning to stand, walk, dance and run again. With each new step our country is moved by the resilience of a community and a city. And when the sun rises over Boylston Street next Monday -- Patriot's Day -- hundreds of thousands will come together to show the world the meaning of Boston Strong as a city chooses to run again."

 David Yepez, a teen who was wounded in the attack, followed Downes at Tuesday's ceremony. He hailed the first responders, doctors and others who helped in the wake of the bombings. "Thank you for your love, compassion and generosity," Yepez said. "You have touched our hearts in a way that, many times, our gratitude could only be expressed through our tears of joy."

 Adrianne Haslet-Davis, a dancer who lost her left foot in the attack, told the crowd, "If anyone is wondering what they can do, what you can do, I would answer: Look around. People in your community need your support. They need your patience and they need your time. ... Let April 15 be a day when we all work together to make this world a better place."

 Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said, "We share the same fears, the same hopes, the same community," he said. "We are, in the end, one community."

 He added that he hopes "as we remember the dead and encourage the injured, that we remember community. ... The power of love itself -- that's what community is."

 A series of musical performances helped set a solemn but hopeful tone for the ceremony. The world-renowned Boston Pops orchestra performed, with singer Renese King singing both "America the Beautiful" and "For Good," a song from the musical "Wicked." The Boston Children's Chorus performed "Up to the Mountain."

 A year after the bombings, families of the victims are struggling to come to terms with the loss.

 "She had that special, I don't know what it is, that special thing about her," said Lillian Campbell, grandmother of bombing victim Krystle Campbell, 29. "And you felt happy around her because she was always laughing and bubbly. I loved her."

 Some victims injured in the attack are showing their perseverance by planning to take part in this year's marathon, scheduled for Monday -- even victims who suffered severe injuries.

 "Last year, I was on the ground at the finish line. This year, I'll be running across it," said Kevin White. "It kind of proves to people that evil isn't going to win." White, then 34, had shrapnel through his legs a year ago. His 71-year-old father, Bill, lost a leg.

 Authorities have announced extensive security plans for this year's marathon, which is expected to bring in $176 million for the Boston area's economy.

 Brothers Paul and J.P. Norden each lost a leg in the attack last year. On Tuesday, they began a trek: walking the entire 26.2-mile marathon route, along with family and good friends. "I feel so blessed," their mother, Liz, said in a Facebook post, adding that she couldn't be prouder.

 Police investigate bags near finish line

 Hours after Tuesday's anniversary event, a police bomb squad investigated two backpacks near the marathon finish line, cordoning off the area. They "disrupted and rendered safe" both bags, police spokesman David Estrada said. In a Twitter post, police said the detonations were "precautionary measures."

 The bags were found around 6:50 p.m., police said. One bag was unattended, while the other one was worn by an individual.

 A Boston police officer noticed a man walking down Boylston Street barefoot in the rain and wearing a backpack,

 The officer asked him what was in the backpack. The man said there was a rice cooker in the backpack, Boston Police Superintendent Randy Halstead said.

 "Training kicked in. We looked into the backpack, saw that it was what appeared to be a rice cooker, had the individual take the knapsack off, drop it on the street, and he was taken into custody," Halstead said.

 Police spokesman Mike McCarthy said the man "got very vocal. He was yelling something."

 The man, in his early 20s, has not been publicly identified.

 He was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace and possession of a hoax device, Halstead said. The bag was inspected and deemed safe.

 The second bag, which was abandoned, belonged to a media outlet, a law enforcement source said.

 An FBI spokeswoman said the agency was assisting police.

 Earlier Tuesday, police responded to a report of a possible pipe bomb near Boston's South Station. Investigators determined it wasn't an explosive, but rather a high-voltage fuse that didn't pose a threat, state officials said.

 Authorities seemed to be bracing for the possibility of more bomb scares.

 "To ease fears & concerns relating to backpacks," Boston Police said in a Twitter post Tuesday night that they were "discouraging their use" at this year's marathon.

 CNN's Susan Candiotti, Haimy Assefa and Holly Yan contributed to this report. |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– Boston paused today to mark the one-year anniversary of the marathon bombings, and President Obama was observing a moment of silence at the White House at 2:49pm Eastern. Some quotes from the Boston ceremony, via CNN and AP: Joe Biden: "You are Boston strong. But America is strong," said the VP. "That's what makes us so proud of this city and this state. What makes me so proud to be an American is that we have never, ever yielded to fear. Never." Survivor Patrick Downes: "We would never wish the devastation and pain we have experienced on any of you," said Downes, who lost a leg, as did his new wife. "However, we do wish that all of you, at some point in your lives, feel as loved as we have felt this last year. It has been the most humbling experience of our lives. We hope you feel all the emotion we feel when we say 'thank you.'" Ex-Mayor Thomas Menino: "This day will always be hard, but this place will always be strong." Tom Grilk, Boston Athletic Association: "Next week, we will run again. But on this day, in this place, in remembrance and resolve, we gather as citizens of Boston, Boston strong."


A British chef who died fighting Isil in northern Syria shot himself to avoid being captured by the jihadists, it emerged yesterday.

 Ryan Lock, 20, from Chichester, West Sussex, died near the city of Raqqa - the capital of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil)’s self-declared caliphate on December 21.

 Mr Lock, who had no previous military experience, joined the Kurdish People’s Defence Units (YPG) militia as a volunteer after telling his family he was going on holiday to Turkey in August.

 Macer Gifford, another British fighter with the YPG, said Mr Lock, alongside four comrades, found themselves surrounded by Isil fighters during a fierce firefight in the village of Jaeber. ||||| Image caption Ryan Lock's family described him as a "caring and loving boy"

 A Briton fighting in Syria "turned the gun on himself" to avoid being taken prisoner by so-called Islamic State, Kurdish sources have told the BBC.

 Ryan Lock, 20, from Chichester in West Sussex, died on 21 December during a battle for the IS group's stronghold of Raqqa.

 He was fighting as a volunteer with the Kurdish armed fighting forces, the YPG.

 The YPG told the BBC that "trace of a gunshot wound was found under the chin", suggesting suicide.

 Sources said five fighters came under siege by IS - also known as ISIS - in the village of Ja'bar, and they showed "considerable resistance" before they were killed.

 After the bodies were retrieved examinations showed that "it seems that the British fighter committed suicide in order not to fall captive with Isis".

 A report said the gunshot wound indicated "that the gun made contact with the bottom of the chin".

 "This suggests that the fighter committed suicide," it concluded.

 'Outstanding bravery'

 Kurdish rights activist Mark Campbell, from KurdishQuestion.com, told BBC South: "Ryan Lock may very well have turned his own gun upon himself rather than be taken prisoner by ISIS.

 "There are no words to describe the bravery required to take such an action.

 "ISIS were robbed of a predictable macabre propaganda opportunity by Ryan's action.

 "I personally believe he deserves the very highest of military honours for such outstanding bravery in the face of such a barbaric enemy."

 Mr Lock, a chef, had travelled to Syria in August having told friends and family he was going on holiday to Turkey.

 Earlier on Tuesday his body was transported into Iraq in preparation to be flown back to the UK.

 In a statement to the BBC, his father Jon Plater, from Chichester, said: "Since we heard the devastating news of Ryan, it's been pretty tough, especially the difficulties surrounding the repatriation.

 "We are grateful to the YPG for bringing him home."

 Mr Lock's body had been in the hands of IS militants.

 The volunteer, who attended school in Havant, Hampshire, became the third British man to die fighting alongside the Kurds against so-called Islamic State.

 The Foreign Office continues to advise against all travel to Syria. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– A 20-year-old British man who left his job as a chef to fight ISIS ended up killing himself to avoid capture, family members and Kurdish fighters say. Kurdish sources tell the BBC that Ryan Lock and four other fighters died after they were besieged by ISIS militants during an offensive near Raqqa, Syria. The sources say the fighters put up "considerable resistance." After the bodies were retrieved, they saw evidence that Lock had shot himself under the chin. Lock joined the Kurdish militia in August last year after telling his family he was going on vacation to Turkey, the Telegraph reports. Lock's body was handed to British authorities this week after a ceremony attended by dozens of Kurdish fighters. Kurdish commanders described him as a "martyr" who died putting up a brave fight. "ISIS [was] robbed of a predictable macabre propaganda opportunity by Ryan's action," Kurdish rights activist Mark Campbell tells the BBC. "I personally believe he deserves the very highest of military honors for such outstanding bravery in the face of such a barbaric enemy." (In January, ISIS destroyed Roman monuments in a recaptured ancient city.)


Here is a news article: John McCone came to the CIA as an outsider. An industrialist and an engineer by training, he replaced veteran spymaster Allen Dulles as director of central intelligence in November 1961, after John F. Kennedy had forced out Dulles following the CIA’s bungled operation to oust Fidel Castro by invading Cuba’s Bay of Pigs. McCone had one overriding mission: restore order at the besieged CIA. Kennedy hoped his management skills might prevent a future debacle, even if the Californian—mostly a stranger to the clubby, blue-blooded world of the men like Dulles who had always run the spy agency—faced a steep learning curve.

 After JFK’s assassination in Dallas in November 1963, President Lyndon Johnson kept McCone in place at the CIA, and the CIA director became an important witness before the Warren Commission, the panel Johnson created to investigate Kennedy’s murder. McCone pledged full cooperation with the commission, which was led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, and testified that the CIA had no evidence to suggest that Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin, was part of any conspiracy, foreign or domestic. In its final report, the commission came to agree with McCone’s depiction of Oswald, a former Marine and self-proclaimed Marxist, as a delusional lone wolf.

 Story Continued Below

 But did McCone come close to perjury all those decades ago? Did the onetime Washington outsider in fact hide agency secrets that might still rewrite the history of the assassination? Even the CIA is now willing to raise these questions. Half a century after JFK’s death, in a once-secret report written in 2013 by the CIA’s top in-house historian and quietly declassified last fall, the spy agency acknowledges what others were convinced of long ago: that McCone and other senior CIA officials were “complicit” in keeping “incendiary” information from the Warren Commission.

 According to the report by CIA historian David Robarge, McCone, who died in 1991, was at the heart of a “benign cover-up” at the spy agency, intended to keep the commission focused on “what the Agency believed at the time was the ‘best truth’—that Lee Harvey Oswald, for as yet undetermined motives, had acted alone in killing John Kennedy.” The most important information that McCone withheld from the commission in its 1964 investigation, the report found, was the existence, for years, of CIA plots to assassinate Castro, some of which put the CIA in cahoots with the Mafia. Without this information, the commission never even knew to ask the question of whether Oswald had accomplices in Cuba or elsewhere who wanted Kennedy dead in retaliation for the Castro plots.

 While raising no question about the essential findings of the Warren Commission, including that Oswald was the gunman in Dallas, the 2013 report is important because it comes close to an official CIA acknowledgement—half a century after the fact—of impropriety in the agency’s dealings with the commission. The coverup by McCone and others may have been “benign,” in the report’s words, but it was a cover-up nonetheless, denying information to the commission that might have prompted a more aggressive investigation of Oswald’s potential Cuba ties.

 Initially stamped “SECRET/NOFORN,” meaning it was not to be shared outside the agency or with foreign governments, Robarge’s report was originally published as an article in the CIA’s classified internal magazine, Studies in Intelligence, in September 2013, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. The article, drawn from a still-classified 2005 biography of McCone written by Robarge, was declassified quietly last fall and is now available on the website of The George Washington University’s National Security Archive. In a statement to POLITICO, the CIA said it decided to declassify the report “to highlight misconceptions about the CIA’s connection to JFK’s assassination,” including the still-popular conspiracy theory that the spy agency was somehow behind the assassination. (Articles in the CIA magazine are routinely declassified without fanfare after internal review.)

 Robarge’s article says that McCone, quickly convinced after the assassination that Oswald had acted alone and that there was no foreign conspiracy involving Cuba or the Soviet Union, directed the agency to provide only “passive, reactive and selective” assistance to the Warren Commission. This portrait of McCone suggests that he was much more hands-on in the CIA’s dealings with the commission—and in the agency’s post-assassination scrutiny of Oswald’s past—than had previously been known. The report quotes another senior CIA official, who heard McCone say that he intended to “handle the whole (commission) business myself, directly.”

 The report offers no conclusion about McCone’s motivations, including why he would go to lengths to cover-up CIA activities that mostly predated his time at the agency. But it suggests that the Johnson White House might have directed McCone to hide the information. McCone “shared the administration’s interest in avoiding disclosures about covert actions that would circumstantially implicate [the] CIA in conspiracy theories and possibly lead to calls for a tough US response against the perpetrators of the assassination,” the article reads. “If the commission did not know to ask about covert operations about Cuba, he was not going to give them any suggestions about where to look.”

 In an interview, David Slawson, who was the Warren Commission’s chief staff investigator in searching for evidence of a foreign conspiracy, said he was not surprised to learn that McCone had personally withheld so much information from the investigation in 1964, especially about the Castro plots.

 “I always assumed McCone must have known, because I always believed that loyalty and discipline in the CIA made any large-scale operation without the consent of the director impossible,” says Slawson, now 84 and a retired University of Southern California law professor. He says he regrets that it had taken so long for the spy agency to acknowledge that McCone and others had seriously misled the commission. After half a century, Slawson says, “The world loses interest, because the assassination becomes just a matter of history to more and more people.”

 The report identifies other tantalizing information that McCone did not reveal to the commission, including evidence that the CIA might somehow have been in communication with Oswald before 1963 and that the spy agency had secretly monitored Oswald’s mail after he attempted to defect to the Soviet Union in 1959. The CIA mail-opening program, which was later determined to have been blatantly illegal, had the code name HTLINGUAL. “It would be surprising if the DCI [director of central intelligence] were not told about the program” after the Kennedy assassination, the report reads. “If not, his subordinates deceived him. If he did know about HTLINGUAL reporting on Oswald, he was not being forthright with the commission—presumably to protect an operation that was highly compartmented and, if disclosed, sure to arouse much controversy.”

 In the 1970s, when congressional investigations exposed the Castro plots, members of the Warren Commission and its staff expressed outrage that they had been denied the information in 1964. Had they known about the plots, they said, the commission would have been much more aggressive in trying to determine whether JFK’s murder was an act of retaliation by Castro or his supporters. Weeks before the assassination, Oswald traveled to Mexico City and met there with spies for the Cuban and Soviet governments—a trip that CIA and FBI officials have long acknowledged was never adequately investigated. (Even so, Warren Commission staffers remain convinced today that Oswald was the lone gunman in Dallas, a view shared by ballistics experts who have studied the evidence.)

 In congressional testimony in 1978, after public disclosures about the Castro plots, McCone claimed that he could not have shared information about the plots with the Warren Commission in 1964 because he was ignorant of the plots at the time. Other CIA officials “withheld the information from me,” he said. “I have never been satisfied as to why they withheld the information.” But the 2013 report concluded that “McCone’s testimony was neither frank nor accurate,” since it was later determined with certainty that he had been informed about the CIA-Mafia plots nine months before his appearance before the Warren Commission.

 Robarge suggests the CIA is responsible for some of the harsh criticism commonly leveled at the Warren Commission for large gaps in its investigation of the president’s murder, including its failure to identify Oswald’s motive in the assassination and to pursue evidence that might have tied Oswald to accomplices outside the United States. For decades, opinion polls have shown that most Americans reject the commission’s findings and believe Oswald did not act alone. Four of the seven commissioners were members of Congress, and they spent the rest of their political careers badgered by accusations that they had been part of a coverup.

 “The decision of McCone and Agency leaders in 1964 not to disclose information about CIA’s anti-Castro schemes might have done more to undermine the credibility of the commission than anything else that happened while it was conducting its investigation,” the report reads. “In that sense—and in that sense alone—McCone may be regarded as a ‘co-conspirator’ in the JFK assassination ‘cover-up.’”

 If there was, indeed, a CIA “cover-up,” a member of the Warren Commission was apparently in on it: Allen Dulles, McCone’s predecessor, who ran the CIA when the spy agency hatched the plots to kill Castro. “McCone does not appear to have any explicit, special understanding with Allen Dulles,” the 2013 report says. Still, McCone could “rest assured that his predecessor would keep a dutiful watch over Agency equities and work to keep the commission from pursuing provocative lines of investigation, such as lethal anti-Castro covert actions.” (Johnson appointed Dulles to the commission at the recommendation of then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy.)

 The 2013 report also draws attention to the contacts between McCone and Robert Kennedy in the days after the assassination. In the wake of the Bay of Pigs disaster in 1961, the attorney general was asked by his brother, the president, to direct the administration’s secret war against Castro, and Robert Kennedy’s friends and family acknowledged years later that he never stopped fearing that Castro was behind his brother’s death. “McCone had frequent contact with Robert Kennedy during the painful days after the assassination,” the report says. “Their communication appears to have been verbal, informal and, evidently in McCone’s estimation, highly personal; no memoranda or transcripts exist or are known to have been made.”

 “Because Robert Kennedy had overseen the Agency’s anti-Castro covert actions—including some of the assassination plans—his dealings with McCone about his brother’s murder had a special gravity,” the report continues. “Did Castro kill the president because the president had tried to kill Castro? Had the administration’s obsession with Cuba inadvertently inspired a politicized sociopath to murder John Kennedy?”

 The declassification of the bulk of the 2013 McCone report might suggest a new openness by the CIA in trying to resolve the lingering mysteries about the Kennedy assassination. At the same time, there are 15 places in the public version of the report where the CIA has deleted sensitive information—sometimes individual names, sometimes whole sentences. It is an acknowledgement, it seems, that there are still secrets about the Kennedy assassination hidden in the agency’s files.

 Philip Shenon, a former Washington and foreign correspondent for the New York Times, is author, most recently, of A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination. ||||| 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 summary of this is?

– Think the CIA played a role in covering up the John F. Kennedy assassination? Now an important source agrees with you: the CIA. According to an article written by the agency's senior in-house historian, the CIA purposely held back information from the Warren Commission, Politico reports. John McCone, then the agency's director, apparently failed to tell the commission about agency plots to murder Fidel Castro (including ones involving the Mafia). So the commission never knew to ask whether Lee Harvey Oswald had Cuban comrades dead-set on retaliating against the US president. The commission famously concluded that Oswald acted alone, spawning decades of conspiracy theories involving Castro, the Mafia, the CIA, the Soviets, and even President Lyndon B. Johnson. Seems the White House nudged McCone along: He "shared the administration’s interest in avoiding disclosures about covert actions that would circumstantially implicate [the] CIA in conspiracy theories and possibly lead to calls for a tough US response against the perpetrators of the assassination," reads the article, which was published in a CIA internal magazine in 2013 and declassified (with 15 redactions) last fall. McCone also apparently didn't reveal that the CIA may have been communicating with Oswald before the killing, and was illegally reading his mail after he tried defecting to the Soviets in 1959. The article, by CIA historian David Robarge, calls McCone's actions "benign" but says the cover-up played a big role in "undermin[ing] the credibility of the commission." (Click for a list of the most pervasive JFK conspiracy theories.)


Terry Jones, the swivel-eyed pastor who attracted worldwide notoriety for his threat to burn the Qur'an on the anniversary of September 11, may or may not have a deal. But let's hope he has burst the Qur'an-burning bubble for the rest of America.

 Based on his bizarre press conference on Thursday, Jones thinks he struck an agreement to move the site of the Park 51 Muslim cultural centre and mosque away from its current location, which is not very close to the site of the World Trade Centre in New York City.

 Latest reports suggest that no such thing was agreed but that won't matter to Jones. This way he gets to save face, extend his 15 minutes of fame a little longer, all without actually burning any Qur'ans. No doubt he'll rail against Muslim perfidy when the mosque doesn't move – but so what?

 Jones's threats will be subject to the law of diminishing returns. Next time he threatens to do burn a Qur'an – and I fear there will be a next time – he'll be handled with much more caution by the US media, which has made itself look ridiculous in being outfoxed by the crackpot pastor of a miniscule church in the swamps of Florida.

 The most significant news yesterday, prior to Jones's decision to scrap the burning, came from Fox News. The Baltimore Sun's TV critic David Zurawik asked the cable news network if it would show the Qur'an burning. Michael Clemente, senior vice president at Fox News, said it would not cover it, either live, in video or still photography, adding:

 "He's one guy in the middle of the woods with 50 people in his congregation who's decided to try, I gather, to bring some attention to himself."

 CNN also said it wouldn't show any images of the Qur'an being burned. Then the Associated Press set out some strict guidelines for its staff, stating in an internal memo: "Should the event happen on Saturday, the AP will not distribute images or audio that specifically show Qurans being burned, and will not provide detailed text descriptions of the burning."

 Then NBC announced it would film the event but not show live coverage, and decide later on what footage it would use.

 All in all, an outbreak of common sense.

 By now, though, every crackpot and lunatic in America will have seen Jones's success and be ready to ape it. But their very craziness may be their undoing.

 One such group that says it plans to burn some Qur'ans is the Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas, easily the most hated church in America. For whatever insane doctrinal reasons, the tiny WBC protests outside funerals of US soldiers killed in battle, holding signs saying "God hates fags". They did the same thing at the funeral of former president Gerald Ford. Where ever one or two TV cameras are gathered together, so the WBC will be among them.

 These days the WBC's antics get no coverage. In fact, in announcing it was to burn Qur'ans, the WBC said it had already burned some. No one cared. It says it also plans to burn an American flag at the same time (I'm not making this up). No one cares.

 Qur'an burning may have stepped into that small set of things that are too crazy even for America. ||||| Photo Advertisement Continue reading the main story

 A renegade pastor and his tiny flock set fire to a Koran on a street corner, and made sure to capture it on film. And they were ignored.

 That stunt took place in 2008, involving members of the Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka, Kan., an almost universally condemned group of fundamentalists who also protest at military funerals.

 But plans for a similar stunt by another fringe pastor, Terry Jones, have garnered worldwide news media attention this summer, attention that peaked Thursday when he announced he was canceling — and later, that he had only “suspended” — what he had dubbed International Burn a Koran Day. It had been scheduled for Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

 Unlike the Koran-burning by Westboro Baptist, Mr. Jones’s planned event in Gainesville, Fla., coincided with the controversy over the proposed building of a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan near ground zero and a simmering summerlong debate about the freedoms of speech and religion.

 Mr. Jones was able to put himself at the center of those issues by using the news lull of summer and the demands of a 24-hour news cycle to promote his anti-Islam cause. He said he consented to more than 150 interview requests in July and August, each time expressing his extremist views about Islam and Sharia law.

 By the middle of this week, the planned Koran burning was the lead story on some network newscasts, and topic No. 1 on cable news — an extraordinary amount of attention for a marginal figure with a very small following. On Thursday, President Obama condemned Mr. Jones’s plan, and his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said that there were “more people at his press conferences than listen to his sermons,” in a bit of media criticism.

 Mr. Jones’s plan, announced in July, slowly gained attention in August, particularly overseas. It became a top story in the United States this week after protests against Mr. Jones in Afghanistan and after the commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, warned that the Koran burning could endanger troops.

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 “Before there were riots and heads of states talking about him, it could have been a couple of paragraphs in a story about Sept. 11 commemorations,” Kathleen Carroll, the executive editor of The Associated Press, said Thursday. “It’s beyond that now.”

 In some ways, this week’s events were the culmination of a year’s worth of hateful statements and stunts by Mr. Jones and the few dozen members of his church.

 Mr. Jones started to make noise in Gainesville in the summer of 2009, when he posted a sign outside his church that read “Islam is of the devil.” The Gainesville Sun (which is owned by The New York Times Company) wrote about the sign, under the headline “Anti-Islam church sign stirs up community outrage.”

 He told The Sun that the sign would not be his last.

 The newspaper soon published an investigation into what it called the church’s “financial abuses,” which included a profit-making eBay furniture sales business operating on the church’s property.

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 The congregation’s protests continued last fall, when some children from the church wore anti-Islam shirts to school, prompting another article by The Sun, which was picked up by The Associated Press and republished by outlets like USA Today and Al Arabiya, an Arabic language news network.

 People with the same anti-Islam shirts sometimes roamed the University of Florida campus in Gainesville, said Fiona Mc Laughlin, a professor at the university, prompting a counterprotest with T-shirts that read, “Ignorance is of the devil.”

 The church “never really rested after that first billboard,” said Jacki Levine, the managing editor of The Sun. She said the newspaper’s staff members had repeatedly discussed how to be “responsible” in its coverage — “We walked as carefully as we could walk.”

 Islam was not Mr. Jones’s only target. Church members also held protests against Craig Lowe, an openly gay man who was elected mayor of Gainesville in April.

 Mr. Jones’s announcement about the Koran burning gained only a little attention at first, with a single short article published by Religion News Service on July 21. That article was subsequently mentioned by Yahoo and other Web sites, and by the end of the July Mr. Jones had been booked on CNN, where the host Rick Sanchez called his plan “crazy” but added, “At least he has got the guts to come on this show and face off.”

 Alarmed by negative mentions about Gainesville in overseas news outlets, Mr. Lowe released a statement Aug. 3 labeling Mr. Jones’s church a “tiny fringe group and an embarrassment to our community.”

 News executives said the proposed burning took on a greater significance after the protests in Afghanistan and in other Muslim countries. In Kabul last Sunday, up to 500 people attended a protest at which Mr. Jones was burned in effigy, according to The A.P.

 That, too, is when Ms. Mc Laughlin took notice. With 11 other professors, she wrote a column for The Sun condemning the plan titled “The world is watching.”

 “We just saw everything escalating,” she said Thursday, citing the “sum effect” of all the coverage and the ensuing reactions. (The New York Times wrote a substantial article about Mr. Jones on August 26.)

 On Thursday, before Mr. Jones suspended his plans, The A.P. determined that it would not distribute pictures of Korans being burned, restating a policy not to cover events that are “gratuitously manufactured to provoke and offend.”

 “There are lots of other similarly offensive images that we choose not to run all the time,” Ms. Carroll said. “Most people don’t know that because, of course, we don’t run them.”

 Before the suspension, CNN and Fox News Channel said they would not show any images of a Koran being burned.

 Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, said in an e-mail message that the newspaper had “no policy against publishing things that might offend someone — lots of people are offended by lots of things — but we try to refrain from giving widespread offense unless there is some offsetting journalistic purpose.”

 “A picture of a burning book contributes nothing substantial to a story about book-burning, so the offense seems entirely gratuitous,” Mr. Keller continued. “The freedom to publish includes the freedom not to publish.”

 The episode has given rise to at least a little soul-searching within news organizations. Chris Cuomo, an ABC News anchor, wrote Thursday afternoon on Twitter, “I am in the media, but think media gave life to this Florida burning ... and that was reckless.” |||||

Write a summary.

– Fred Phelps and members of his Westboro Baptist Church were ignored when they filmed themselves burning a Koran in 2008, but Terry Jones managed to grab headlines worldwide. The Florida pastor, the New York Times finds, managed to make himself a major news story by exploiting the "Ground Zero mosque" debate, the summer lull in news, and by giving more than 150 interviews in July and August as the story snowballed. News outlets including Fox, the AP, and CNN now stress that if Jones goes ahead with the burning tomorrow—which he says has been suspended—they won't be showing any images of burning Korans. If he doesn't proceed tomorrow, but threatens to revive International Burn a Koran Day in the future, Richard Adams writes at the Guardian, "he'll be handled with much more caution by the US media, which has made itself look ridiculous in being outfoxed by the crackpot pastor of a miniscule church in the swamp."


Here is a news article: D.C. police are seeing a "person of interest" captured on surveillance video in the slaying of a family and their housekeeper in Woodley Park neighborhood on Thursday. (Published Monday, May 18, 2015)

 D.C. police are seeking a "person of interest" captured on surveillance video in the slaying of a family and their housekeeper in Woodley Park neighborhood on Thursday.

 The person, dressed in dark clothing, can be seen on video released by D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department.

 Video Camera Captures Girl Dragged by School Bus

 Investigators are also looking for information about the 2008 blue Porsche 911. That car was seen near the house about 10:30 a.m. Thursday. Police found the car — torched and unoccupied — in the parking lot of St. Christopher's Episcopal Church in Lanham, Maryland, about 5:15 p.m. Thursday.

 They want to know more about who was driving it earlier that day. Anyone with information should call police at 202-727-9099.

 Earlier this week, police identified two of the people found dead in a burning home in the expensive Woodley Park neighborhood Thursday as Savvas Savopoulos, 46, and his wife, Amy Savopoulos, 47.

 Police believe the other bodies are the couple's son, Philip, 10, and housekeeper Veralicia Figueroa, 57.

 The events that led to their deaths may have begun Wednesday, police said.

 D.C. Police Checking Surveillance Video in Neighborhood Where Four Found Dead

 D.C. police will examine any surveillance video from the neighborhood around the house on Woodland Drive NW where four people were found dead in a burning house Thursday. (Published Friday, May 15, 2015)

 Firefighters arrived at the large home in the 3200 block of Woodland Drive NW midday Thursday to find smoke and fire coming out of the roof.

 According to investigators, one of the victims was bleeding from the head and had a heavy smell of gasoline when he or she was transported to Georgetown University Hospital. There's also evidence that points to arson.

 D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said the fire is being investigated as "suspicious," and the deaths are being investigated as a homicide arson. ATF agents, evidence collectors and police investigators are working both inside and outside of the house.

 Police said they will check surveillance video from cameras in the neighborhood. At least two cameras are visible outside the Savopoulos' home.

 Neighbors who've been in the home said the family had an extensive and valuable art collection, which was on display a couple of years ago during the Christmas house tour put on by St. Albans school, where Phillip was a student.

 There is no sign of forced entry into the home, police said. The fire took about 30 minutes to extinguish. ||||| D.C. police have released video images of a person of interest in the deaths of four people in a house in an upscale neighborhood in Northwest Washington. (YouTube/DC Metropolitan Police Department)

 D.C. police have released video images of a person of interest in the deaths of four people in a house in an upscale neighborhood in Northwest Washington. (YouTube/DC Metropolitan Police Department)

 D.C. police said Saturday night that they are seeking a person of interest in the deaths of four people in a house in an upscale neighborhood in Northwest Washington.

 Police said the individual may have been operating a Porsche automobile linked to the house.

 They also provided video footage that appeared to show a man wearing a hoodie moving rapidly behind a building.

 The announcement came in the deaths of Savvas and Amy Savopoulos and two others, believed to be their son and one of their housekeepers.

 The Savopoulos family had been having a busy week. The husband was trying to get a new martial arts center in Chantilly, Va., ready for a grand opening, and he enlisted the help of one of his housekeepers. His wife was ill, and their 10-year-old son was recovering from injuries suffered in a go-kart crash.

 Savvas Savopoulos and Amy Savopoulos at the Starlight Children’s Foundation MidAtlantic’s Wine Dinner in 2008. (Tony Powell/Washington Life Magazine)

 Before the late night police announcement, the days and hours leading up to the deaths of the husband and wife and the two others had come into sharper focus Saturday with new details from police records. They show attempts by friends and relatives to reach the victims Thursday morning, before they were found dead that afternoon in a burning home in Northwest Washington.

 These records show a series of text messages and voice mails from both Savopouloses to the housekeeper who had been helping in Chantilly, telling her not to come clean at their D.C. home Thursday, as was her normal routine. Savvas Savopoulos also let her know in a Wednesday night voicemail that the housekeeper who was later found dead had planned to stay overnight at the family’s home and asked that she inform the woman’s family because her cellphone battery had died.

 Nelitza Gutierrez, the housekeeper who received the messages and has worked for the family for 20 years, said in an interview Saturday that the series of messages left her with the impression that something was amiss with her employers. She said Savvas Savopoulos told her in person Wednesday that his wife had plans to go out, but said in the voice mail left that night that Amy Savopoulos had been sick in bed all day.

 “It was something very suspicious because I felt his voice was really tense,” Gutierrez said in Spanish. “And it was different than what he had said to me before.”

 She said she first listened to the message Thursday morning and immediately called Amy Savopoulos “to see if she was okay, but she never answered.”

 The police documents also show what appears to be an unusual amount of activity last week around the victims’ Woodland Drive NW home. Neighbors reported seeing a man banging on the door of one home, an aggressive vacuum cleaner salesman at another house, reports of a prowler, and what a witness said could have been the Savopouloses’ blue Porsche speeding down the street the day before the deaths were discovered.

 Police have been sorting through a great deal of potential evidence in an effort to learn what happened to Savvas Savopoulos, 46, his wife, Amy, 47, and the two others, tentatively identified as the couple’s 10-year-old son, Philip, and a 57-year-old housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa, of Silver Spring, Md.

 Police have said all four deaths are being investigated as homicide. They said Friday that three victims had wounds. They said the family’s Porsche 911, which was missing for several hours Thursday, was found burned in a church parking lot in Hyattsville, and that the fire at the home was intentionally set.

 The deaths have shocked this enclave of Upper Northwest Washington and the District’s society circles. The couple were active donors to both social and political causes, and attended St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral. Savvas Savopoulos was president and chief executive of American Iron Works, a leading custom steel and iron manufacturing company that helped build Verizon Center and CityCenterDC.

 Relatives of the Savopouloses have spoken briefly about the family and the incident, but they have been too overwrought for more in-depth interviews. The couple have two surviving daughters — Abigail Savopoulos is a senior at Mercersburg Academy, an elite private school in Pennsylvania, and is scheduled to graduate this week, and Katerina is a junior at Peddie School near Princeton, N.J. Their youngest child, Philip, was a student at St. Albans School in the District.

 Gutierrez, who was close with Figueroa, said her friend had planned to soon return to her native El Salvador. She said Figueroa was at her wedding, and that she was there for her baby shower and, later, her daughter’s first communion.

 D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said Friday that police were still working on a timeline, and looking for a motive. It remains unclear whether anything was taken from the two-story red brick house. Lanier said detectives were working to track the Porsche, and asked anyone who saw it Wednesday or Thursday to contact police.

 Police records also show Savvas Savopoulos working hard last week getting the Chantilly project ready for a Friday opening. The Chantilly property was closed Saturday but a business owner who works nearby said he has seen recent activity there.

 Gutierrez said in the interview that Savvas Savopoulos had asked her to help at the studio on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, instead of at the couple’s home on Thursday.

 On Wednesday night, Gutierrez told police, she got the voice mail from Savvas Savopoulos saying that his wife was sick and Philip was home from school with an injury. He told her that Figueroa was going to stay the night to help, but that her phone had died and she had no charger. He asked the housekeeper to call Figueroa’s relatives to relay the message.

 In an interview, she said she had never known Figueroa to stay overnight at the home and thought it was odd. “Never, never did she stay over.”

 Also Thursday morning, one of Savopoulos’s assistants apparently left a package outside the Woodland Drive house, according to the police records. That person then drove to Chantilly and was there through the day. And at roughly the same time, Figueroa’s husband went to the house to check on his wife. There apparently was no answer.

 Minutes before 10 a.m., Gutierrez got a text message from Amy Savopoulos: “I am making sure you do not come today.” Gutierrez, who was then cleaning another home in McLean, replied that she would not be coming, per Savvas Savopoulos’s earlier orders, according to the police documents.

 Victoria St. Martin contributed to this report |||||
A summary of this is?

– Police are no longer seeking the whereabouts of a blue Porsche after a quadruple murder in an upscale Washington, DC, neighborhood—but they've released video of a "person of interest" who may have been driving it before it was found burning behind a church. In surveillance video, a hooded figure in dark clothing can be seen moving outside the house where Savvas and Amy Savopoulos were found dead after a fire on Thursday, NBC Washington reports. Two other bodies found in the home are believed to be the couple's 10-year-old son, Philip, and Veralicia Figueroa, one of their housekeepers. Their other housekeeper, Nelitza Gutierrez, tells the Washington Post that she thought something odd was going on Wednesday when she received messages asking her not to come in the next day. Gutierrez says Savvas Savopoulos gave conflicting information in different messages and sounded unlike himself. "It was something very suspicious because I felt his voice was really tense," she tells the Post. "And it was different than what he had said to me before." She says she also found it strange that Savopoulos said Figueroa was spending the night at the home, something she had never known to happen before. Deepening the mystery, police documents seen by the Post detail some strange events in the surrounding area that week, including reports of a possible prowler, a man banging at the door of a home, and an "aggressive vacuum cleaner salesman" at another home.