Here is a news article: UPDATED with new information

 WASHINGTON -- Rick Santorum was already known as starting from a deficit, delegate-wise, in Ohio. He failed to qualify for any district delegates in three Ohio congressional districts because he didn't turn in delegate names there.

 But his delegate troubles go deeper. According to the Ohio Republican Party tonight, the former Pennsylvania U.S. senator filed incomplete delegate slates in six additional Ohio districts.

 Altogether, this means Santorum, who until this week had a fair lead in polls in the Republican nominating race, could be ineligible for 18 Ohio district delegates.

 Ohio has 66 delegates total, 63 at stake next Tuesday. The candidate with the most delegates wins. Santorum therefore goes into the Ohio primary election with a 29 percent deficit.

 What will happen if he wins in a district where he failed to allocate a full slate of three delegates?

 In the short term, he will be eligible to take only the delegates he has already allocated in that district, the party says. Yet he will have won that district -- so the unallocated delegates will not be awarded to anyone else, either.

 After all, they did not win them.

 "On Super Tuesday, if Sen. Santorum were to carry a district where he has not seated a full delegate slate, he will be awarded delegates where he has submitted delegate names," said Ohio Republican Party spokesman Chris Maloney. "And the additional delegates in that district will be unallocated."

 This almost certainly sets up challenges, if not from Santorum then from political rivals such as Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich.

 The state party says it has not faced this situation before, but it has been reviewing its bylaws and is prepared, if there is a challenge, to convene what it calls a "committee on contests."

 State Republican Chairman Kevin DeWine would appoint three party members to the committee, and they would make a recommendation to the state party's central committee, which would rule.

 If Santorum or another candidate did not like the ruling, he could appeal to the Republican National Committee.

 ABC News' The Note broke the story this evening.

 The Ohio Republican Party says it discovered Santorum's problem this week. While candidates were supposed to file their delegate slates with the Ohio secretary of state as well as the state party, Santorum only filed his with the secretary of state. The secretary of state, however, has no authority over delegate counts. That office merely needs to make sure that a candidate has qualified with a bare minimum of delegates to get on the ballot.

 Secretary of State Jon Husted's office did that, according to the state Republican Party. In the three congressional districts where Santorum filed no slates of delegates whatsoever, Husted's office ruled that Santorum would be ineligible to be on the ballot for district-delegate purposes. This has been known and reported for some time.

 Santorum's name will be on ballots in those districts for purposes of another kind of delegate, however, based on the statewide popular vote. In other words, all other candidates will have their names on the ballot twice -- once for district delegates, once for the state delegates. But there are far fewer state delegates to be won than there are district delegates.

 The Ohio Republican Party, saying it never got a slate of delegates from the Santorum campaign, got a copy from Husted's office, according to one official. The party needed to review delegate slates in preparation for next week's election. It was only then that it realized there was a problem and began informing all the candidates this week.

 Ohio has 16 congressional districts, or will for purposes of this election. (It now has 18 but will lose two at the end of 2012.) Romney, Gingrich and Ron Paul have slates of three delegates in each. But here is how Santorum's slates shake out:

 District 1: 3 delegates

 District 2: 3 delegates

 District 3: 2 delegates

 District 4: 1 delegate

 District 5: 3 delegates

 District 6: 0 delegates

 District 7: 3 delegates

 District 8: 2 delegates

 District 9: 0 delegates

 District 10: 1 delegate

 District 11: 3 delegates

 District 12: 2 delegates

 District 13: 0 delegates

 District 14: 3 delegates

 District 15: 3 delegates

 District 16: 1 delegate

 This could get interesting, and difficult, for Santorum because his failure includes districts where he might otherwise run well.

 He was already at a 3-delegate deficit, for example, in the Steubenville area (District 13) and another 3-delegate deficit further south on Ohio's eastern border (District 6), areas where steel workers and others might remember him from his days serving Pennsylvania. He has campaigned in that region anyway; Santorum's grandfather was a coal miner, as are some of the area's residents.

 And he has his other 3-delegate deficit on the West Side of Cleveland and some of its suburbs (District 9). While Romney has been expected to perform better in Northeast Ohio in general, Santorum's social conservative message could appeal to Catholic voters in the western neighborhoods and suburbs.

 But Santorum also has diminished his chances in socially conservative counties like Allen, Shelby and Auglaze (District 4) and -- this is noteworthy -- Montgomery, Greene and Fayette counties (District 10). The latter two can be considered Mike DeWine country. DeWine got his political start in Greene and still has his home there. As state attorney general, DeWine is Santorum's highest-profile supporter in Ohio. Akron, too (District 16), is now problematic for Santorum.

 A Santorum spokesman has not returned a message seeking comment. But Santorum is in Lake County tonight, where reporters are certain to ask about this. The campaign of his chief competitor, Mitt Romney, has already pounced on Santorum's apparent error. ||||| ABC News' Michael Falcone reports:

 UPDATED: COLUMBUS, Ohio - Even if Rick Santorum wins Ohio on Super Tuesday, he won't be able to claim all of its delegates. In fact, he is at risk of forfeiting more than one-quarter of them.

 In three of the state's 16 congressional districts, including two that are near Ohio's border with Pennsylvania, Santorum will lose any delegates he might have won because his campaign failed to meet the state's eligibility requirements months ago.

 Those three districts alone take 9 delegates out of a total of 66 off the table for Santorum.

 But it gets worse: Nine more Ohio delegates may also be in jeopardy.

 Sources say that in six other congressional districts - the third, fourth, eighth, tenth, twelfth and sixteenth - Santorum submitted fewer names than required to be eligible for all three delegates up-for-grabs in each district.

 That means even if he wins in those places, he might not be able to receive the full contingent of delegates.

 In the three districts where Santorum did not submit a delegate slate at all, he will not be able to receive any delegates. In the six where he submitted only a partial slate, he is eligible to be awarded only the number of delegates he submitted, assuming he wins a particular district.

 Chris Maloney, a spokesman for the Ohio Republican Party, said the leftover delegates will be considered "unbound" and the campaigns will be able to file a petition with the state party to claim them. Once such a petition is filed, Ohio GOP Chairman Kevin DeWine is required to impanel a "committee on contests" composed of three members of the Ohio GOP's central committee to sort out the delegate awards.

 What's clear is that Santorum will be competing in Ohio on Tuesday handicapped by the fact that he is ineligible to receive nine delegates and perhaps as many as nine more, or more than one-quarter of the state's delegates.

 Worse yet, some of these problem districts are in areas of the state where Santorum is expected to do well. The sixth congressional district, for example, hugs Ohio's eastern border with West Virginia and Pennsylvania - the state Santorum represented in Congress. The thirteenth district, which includes Akron, is nearby.

 Notably, Santorum plans to spend election night in old steel town of Steubenville, Ohio, located in the sixth district, even though he has no chance of collecting any of the district's three delegates.

 The bar to file what's known in election parlance as a "full slate of delegates" in each district was not particularly high. Candidates were required to submit the names of three delegates and three alternates per district.

 According to the Ohio GOP, the Santorum campaign is missing the names of one delegate in the state's third district, two in the fourth, one delegate in the eighth, two delegates in the tenth, one delegate in the twelfth and two delegates in the sixteenth. Santorum's opponents - Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich - each filed full slates in all of Ohio's districts as did two candidates who are no longer in the race, Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman.

 In other words, Santorum needed to submit 48 names in order to be eligible to compete for all of state's district delegates outright.

 Santorum is facing a high-stakes contest with Romney in Ohio. A Quinnipiac University poll released on Friday showed the former Pennsylvania senator with a slim four percentage point lead over Romney in the state, 35 percent to 31 percent. Roughly one-third of likely Republican primary voters said they could still change their mind before Tuesday.

 And as the Republican nominating contest becomes as much a battle for delegates as it is for momentum, Santorum's difficulties in Ohio offer another window into the organizational challenges his campaign has faced throughout the primary season. Santorum is not on the ballot in Virginia, which also holds a primary on Super Tuesday and where each candidate was required to submit 10,000 signatures, including 400 from each of the state's 11 congressional districts.

 The eligibility requirements in Ohio were comparatively easier, but at the time Santorum's rivals were putting together their delegate slates in December, Santorum was crisscrossing Iowa in a pickup truck ahead of the caucuses, which he ended up winning by a hair. The deadline for submitting the slates in Ohio was the last week of December.

 There are a total of 63 delegates up for grabs in Ohio on Tuesday, 48 of them are awarded proportionally based on who wins the popular vote in each Congressional district - three per district - and 15 will be awarded to the candidate who wins a majority of votes in the state. However, if no candidate surpasses 50 percent of the vote, the "at-large" delegates are awarded proportionally to each candidate who received more than 20 percent of the statewide vote. Three additional party leaders will act as unbound delegates at the Republican National Convention, but they will not be awarded on Tuesday.

 The Romney and Santorum campaigns offered vastly different takes on the delegate situation in Ohio.

 "The attempt by the establishment to to deceive the voters of Ohio and further their hand-picked candidate will be met with resistance on Tuesday. I want to be clear, Rick Santorum's name will appear on every ballot in the state of Ohio and every vote cast will go towards his At-Large Delegate Allocation," Santorum campaign communications director Hogan Gidley told ABC News. "As it relates to individual Congressional Districts, it's clear we aren't the establishment hand-picked candidate and back in December we were a small effort focused on Iowa. Now that we've won several states Obviously much has changed and we feel confident that we will do well in both the delegate and popular vote count on Tuesday."

 Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams said that the Santorum campaign's shortcomings in the state was a sign of weakness.

 "Rick Santorum has failed to get on the ballot in Virginia, has failed to file full delegate slates in Tennessee, New Hampshire and Illinois, and has failed to submit enough delegates in several Ohio congressional districts," Williams said in a statement. "The fact that he cannot execute the simple tasks that are required to win the Republican nomination proves that Rick Santorum is incapable of taking on President Obama's formidable political machine." |||||
A summary of this is?

– Rick Santorum may be at the top of the polls in Ohio, but even if he wins there, he may not win. Because his campaign missed several eligibility deadlines, he could lose up to 18 of the state's 63 available delegates, report the Cleveland Plain Dealer and ABC News. In nine districts, Santorum's campaign filed either incomplete delegate slates or none at all. Even worse, several of those problematic districts are areas where Santorum was expected to perform well. Santorum is not even on the ballot in Virginia, and failed to file full slates in Tennessee, New Hampshire, and Illinois, but the eligibility requirements in Ohio were considered easier. Santorum's campaign said that because he is one of the leading candidates in the GOP primaries, he should—and will—receive the full delegate count he wins on Tuesday, but the Romney campaign disagreed. “The fact that he cannot execute the simple tasks that are required to win the Republican nomination proves that Rick Santorum is incapable of taking on President Obama’s formidable political machine," said the campaign. The state party would have the final say.


Article:

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, from left, Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Sen. Amy Klobuchar,... (Associated Press)

 Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, from left, Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., pause during questioning of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh about his time in the... (Associated Press)

 WASHINGTON (AP) — Judge Brett Kavanaugh is treading carefully during his confirmation hearing as senators bombard him with questions about abortion, presidential power and the independence of the judiciary.

 Some highlights from the Supreme Court nominee' confirmation hearing Wednesday:

 ___

 ROE v. WADE

 Democrats and liberal interest groups have treated Kavanaugh's nomination as a moment of extreme danger for abortion rights. Abortion opponents hope he'll be a vote to uphold additional restrictions on the procedure and even possibly overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right to an abortion.

 Kavanaugh didn't show his hand either way on Wednesday.

 He did call Roe v. Wade an "important precedent" that has "been reaffirmed many times over the past 45 years." And he noted that a 1992 decision of the court — Planned Parenthood v. Casey — didn't just reaffirm Roe v. Wade in passing. He said that decision becomes "precedent on precedent."

 Supreme Court justices are generally reluctant to overturn precedent, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Last term, the court squarely overturned three precedents. One of those cases was from 1967 and had been reaffirmed in 1992.

 Also in responding to questions about the Roe v. Wade decision Kavanaugh said that he understands "how passionate and how deeply people feel about this issue" of abortion. He also said he understands the "real world effects of that decision."

 ___

 PRESIDENTIAL POWER

 Kavanaugh declined to answer a series of questions about the powers of the president, questions important to Democrats particularly because of ongoing investigations surrounding President Donald Trump.

 Nominees generally decline to answer questions they deem could potentially come before the court. They say they decide issues only after hearing both sides of a case.

 Among the questions Kavanaugh said were too hypothetical to answer: Does the president have an absolute right to pardon himself? Can the president pardon someone in exchange for a promise not to testify against him? Can the president be required to respond to a subpoena?

 That last question is among the most important at Kavanaugh's hearing since Trump could face a subpoena in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. Trump has declined to rule out pardons for people convicted as part of that investigation.

 ___

 ALEX KOZINSKI

 Repercussions of the "Me Too" era made an appearance at Kavanaugh's hearing. The judge was asked what he knew about sexual misconduct allegations against a judge who was a friend and mentor, former federal appeals court judge Alex Kozinski. Kozinski retired in December after several female former law clerks and colleagues accused him of sexual misconduct.

 Kavanaugh said that when the allegations became public, they were a "gut punch" for him and for the federal judiciary. Asked whether he knew anything about the allegations before they became public, Kavanaugh responded: "nothing." He said he was "shocked and disappointed."

 Asked whether he was on an email list that Kozinski used to send offensive material, Kavanaugh responded: "I don't remember anything like that."

 Kavanaugh clerked for Kozinski, and Kozinski introduced him during his 2006 confirmation hearing to be a judge. The two also worked together to screen applicants who wanted to clerk for Justice Anthony Kennedy, whom Kavanaugh clerked for and whom he would replace. ||||| Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh said it was like a “gut punch” when he learned about the numerous sexual misconduct allegations levied against Judge Alex Kozinski, one of his former mentors, by numerous women.

 Kavanaugh, who was asked about his relationship to Kozinski by Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing Wednesday, said he was “shocked, disappointed [and] angry” by the allegations and felt a “swirl of emotions.” He said he was not aware of the alleged behavior until the accusations were made public.

 Kozinski abruptly retired from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California last year after several female former law clerks and colleagues accused him of sexual misconduct that included touching, inappropriate sexual comments and forced viewings of pornography in his chambers. The case has prompted federal courts to examine how to better protect law clerks from harassment by powerful judges who can make or break their careers.

 “When [the allegations] became public, the first thought I had was no one should be subjected to sexual harassment in the workplace ever – including in the judiciary, especially in the judiciary,” Kavanaugh said.

 KAVANAUGH CONFIRMATION HEARING LIKELY TO FOCUS ON ABORTION, GUN RIGHTS AND MORE

 But Kavanaugh said the allegations against Kozinski – who has denied the accusations through his attorney – are part of a broader national issue and said there should be a better system for reporting harassment in the workplace.

 “Whether it’s priests or coaches or teachers or doctors or businesspeople or news people, there’s a broad national problem that needs to be addressed, including in the judiciary,” Kavanaugh said, adding that he supports Chief Justice John Roberts' establishment of a working group to tackle issues with sexual harassment in the judiciary.

 “I’m interested in doing everything I can to assist those efforts to make those workplaces safe,” Kavanaugh added.

 Kavanaugh’s ties to Kozinski were expected to be brought up during the hearing. Kozinski advocated on behalf of Kavanaugh in 2006 when he was brought before the Senate Judiciary Committee ahead of being appointed a federal judge.

 Kavanaugh is a former clerk of Kozinski's and landed a coveted clerkship for Justice Anthony Kennedy at the Supreme Court – who he is now trying to replace – with backing from Kozinski. The Senate confirmed Kavanaugh to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit shortly after Kozinski gave him his "highest recommendation" in 2006, three years after George W. Bush first nominated him to a judgeship.

 There are other links between the two men. Kavanaugh and Kozinski have together in recent years screened applicants for Kennedy clerkships. Kavanaugh hired Kozinski's youngest son, Yale law graduate Clayton Kozinski, last year as one of his clerks. The younger Kozinski had been in line to be a Kennedy clerk this year before the justice's announced retirement.

 KAVANAUGH SUPREME COURT HEARING KICKS OFF WITH NUMEROUS ARRESTS AS PROTESTERS SHOUT DOWN LAWMAKERS

 So far, no evidence has surfaced to suggest Kavanaugh was aware of Kozinski’s alleged behavior before the accusations were made public. Kavanaugh told lawmakers Wednesday it was “not often” that he spoke to or saw Kozinski and said he could not recall ever receiving emails from Kozinski that were inappropriate in nature.

 Prior to the confirmation hearing, Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, said, “Alex Kozinski’s relationship with Judge Kavanaugh is a legitimate area of inquiry, and I plan to question Judge Kavanaugh on this topic.”

 This is the second day of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing and the first when members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are able to ask the judge questions. The contentious hearing has been marked with numerous protests – from those in the audience and from Democratic senators who spent much of the first day calling for a delay in the hearing.

 The Associated Press contributed to this report. ||||| Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, questions President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge, as he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018,... (Associated Press)

 Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, questions President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge, as he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018,... (Associated Press) Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, questions President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge, as he testifies... (Associated Press)

 WASHINGTON (AP) — In her questioning of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Wednesday, a Democratic senator vastly overstated the number of women believed to have died from illegal abortions in the two decades before the procedure was affirmed as a constitutional right.

 SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: "In the 1950s and 60s, the two decades before Roe, deaths from illegal abortions in this country ran between 200,000 and 1.2 million. That's according to the Guttmacher Institute."

 THE FACTS: Known deaths from illegal abortion were much smaller. The California senator conflated the estimated number of women who had an illegal abortion with the number who died from it, according to the research she cites.

 The Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, cites estimates in a 2003 report that 200,000 to 1.2 million illegal abortions were performed in the 1950s and 1960s in the U.S. The report says the number of deaths from illegal abortion dropped from just under 1,700 in 1940 to just over 300 by 1950 and a little under 200 by 1965. The Supreme Court established a constitutional right to abortion in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

 ___

 Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd

 Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

 ___

 Online:

 Guttmacher report: https://bit.ly/2JSHHI8 ||||| President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge, arrives before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018, for... (Associated Press)

 President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge, arrives before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018, for the second day of his confirmation to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) (Associated Press)

 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the Senate hearings on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh (all times local):

 5:15 p.m.

 Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh says he stopped voting shortly after becoming a federal appeals court judge in 2006.

 Republican Sen. Ted Cruz asked Kavanaugh on Wednesday whether he considers himself a "Republican judge." Kavanaugh responded he believes he voted in one election as a judge and wasn't sure what his voter registration says.

 Kavanaugh says he read about Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan II, who didn't vote as a federal judge. He says he thought Harlan's practice was a "good model for a federal judge" to follow.

 He says, "It seemed to me that voting is a very personal expression of your policy beliefs in many ways and your personal beliefs."

 Kavanaugh previously noted his decision to stop voting in a 2016 law review article.

 __

 3:50 p.m.

 Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh says he has not taken a position on the constitutionality of investigating a sitting president. Yet his past writings cast doubt on the idea.

 Asked by Sen. Amy Klobuchar Wednesday whether he believes such investigations are only acceptable in impeachment proceedings, Kavanaugh replied: "I did not take a position on the constitutionality. Period."

 In a footnote to a 2009 law review article, Kavanaugh wrote that "a serious constitutional question exists regarding whether a President can be criminally indicted and tried while in office."

 A decade earlier, Kavanaugh wrote that the Constitution seems to dictate that "congressional investigation must take place in lieu of criminal investigation when the President is the subject of investigation, and that criminal prosecution can occur only after the President has left office."

 __

 2:25 p.m.

 President Donald Trump says he's been watching the Senate confirmation hearings of his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. He says the judge has "an outstanding intellect."

 Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office as he welcomes the emir of Kuwait to the White House, Trump says he's "happy" with the way the proceedings are going.

 Trump says he "saw some incredible answers to very complex questions," when he tuned in to the proceedings. Trump called Kavanaugh "an outstanding judge" who was "born for the position."

 Kavanaugh was questioned before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday.

 Trump says Democrats are "grasping at straws" in their questioning of Kavanaugh.

 __

 2:05 p.m.

 Senate Republicans have been forced to adjourn the Senate to continue the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

 Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer objected to a request from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to allow Kavanaugh's hearing to continue past 2 p.m. Wednesday. Under Senate rules, the minority leader must agree before a hearing can extend two hours past the opening of the Senate. The chamber opened at noon on Wednesday.

 Schumer objected, protesting that Republicans are holding back records from Kavanaugh's time in government.

 Rather than allowing Kavanaugh's hearing to end at 2 p.m., McConnell adjourned the Senate. The confirmation hearing is expected to last into the late evening.

 Earlier in the day, liberal groups blasted Schumer's handling of the Supreme Court fight, declaring, "you are failing us."

 ___

 12:25 p.m.

 Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is denying that he misled senators in testimony when he was nominated to be an appellate judge in 2006. He says the testimony was "100 percent accurate."

 The response does not appear to have satisfied Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Leahy is suggesting that confidential documents not available to the public may contradict Kavanaugh's assertions that he knew nothing about a Bush administration warrantless surveillance program or efforts by a Republican Judiciary Committee aide to steal material from Democrats in advance of judicial nomination hearings.

 Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley said he would consider making the documents public in time for Leahy's next round of questions Thursday.

 Kavanaugh's response came after an unusual moment where Democrats played a video clip of Kavanaugh's 2006 testimony.

 ___

 12:15 p.m.

 Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is declining to answer questions about the extent of the president's pardon power.

 Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont asked Kavanaugh: "President Trump claims he has an absolute right to pardon himself. Does he?"

 Kavanaugh responded that the question was a hypothetical one he "can't begin to answer in this context as a sitting judge and as a nominee to the Supreme Court."

 Leahy followed by asking whether the president has the ability to pardon someone in exchange for a promise not to testify against him. Kavanaugh declined to answer.

 Leahy concluded by saying: "I hope for the sake of the country that remains a hypothetical question."

 President Donald Trump has declined to rule out pardons for people convicted in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.

 ___

 11:35 a.m.

 Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh says he knew nothing about the sexual misconduct allegations against a judge who was a friend and mentor.

 Kavanaugh said Wednesday that when the allegations against former federal appeals court judge Alex Kozinski became public, they were a "gut punch" for him and for the federal judiciary. Asked whether he knew about the allegations before they became public, Kavanaugh responded: "nothing." He said he was "shocked and disappointed."

 Asked whether he was on an email list that Kozinski used to send offensive material, Kavanaugh responded: "I don't remember anything like that."

 Kozinski retired in December after several female former law clerks and colleagues accused him of sexual misconduct.

 Kavanaugh clerked for Kozinski, and Kozinski introduced him during his 2006 confirmation hearing to be a judge.

 ___

 11:20 a.m.

 Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is refusing to say whether a president can be forced to testify in a criminal case, calling it a hypothetical.

 The topic is front-and-center at Kavanaugh's hearing because the man who nominated him, President Donald Trump, could face a subpoena in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

 The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, asked Kavanaugh whether he thinks a sitting president can "be required to respond to a subpoena."

 Kavanaugh responded: "I can't give you an answer on that hypothetical question."

 The Supreme Court has never ruled on a presidential subpoena.

 President Bill Clinton was subpoenaed by independent counsel Kenneth Starr in 1998. Clinton eventually agreed to testify voluntarily and the subpoena was withdrawn.

 Kavanaugh worked for Starr.

 ___

 11 a.m.

 Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh says a 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right to an abortion is an "important precedent" that has "been reaffirmed many times."

 Kavanaugh was asked about the Roe v. Wade ruling by Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California. He said the decision has "been reaffirmed many times over the past 45 years." And he noted that a 1992 decision of the court called Planned Parenthood v. Casey didn't just reaffirm Roe v. Wade in passing. He said that decision becomes "precedent on precedent."

 Kavanaugh compared the Roe decision to another case, Miranda v. Arizona, which requires law enforcement to tell suspects their rights. Kavanaugh noted that former Chief Justice William Rehnquist had been a critic of the Miranda decision but later upheld it as precedent.

 ___

 10:30 a.m.

 Republicans are invoking Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to make the case that Brett Kavanaugh should decline to say how he might vote on any particular case.

 Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley referred to the so-called "Ginsburg standard" Wednesday during the second day of Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings.

 Ginsburg said during her 1993 confirmation hearing that it would be wrong for her to "preview in this legislative chamber how I would cast my vote on questions the Supreme Court may be called upon to decide."

 As Kavanaugh put it, quoting Ginsburg, that means "no hints, no forecasts, no previews."

 Despite her statement, Ginsburg was questioned extensively about abortion during her hearing. She told lawmakers, "It is essential to woman's equality with man that she be the decision maker."

 ___

 10:20 a.m.

 Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is pointing to a decision where he ruled for an associate of Osama bin Laden as evidence of his independence as judge.

 Asked by Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley to discuss what judicial independence means to him, Kavanaugh pointed to his opinion in a case involving Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who was bin Laden's former chauffeur. Hamdan challenged his detention at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

 Kavanaugh told senators that "you'll never have a nominee who's ruled for a more unpopular defendant." Kavanaugh says judges don't make decisions based on who people are, but "whether they have the law on their side."

 Hamdan was released from Guantanamo before the appeals court ruling that vacated his conviction.

 ___

 9:55 a.m.

 Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh says he believes the first thing that makes a good judge is "independence."

 Kavanaugh is answering questions Wednesday in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It's his first day answering questions from lawmakers.

 Committee chairman Chuck Grassley began the day by asking Kavanaugh to explain what he thinks makes a good judge.

 Kavanaugh responded that he thinks "the first quality of a good judge in our constitutional system is independence." He said being a good judge also requires paying attention to the words of the Constitution and the words of laws, "not doing what I want to do."

 The judge said he wants parties to leave oral arguments in his cases believing he had an "open mind, he gave me a fair shake."

 9:50 a.m.

 Demonstrators are again disrupting the hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

 Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley attempted to gavel in the second day of hearings on Wednesday when shouting protesters began disrupting the hearings. Grassley said 70 people were arrested during the first day of hearings the day before.

 Kavanaugh will be answering questions from senators all day. Democratic senators are expected to press for his views on issues like abortion, guns and executive power.

 President Donald Trump nominated the 53-year-old appellate judge in July to fill the seat of retired Justice Anthony Kennedy.

 ___

 9:20 a.m.

 Liberal and progressive groups are pressuring Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to unify Democrats against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

 A letter sent to Schumer on the second day of hearings for President Donald Trump's court pick says bluntly: "You are failing us."

 Democrats face a difficult climb trying to block Kavanaugh's confirmation. If nearly all Republicans back Kavanaugh, as is expected, several Democrats facing tough re-election races may vote to confirm him.

 But the groups say Democrats in states like West Virginia, North Dakota, Indiana, Missouri, Montana and Alabama have nothing to fear from voting against Kavanaugh. They say voters in those states "care deeply" about the issues before the court and "will reward a principled vote."

 The Senate's questioning of Kavanaugh is set to begin Wednesday morning.

 ___

 4:20 a.m.

 Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh touted the importance of an independent judiciary as his confirmation hearings began with strident Democratic criticism that he would be President Donald Trump's man on the high court.

 On Wednesday, Kavanaugh can expect to spend most of the day in the hot seat, sparring with Democratic senators over abortion, guns, executive power and other high-profile issues.

 A long day of questioning awaits the 53-year-old appellate judge, whom Trump nominated in July to fill the seat of retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. The change could make the court more conservative on a range of issues.

 Barring a surprise, Republicans appear on track to confirm Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, perhaps in time for the first day of the new term on Oct. 1. |||||
What is a summary?

– After the "chaotic" first day of Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination hearing, Wednesday saw the 53-year-old appellate judge bombarded with questions from senators. The AP describes him as "treading carefully," and highlights some of the biggest issues raised during the second day of the hearing. Kavanaugh "didn't show his hand" when questioned about abortion rights, for example, though he did call Roe v. Wade "important precedent" that has "been reaffirmed many times over the past 45 years." (The AP also notes that Sen. Dianne Feinstein "vastly overstated" the number of deaths from illegal abortions in the decades before Roe v. Wade; it has a fact-check here.) More from the hearing, which is expected to extend into the late evening hours of Wednesday: Kavanaugh said it was like a "gut punch" to learn that multiple women had accused one of his mentors, Judge Alex Kozinski, of sexual misconduct, and that it highlights the broader need for a better system of reporting workplace harassment; he said he was not aware of the allegations until they were made public. Fox News has more.


– Sad news from one of America's great newspapers: The New Orleans Times-Picayune has announced that it will cease daily publication this fall. The paper, founded as the Picayune in 1837, will now offer print editions just three days a week, on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday, while continuing to offer daily reporting online at Nola.com, reports the Washington Post. The move is expected to cost close to a third of the paper's 150 reporters their jobs, and will leave New Orleans as the biggest American city without a daily paper. Analysts say the move will leave the paper's future uncertain and—since the Times-Picayune was widely seen to have done an admirable job of moving its operations online—raises questions about the future of the entire newspaper industry. "A city like New Orleans, with its rebuilding challenges, its violence, its rich culture, the odd mix of civic virtue and corruption, and its long-term existential risks from hurricanes and rising seas, deserves a first-class news gathering operation," writes former Times-Picayune journalist John McQuaid at Forbes. "One that gets the city, but also gets that news is changing."

Expand this summary.

I spent most of my journalism career at The Times-Picayune and have many friends there, so the news that its owners are slashing the staff, dismissing top editors, and cutting back publication days is very difficult to process. My heart goes out to my valiant former colleagues, and to the city itself, which will suffer from having reduced news coverage and seeing one of its signature institutions diminished. During my time at the paper I was involved in many of its ambitious and award-winning journalism efforts. Clearly I was lucky to be there during that era, and that era is now definitively over. (Ironically or not, the TP just published a great series on the Louisiana prison system. But where will the next one come from?)

 What now? The newspaper industry is in a profound, seemingly neverending crisis; this isn’t a “why couldn’t things remain the same forever?” post. They can’t. But a city like New Orleans, with its rebuilding challenges, its violence, its rich culture, the odd mix of civic virtue and corruption, and its long-term existential risks from hurricanes and rising seas, deserves a first-class newsgathering operation. One that gets the city, but also gets that news is changing.

 Advance Publications, the owner of The Times-Picayune, portrays the changes as a bold and necessary step into the digital future:

 NOLA Media Group will significantly increase its online news-gathering efforts 24 hours a day, seven days a week, while offering enhanced printed newspapers on a schedule of three days a week. The newspaper will be home-delivered and sold in stores on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays only. A second new company, Advance Central Services, will print and deliver the newspaper. Both of the new companies are owned by Advance Publications. The decision to form a new company signals a change in the way news is delivered to an increasingly wired New Orleans area audience, said Mathews. Jim Amoss, currently editor of The Times-Picayune, will run the combined content operation of NOLA Media Group. “The Times-Picayune, under Jim’s direction, is one of the finest newspapers in the country,” said Mathews, “and NOLA.com is the number one news site in Louisiana. Our best path to success lies in a digitally focused organization that combines the award-winning journalism of The Times-Picayune and the strength of NOLA.com.”

 This sounds … sort of okay. But while there’s a lot on corporate reorganization, there’s nothing on how this will work in practice. “Combining the award-winning journalism of The Times-Picayune and the strength of NOLA.com” is basically what they’ve been doing, or trying to, for years now. And that signals a problem, because it hasn’t worked all that well. ||||| The New Orleans Times-Picayune, seen in 2010 during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, will only print three days a week come fall. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

 Many daily newspapers have been moving away from paper for years, emphasizing digital news. Lately, some print dailies have been moving away from publishing daily, too.

 To try to combat the industry’s decline — in readership, advertising and profits — a handful of newspapers are now cutting back their publishing schedules from seven days a week in print to just three.

 The latest to go to three days a week: The storied New Orleans Times-Picayune, one of America’s oldest papers, which announced Thursday that it plans to limit its print schedule — beginning this fall — to Wednesday, Friday and Sunday editions. It will maintain 24/7 online reporting via its site, Nola.com.

 This is a tactical trend for New York-based Advance Publications, which owns the Times-Picayune, as it pushes toward a limited print-digital model. Advance said Thursday that in addition to the Times-Picayune, it will also cut back the print frequency of its three papers in Birmingham, Mobile and Huntsville, Ala., to three days.

 Even as print declines in the digital age, it’s still the economic oxygen of newspapers. Print ads account for more than 86 percent of the $24 billion that the industry collected last year, according to the Newspaper Association of America, and the nation’s 1,400 or so daily newspapers have about 45 million paying customers who get their news the old-fashioned, carbon-based way.

 Yet print revenues are falling so rapidly that the industry is roughly half the size it was as recently as 2007. And producing a printed paper also carries significant costs, including expensive presses, warehouses full of newsprint, fleets of delivery trucks and a manufacturing process that hasn’t changed significantly in decades.

 Thus, the industry’s existential problem: How to cross the chasm that separates the declining (but relatively high revenue) print business to the lower-cost (but far lower revenue) digital news business?

 Advance Publications, which is owned by the billionaire Newhouse family, has been the most aggressive in the industry in answering that question.

 In 2009, the company cut its Ann Arbor (Mich.) News to two print editions weekly. In February, it moved seven more of its dailies in Michigan to a three-times-per-week print schedule.

 The privately held company closely guards its financial results, but executives say they’re encouraged by what they’ve seen so far: The cutback on print has driven more readers and advertisers to the papers’ Web sites.

 “It’s better to be too aggressive than not aggressive enough at a time like this,” said Randy Siegel, president of local digital strategy for Advance Publications. “Doing nothing is not an option. Preserving the status quo is not an option. . . . You either get out in front, or you get left behind.”

 Although that strategy may be “inevitable” for newspapers, analyst Ken Doctor said, it’s not without risk or downside.

 “For longtime print readers, this is going to be really jarring” because many readers don’t use the paper’s Web site on a regular basis, Doctor said. “This is a publisher pulling the plug on the seven-day habit. It’s a huge unknown how many readers will stick around.”

 That could affect advertisers, as well, although the paper will continue to come out on the three most valuable days for print ads. The Sunday edition is typically the week’s most lucrative, as readers have more time to spend with the paper. Wednesday has traditionally been a “market” day, in which supermarket chains run ads featuring price specials. And Fridays are a magnet for restaurants and entertainment venues seeking the business of readers planning their weekends.

 “Maybe you can create a new profitable model this way,” Doctor said, “but it’s a big maybe.”

 Caroline Little, chief executive of the Newspaper Association of America, said such experimentation is necessary if newspapers are to survive. “I care about print deeply,” said Little, former publisher of Washingtonpost.com, “but I also care that 30 or 50 years from now that there will be a way to support good journalism.”

 One thing is clear in New Orleans: There will be fewer journalists once the Times-Picayune implements its changes. The paper said it would make unspecified cuts.

 Doctor, however, estimated that the paper’s newsroom will lose about 50 journalists, leaving about 100 to cover a region of 1.2 million people. “Chilling,” he said.

 The Times-Picayune, founded in 1837, has published daily through wars, depressions and the occasional catastrophic hurricane. Its greatest glory might have been its brave performance during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The storm knocked out the paper’s presses, but its journalists continued to report online in sweltering and dangerous conditions for three days, providing vital information to a traumatized and news-hungry region. It won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for that work.

 he Times-Picayune’s fortunes have tumbled since Hurricane Katrina. Its daily circulation was 133,557 as of March, off 49 percent from March 2005, a few months before the storm. It sells 155,000 copies on Sundays. |||||


– Closer American ties with one of the world's major cigar exporters could actually be good news in the fight against lung cancer. Cuba has developed Cimavax, an effective lung cancer vaccine, and American researchers can now finally get their hands on it, reports Wired. After New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo visited Cuba for a trade mission last month, the Buffalo-based Roswell Park Cancer Institute struck a deal with Havana's Center of Molecular Immunology to develop a vaccine, allowing clinical trials involving Cimavax to begin in the US, Bloomberg reports. Cimavax, which stops tumors from growing, was 25 years in the making and has been available for free to Cuban patients since 2011, Wired reports. So how did such a small and poor country create a world-leading therapeutic vaccine? Roswell Park CEO Candace Johnson, who hopes to start clinical trials in the US within a year, tells Wired that the country's biotech industry has thrived despite—and perhaps even because of—the US embargo. "They've had to do more with less, so they've had to be even more innovative with how they approach things," she says. "For over 40 years, they have had a preeminent immunology community." Experts say they're excited not just by the potential of Cimavax, but by other novel Cuban cancer treatments that could now be available to US researchers. (The US has approved the first ferry service to Cuba in 50 years.)

Expand this summary.

Lung cancer. Coloured X-ray of the chest of an 84 year old woman with a malignant (cancerous) tumour (yellow) in the apex of the right lung (top left). DU CANE MEDICAL IMAGING LTD/Getty Images

 Cuba has for several years had a promising therapeutic vaccine against lung cancer. The 55-year trade embargo led by the US made sure that Cuba was mostly where it stayed. Until—maybe—now.

 The Obama administration has, of course, been trying to normalize relations with the island nation. And last month, during New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's visit to Havana, Roswell Park Cancer Institute finalized an agreement with Cuba's Center for Molecular Immunology to develop a lung cancer vaccine and begin clinical trials in the US. Essentially, US researchers will bring the Cimavax vaccine stateside and get on track for approval by the Food and Drug Administration.

 "The chance to evaluate a vaccine like this is a very exciting prospect," says Candace Johnson, CEO of Roswell Park. She's excited, most likely, because research on the vaccine so far shows that it has low toxicity, and it's relatively cheap to produce and store. The Center for Molecular Immunology will give Roswell Park all of the documentation (how it's produced, toxicity data, results from past trials) for an FDA drug application; Johnson says she hopes to get approval for testing Cimavax within six to eight months, and to start clinical trials in a year.

 How did Cuba end up with a cutting edge immuno-oncology drug? Though the country is justly famous for cigars, rum, and baseball, it also has some of the best and most inventive biotech and medical research in the world. That's especially notable for a country where the average worker earns $20 a month. Cuba spends a fraction of the money the US does on healthcare per individual; yet the average Cuban has a life expectancy on par with the average American. "They've had to do more with less," says Johnson, "so they've had to be even more innovative with how they approach things. For over 40 years, they have had a preeminent immunology community."

 Despite decades of economic sanctions, Fidel and Raul Castro made biotechnology and medical research, particularly preventative medicine, a priority. After the 1981 dengue fever outbreak struck nearly 350,000 Cubans, the government established the Biological Front, an effort to focus research efforts by various agencies toward specific goals. Its first major accomplishment was the successful (and unexpected) production of interferon, a protein that plays a role in human immune response. Since then, Cuban immunologists made several other vaccination breakthroughs, including their own vaccines for meningitis B and hepatitis B, and monoclonal antibodies for kidney transplants.

 The thing about making such great cigars is, smoking is really, really bad for you. Lung cancer is the fourth-leading cause of the death in Cuba. Medical researchers at the Center for Molecular Immunology worked on Cimavax for 25 years before the Ministry of Health made it available to the public—for free—in 2011. Each shot costs the government about $1. A Phase II trial from 2008 showed lung cancer patients who received the vaccine lived an average of four to six months longer than those who didn't. That prompted Japan and some European countries to initiate Cimavax clinical trials as well.

 To be fair, Cimavax probably won't be a game-changing cancer drug in its current form. The vaccine doesn't attack tumors directly, instead going after a protein that tumors produce which then circulates in the blood. That action spurs a person's body to release antibodies against a hormone called epidermal growth factor, which typically spurs cell growth but can also, if unchecked, cause cancer. (Although most people normally think of a vaccine as something that prevents a disease, technically a vaccine is a substance that stimulates the immune system in some way.) So the point of Cimavax is to keep lung tumors from growing and metastasizing, turning a late-stage growth into something chronic but manageable.

 But in the US and Europe, people with lung cancer already have treatment options with the same goal. Roswell Park researchers say they plan to explore the vaccine's potential as a preventative intervention—making it more like a traditional vaccine. Furthermore, epidermal growth factor plays an important role in many other cancers, like prostate, breast, colon, and pancreatic cancer. "All those things are potential targets for this vaccine," says Kelvin Lee, an immunologist at the company. Mostly for financial reasons, Cubans didn't test Cimavax that way at all.

 And that drug isn't the only one with potential in the Cuban pharmacopeia. Thomas Rothstein, a biologist at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, has for six years worked with the Center for Molecular Immunology on another vaccine to treat lung cancer called Racotumomab, with an entirely different mechanism. (It messes with a particular lipid found in tumor cell membranes.) "Investigators from around the world are trying to crack the nut of cancer," Rothstein says. "The Cubans are thinking in ways that are novel and clever."

 Although President Obama has used his executive power to lift some restrictions against medical and research equipment, Congress must lift the Cuban embargo before collaborative research can ramp up. Johnson hopes to see Cuba embrace more entrepreneurialism in science, and see the US soak up more creative approaches to medical research. Constrained by politics, the Cuban researchers had to innovate in ways the US and Europe did not. Now maybe they'll be able to teach their colleagues what they learned. ||||| The Roswell Park Cancer Institute and software company Infor struck deals with their Cuban counterparts on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s trade mission to the Communist island nation.

 Roswell Park, based in Buffalo, will work with the Center for Molecular Immunology in Havana to bring a lung cancer vaccine to the U.S., while Manhattan-based Infor will provide healthcare software to a Cuban university, the companies’ chief executive officers said Tuesday at a news briefing at Jose Marti Airport in Havana.

 Such accords will help end the half-century U.S. embargo of Cuba, Cuomo said before the delegation departed for John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City after a two-day visit.

 “We will do everything we can to facilitate and expedite the process of that change.” Governor Andrew Cuomo

 “It affirms the feeling I had coming down that normalization of relationships between our special countries is the exact right way to go,” Cuomo said. “There’s no doubt that developing these mutual business relationships that are proven, that assist Cuba and also work for the companies, is a big part of moving forward.”

 On Monday, Cuomo became the first U.S governor to visit Cuba since President Barack Obama eased travel restrictions. The almost 27 hours on the ground placed business leaders from New York-based companies including Pfizer Inc. and MasterCard Inc. in direct contact with Cuban executives in the same fields.

 Clinical Tests

 Cuomo, a 57-year-old Democrat, met with First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel, Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Almaino along with Cuban trade officials.

 Under its deal, Roswell Park will be able to begin clinical tests of the vaccine, CEO Candace Johnson said.

 “This would not have happened without this trade mission, which provided that face-to-face finalization of the agreement,” Johnson said.

 Infor CEO Charles Phillips said his accord was reached while eating a dinner of rice and beans at Atelier Restaurant, one of 500,000 private business licensed to operate legally. The restaurant sits on the top floor of a converted home.

 “I was surprised and impressed in the level of expertise they have in healthcare technology,” Phillips said.

 Cuomo said he agrees with Obama that the best way to change Cuba is to engage with President Raul Castro, brother of Fidel, whose 1959 revolution and seizure of property and interests owned by U.S. businesses led to the trade sanctions. Cuomo didn’t meet with Raul Castro.

 Business leaders met with their Cuban counterparts into Monday evening. Cuomo then left to visit Cardinal Ortega, thanking him for his work on human rights in Cuba. The governor gave him a New York-made humidor and a New York Mets baseball hat.

 From there, Cuomo went on walking tour that culminated in a look under the hood of a 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air. The original engine had long since died, and with the embargo in place, owner Julio Alvarez said he was unable to find the U.S. parts needed to fix it. So, Alvarez replaced it with a diesel Toyota engine.

 Cuomo called it “an innovative and creative adaptation” and cited it as an example of why the embargo should end. |||||


Article:

A college kid had his foot blown off in Central Park on Sunday after stepping on a homemade firecracker, officials said.

 Connor Golden, 18, was climbing on rocks near East 60th Street and Fifth Avenue with two buddies — Thomas Hinds, 20, and Matthew Stabile, 18 — when he stepped on the object around 11 a.m., according to police.

 “His foot was mutilated,” said Hinds, who spoke to The Post from the 19th Precinct on Sunday afternoon.

 “I was walking in front of him and suddenly heard this extremely loud explosion directly behind me. When I turned around, I saw Connor lying there, his foot completely gone. It was insane. He was moaning and saying, ‘Get help.’ ”

 After the incident, the NYPD’s bomb squad was called in to confirm whether it was a firecracker that caused the explosion and not something more sinister. They determined that the blast was, in fact, the result of “explosive experimentation,” or the making of one’s own fireworks.

 “It is not unusual for the public to make or try to create homemade fireworks around the Fourth of July,” explained Lt. Mark Torre, head of the NYPD Bomb Squad. “This is a time of a year where typically we will see a lot of experimentation — explosive experimenters, if you will. Their goal is to make a loud noise, maybe make a flash. They like to make noise and sort of play with fireworks, and it’s even better if they can make their own.”

 Law enforcement sources told The Post that whoever left the device was likely not trying to cause any intentional harm to anyone.

 “It was a homemade device. They probably tried to light it on Friday night, but it didn’t go off because of the rain,” a source said. “[Investigators] found wet matches near it. It probably just went off because of the friction of him stepping on it.”

 Officials also confirmed that the tiny explosive was in a brown bag and did not appear to be designed to be pressure-sensitive.

 “There is some forensic evidence that indicates that it was not meant go off by someone stepping on it,” Torre said. “It was there longer than a day.”

 According to Hinds, Golden and his friends arrived in New York on Saturday evening.

 He said the trio are high school buddies and were in town visiting from Fairfax, Va., for the Fourth of July holiday.

 Golden is a student at the University of Miami in Florida, Hinds attends Northwestern University and Stabile is enrolled at Bard College, Hinds said.

 On Sunday, just one day into their vacation, the trio decided to try to find some places in Central Park to go slacklining — an outdoor activity where people tie a rope between two objects and attempt to walk across it.

 “We were planning on slacklining between some trees,” Hinds explained. “We were getting up on the rocks to get a good look at the area. We walked up there totally normal, saw nothing suspicious, and then on our walk down, it happened.”

 Sources said Golden was transported to Bellevue Hospital, where he would undergo surgery.

 Witnesses in the area said the makeshift firecracker that he stepped on could be heard outside the funeral of Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel.

 “At first, I though we were being attacked,” Hinds said. “It was a very loud explosion, and I couldn’t help but think of all the stuff in the news. That’s just what your mind automatically jumps to. But when I turned around and saw that [Connor] had stepped on something and was hurt, I went into shock. I realized that that could’ve been me. I went ahead first and the place where he stepped was inches away from where I was walking.”

 John Murphy, a Connecticut resident who is also in town visiting for the holiday, said Hinds and Stabile freaked out when they realized the extent of Golden’s injuries.

 “The friends were just in shock,” he said. “He was severely injured. His left leg was severely damaged, all bone and muscle.”

 Murphy said that when he walked up on the scene, Golden was lying on the ground — his foot completely missing below the ankle. Despite this, he managed to somehow stay alert until EMS arrived.

 “He was an absolute trouper,” Murphy said. “I couldn’t believe it. We just stayed with him, tried to keep him calm until EMS showed up. He was in shock. I don’t think he even realized what had happened.”

 Karma Thrinley Nyima, a 49-year-old who sells pictures from a stand in Central Park, described seeing a man use his belt to make a tourniquet in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

 “I saw the leg from far away. I got very scared,” he said. “The leg was bleeding and one guy took off his belt and was trying to stop the blood. I was too scared to go over there.”

 Authorities had been speaking to Hinds and Stabile at the Central Park Precinct and 19th Precinct, respectively, to find out whether they were playing with fireworks at the time of the incident. But they eventually were able to prove that this was not the case.

 “The victim and his two friends, we don’t consider them to be part of the construction of this object,” Torre said.

 Hinds told The Post that cops had been grilling him for hours about the incident — and were at one point implying that it was their fault — even though he repeatedly insisted they did not have any fireworks.

 “It’s ridiculous. They’ve been asking me questions for two hours,” he said. “They want us to admit that we were playing with fireworks, but we really weren’t. We didn’t have anything on us explosive at all. But I know how it goes. If it was just us f–king around with fireworks, it would be a lot easier for them. But it’s not. And that’s actually really scary. Why would we do that?!”

 In a Facebook post written July 1, Hinds describes “feeling pumped” about spending time in the Big Apple.

 “All y’all New York types better prepare thyselves,” he said.

 Hinds later recalled how he and his friends were planning on eventually heading upstate to go camping in the Adirondack Mountains — and how Golden was really looking forward to it.

 “Connor is a really laid-back guy who really likes music and the outdoors,” Hinds said. “We love to go camping together, so on the fifth day of our trip, we were gonna head upstate to the Adirondacks for the weekend and then head home. But that’s all changed. Now, I just hope they can put his foot back together.”

 Officials said that whoever constructed the pyrotechnic was well-versed in how explosives work.

 “Clearly, I would say this is someone that had knowledge of chemistry, but you don’t have to be anything more than good with computers to get enough knowledge of chemistry to be able to create some of this type of material from readily available materials, unfortunately,” Torre said. ||||| An 18-year-old man was recovering Monday after he had to have part of his leg amputated following a blast in Central Park. Police believe the man jumped on fireworks that had been left behind by someone else. Lori Bordonaro reports. (Published Monday, July 4, 2016)

 UPDATE: Investigators Test Explosive That Blew Off Part of Man's Leg in Central Park

 An 18-year-old Virginia man had to have part of his leg amputated after he was severely injured in a small explosion in Central Park that investigators suspect was caused by a homemade "experiment" left behind by an amateur or hobbyist.

 The explosion happened around 11 a.m. inside the park at East 68th Street and Fifth Avenue, according to the FDNY.

 Investigators stressed that there was no evidence that the explosion was a terrorist act.

 "There are no specific or credible threats directed at New York or the July Fourth celebrations," said Inspector John O'Connell, the head of the NYPD's counterterrorism unit.

 Relatives identified the injured man as 18-year-old Connor Golden of Fairfax County, Virginia. Terry and Roberta Golden, the teen's grandparents, told News4 in Washington that doctors had to amputate his injured leg below the knee. An official said he underwent the surgery at Bellevue Hospital.

 Golden is an Eagle Scout, musician and honor student at University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, the grandparents said. He is turning 19 next Sunday.

 "I would guess that he would love to continue at the University of Miami and sports," said Roberta Golden. "I have no idea how he would go about it and ironically his birthday is next Sunday and he wanted a long skateboard. Everybody in Miami has them."

 Two of Golden's friends told police they were visiting the city from Virginia and denied they were playing with fireworks. The NYPD bomb squad was investigating to determine exactly what material caused the injury.

 Police said during a late afternoon news conference that they believe the victim and his two friends had nothing to do with the explosive material. They refrained from referring to it as a device. The victim jumped off a rock and his left foot landed on the homemade material, causing it to explode, they said.

 "It was almost like it was hidden," O'Connell said. "But it wasn’t where someone ordinarily would’ve stepped."

 The NYPD cordoned off a two- to three-block area of the park near the blast site. Bomb-sniffing dogs were sent into the area to search for an other explosives.

 Lt. Mark Torre of the NYPD bomb squad said the material didn't appear to have been "shock-sensitive." He said there was no evidence that it was meant to explode if stepped upon.

 "We’ve seen a lot of experimentation with homemade fireworks," he said. "Their goal is to make a loud noise, maybe make a flash."

 Mayor de Blasio took to Twitter on Sunday night and said the explosion appeared to be an "isolated incident, unrelated to terrorism."

 "Central Park, both statistically and by reputation, is one of the safest patches of land in any big city in America," he wrote.

 De Blasio said there was no threat directed at New York City for the Fourth of July celebrations and encouraged people to come out and enjoy the park.

 Tenzin Ratling, 46, a photographer who sells his work most days on the perimeter of the park, said that he heard the blast and initially thought it was some type of test for a Fourth of July fireworks display.

 "But then many police arrived and I thought that a bad thing happened," he said. ||||| NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A firework that exploded when a 18-year-old unwittingly stepped on it Sunday in Central Park, seriously injuring his left foot, didn’t appear to be designed to intentionally hurt people, police officials said.

 WCBS 880’s Sophia Hall reported the victim, identified at Connor Golden, suffered a severe leg injury. The explosion happened just before 11 a.m. near 60th Street and 5th Avenue.

 WCBS's Sophia Hall heard explosion in Central Park. One victim with injured leg/foot being treated by EMS. — Alex Silverman (@AlexSilverman) July 3, 2016

 WCBS 880 reported that Golden was with a group of three young men from the Washington, D.C. area.

 “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what happened,” one of the men told WCBS 880.

 An eyewitness told CBS2 that Golden was climbing a rock structure and stepped on something that “exploded.”

 Police officials believe a homemade firework likely caused the blast, CBS2’s Hazel Sanchez reported. The commanding officer of the New York Police Department’s bomb squad said Sunday there’s no indication it was made to harm people.

 Mark Torre likened the explosive to an experiment that an enthusiast with a rudimentary understanding of chemistry could build from household materials.

 Investigators don’t believe the injured 18-year-old or his friends took part in constructing the explosive. They’re asking anyone with information to come forward.

 Officials say Golden is undergoing surgery on his left foot at a hospital. He’s in stable condition.

 #CentralPark scene has started to thin out. Preliminary reports: #Fireworks likely a cause of the small explosion @CBSNewYork — Magdalena Doris (@MagdalenaDoris) July 3, 2016

 A bomb-sniffing dog went into the rock area where the explosion took place.

 #BREAKING: Explosion in Central Park injures man on rocks after landing on something that blew up @CBSNewYork pic.twitter.com/tNhIp3gQuz — Magdalena Doris (@MagdalenaDoris) July 3, 2016

 CBS2 video captured the sound of the explosion while guests were filing into Elie Wiesel’s funeral in the Upper East Side.

 Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted: “Dangerous incident in Central Park today. Fireworks are fun – but let’s leave them to the professionals. Stay safe.” |||||
What is a summary?

– A group of friends enjoying a morning in NYC's Central Park stumbled onto misfortune Sunday when one apparently stepped on an explosive, severely injuring his leg, the New York Post reports. The FDNY says the explosion happened around 11am at 68th Street and Fifth Avenue, per NBC New York, and a senior law enforcement official tells the station a bag of fireworks was found near the scene, though it's not clear it was a firework that caused the explosion. The Post IDs the 18-year-old who was injured as Conner Golden, who was climbing on rocks in the park with some other pals, all said to be visiting from the DC area. Golden was whisked to Bellevue Hospital and is currently undergoing surgery, with sources saying an amputation looks likely. 1010 Wins reports Golden is in critical but stable condition, via CBS New York. According to John Murphy, another visitor to the park who came upon the scene, it looked like Golden's foot was missing below the ankle. "His left leg was severely damaged, all bone and muscle," he says. "He was in shock. I don't think he even realized what had happened." Cops are trying to determine if the explosion, which witnesses tell the Post could be heard from outside where Elie Wiesel's funeral was being held, was caused by a firework or what the Post calls a "more sinister" device, and if the DC buddies were the ones who may have brought fireworks into the park. "I said, 'Come on, guys, were you carrying fireworks?'" Murphy says. "And they said no. And I believed them. … This wasn't an M80 or a cherry bomb. [This was] something much more serious." NBC notes that section of the park was cordoned off, but the park wasn't evacuated or closed due to the incident.


Summarize this article:

The shooting took place at Bundchen and Brady's wedding celebrations

 Two former bodyguards of Brazilian model Gisele Bundchen and her US football star husband Tom Brady have been jailed for five years for shooting at photographers in Costa Rica.

 The shooting took place in April 2009 as the celebrity couple celebrated their wedding at a seaside home in the country.

 A court in the town of Puntarenas found Costa Rican guard Miguel Solis and Colombian Alexander Rivas guilty of attempted murder.

 A third man - Manuel Valverde - was acquitted.

 The court also ordered the defendants to pay five million colones ($10,000) in damages in each of the two photographers. Neither defendant testified during the proceedings.

 The photographers were confronted by the bodyguards, who demanded they hand over their camera memory cards.

 As the photographers drove away, at least one of the bodyguards opened fire, according to the complaint. Neither photographer was hurt. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. |||||

– Two bodyguards who worked for Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen were sentenced to five years in prison for attempted murder over an incident during the couple's April 2009 wedding, Sky News reports. Miguel Solis and Alexander Rivas demanded two photographers in Costa Rica give up their camera memory cards; as the photographers drove off, at least one of the bodyguards shot at them. Solis and Rivas were also ordered to pay $10,000 to each photographer. Neither was hurt in the incident, of which Bundchen claimed to be unaware back in 2009.


Write an article based on this summary:

– What began as a largely peaceful protest in Oakland ended up being marked by the following: shattered windows, graffiti, fires, tear gas, flash-bang grenades, stitches, and arrests. Things didn't get ugly until after midnight, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Most of the day's approximately 7,000 protesters headed home around 11pm, but a remaining group overtook an empty building two blocks from Occupy Oakland's tent city. They reportedly barricaded both ends of the block the building sits on; started a massive fire whose flames reached heights of 15 feet; hung banners from its roof; and graffitied its exterior. Police told the crowd to disperse and fired flash-bang grenades and tear gas canisters after an officer was reportedly hit with a bottle. They say protesters threw metal pipes, hammers, molotov cocktails, and more. The AP reports that at least four protesters were hospitalized, with one, who tussled with a cop, needing stitches. "Dozens" were arrested.

Occupy Oakland protester Mike Clift runs from teargas early Thursday morning, Nov. 3, 2011, in Oakland, Calif. Following a mainly peaceful day-long protest by thousands of anti-Wall Street demonstrators,... (Associated Press)

 A protest that shut down the Port of Oakland to show the broadening reach of the Occupy Wall Street movement ended in violence when police in riot gear arrested dozens of protesters who broke into a vacant building, shattered downtown windows and set blazes along the way.

 At least four protesters were hospitalized Thursday with various injuries, including one needing stitches after fighting with an officer, police said. Several officers were also injured but didn't need hospitalization.

 "We go from having a peaceful movement to now just chaos," protester Monique Agnew, 40, said early Thursday.

 Protesters also threw concrete chunks, metal pipes, lit roman candles and molotov cocktails, police said.

 The far-flung movement of protesters challenging the world's economic systems and distribution of wealth has gained momentum in recent weeks, capturing the world's attention by shutting down one of the nation's busiest shipping ports toward the end of a daylong "general strike" that prompted solidarity rallies across the U.S.

 Several thousand people converged on the Port of Oakland, the nation's fifth-busiest harbor, in a nearly five-hour protest Wednesday, swarming the area and blocking exits and streets with illegally parked vehicles and hastily erected, chain-link fences afterward.

 Port spokesman Isaac Kos-Read said evening operations had been "effectively shut down."

 Port officials hoped to resume maritime operations Thursday "and that Port workers will be allowed to get to their jobs without incident. Continued missed shifts represent economic hardship for maritime workers, truckers, and their families, as well as lost jobs and lost tax revenue for our region."

 Supporters in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and elsewhere staged smaller-scale demonstrations. Each group said its protest was a show of support for the Oakland movement, which became a rallying point when an Iraq War veteran was seriously injured in a clash with police last week.

 The larger Occupy movement has yet to coalesce into an organized association and until the port shut down had largely been limited scattershot marches, rallies and tent encampments since it began in September.

 Organizers in Oakland viewed the strike and port shutdown as a significant victory. Police said that about 7,000 people participated in demonstrations throughout the day that were peaceful except for a few incidents of vandalism at local banks and businesses.

 In Philadelphia, protesters were arrested earlier Wednesday as they held a sit-in at the headquarters of cable giant Comcast.

 In New York, about 100 military veterans marched in uniform and stopped in front of the New York Stock Exchange, standing in loose formation as police officers on scooters separated them from the entrance. On the other side was a lineup of NYPD horses carrying officers with nightsticks.

 "We are marching to express support for our brother, (Iraq war veteran) Scott Olsen, who was injured in Oakland," said Jerry Bordeleau, a former Army specialist who served in Iraq through 2009.

 The veterans were also angry that returned from war to find few job prospects.

 "Wall Street corporations have played a big role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Bordeleau, now a college student. He said private contractors have reaped big profits in those countries.

 A New York Post editorial on Thursday called on protesters camped out in Manhattan to leave or have police evict them.

 "What began as a credible protest against bank bailouts, crony capitalism and the like has, in large measure, been hijacked by crazies and criminals," it said.

 In Boston, college students and union workers marched on Bank of America offices, the Harvard Club and the Statehouse to protest the nation's burgeoning student debt crisis. They said total outstanding student loans exceed credit card debt, increase by $1 million every six minutes and will reach $1 trillion this year, potentially undermining the economy.

 "There are so many students that are trying to get jobs and go on with their lives," said Sarvenaz Asasy, of Boston, who joined the march after recently graduating with a master's degree and $60,000 in loan debt. "They've educated themselves and there are no jobs and we're paying tons of student loans. For what?"

 ___

 Associated Press writers Garance Burke and Marcus Wohlsen and Beth Duff-Brown in San Francisco, Mark Pratt in Boston, JoAnn Loviglio in Philadelphia, Jon Fahey and Verena Dobnik in New York and Christina Hoag in Los Angeles contributed to this report. ||||| OAKLAND -- A long day of mostly peaceful protest in Oakland descended into chaos after midnight. Masked vandals shattered windows, set fires and plastered downtown businesses with graffiti before police moved in, dispersing crowds with tear gas and flash-bang grenades and making dozens of arrests.

 Buildings that had windows smashed early today around City Hall included a Men's Wearhouse store, a dental office and the headquarters of the police internal affairs division.

 Graffiti was everywhere - from anarchist symbols to threatening gang tags. Messages included "Oakland commune" and "kill cops."

 The street clashes - which hospitalized three protesters and left several officers with minor injuries - happened near Occupy Oakland's tent city in Frank Ogawa Plaza at 14th Street and Broadway, which had been the center of Wednesday's general strike. That event peaked when thousands of people angry at economic inequality marched to the Port of Oakland, shutting it down.

 Most of those people had gone home by 11 p.m. Wednesday, when dozens of protesters took over a vacant two-story building at 16th Street and Broadway - two blocks from the encampment - that once housed the nonprofit Travelers Aid Society.

 Hundreds of others looked on as protesters barricaded the block at both ends with wooden pallets, trash cans, tables and tires. They hung banners from the building's roof, spray-painted its exterior and chanted, "Whose street, our street!" One group of protesters broke cement blocks into baseball-size rocks.

 Police had kept their distance from Occupy Oakland protesters since coming under scrutiny for deploying tear gas and flash-bang grenades and firing projectiles in a clash last week that left one demonstrator with a serious head injury. Police critics said officers had used excessive force and violated city policies on crowd control.

 But late Wednesday, hundreds of police officers responded to the area just before midnight. They found that protesters - many covering their faces with bandanas, and some in gas masks - had started a massive trash fire at 16th and Broadway that sent flames 15 feet high.

 Police said later that they were concerned that the flames endangered residents in the area along with the 500 or so people on the street.

 Just after midnight, police ordered the crowd to disperse as an unlawful assembly. Soon, one officer on Broadway was struck on his face shield by a bottle, disorienting him.

 Within a minute, officers launched flash-bang grenades and tear-gas canisters. Protesters scattered and a fire crew put out the blaze.

 The crowd quickly regrouped and entered into a long standoff with officers on Broadway. Another confrontation happened at 16th Street and San Pablo Avenue, where police surrounded several dozen people and arrested them just before 1:30 a.m.

 Several of those arrested spoke before they were taken away. Jonathan Yeh, 26, of Davis, said he had been in the wrong spot at the wrong time and had not heard a dispersal order.

 "I did hear people throwing bottles and breaking windows," he said.

 Morgan Ress, 30, of Oakland was watching the protest as an observer for the National Lawyers Guild.

 "Police formed lines on both sides of us," Ress said. "I saw them beat anyone who ran and arrest anyone who stood still."

 Derek Winslow, 26, of Oakland, was working as a medic.

 "I was attempting to provide medical aid to someone who was injured," Winslow said. "I didn't know how close I was to the police line. I was knocked down (by police) and told not to move."

 He conceded that he hadn't obeyed orders.

 "They gave me an order to disperse and I did not leave," he said.

 Police officials drew a contrast between Wednesday's march to the port by Occupy Oakland protesters - which involved thousands of people and was peaceful - and the nighttime events, in which a much smaller crowd grew unruly.

 They said the late-night protesters had thrown threw metal pipes, hammers, glass bottles, rocks and cobblestones.

 "This begged action," said Sgt. Chris Bolton, chief of staff to interim Police Chief Howard Jordan. "We are reacting to the situation provided to us."

 Many protesters disagreed, saying police had escalated the situation and should not have used tear gas. During the standoff, people shouted "go home" at the officers, who appeared to be from several Bay Area agencies.

 "These people would be extremely peaceful if the agitators - the police - didn't show up," said a 25-year-old man in a bandana who declined to give his name.

 He said the protesters' late-night actions had been "tactical. In other words, it was to make it bigger. There's an awe factor."

 The protesters who were on hand for the clashes, though, were deeply split over what happened. Some scolded window-breakers and told them Occupy Oakland was supposed to be a peaceful protest. Whenever someone would light a fire, others would try to stomp it out.

 "Violence is not a statement," one protester shouted after a man in a mask broke a clothing store window.

 As protesters built one of the barricades on 16th Street, a nearby resident who had joined Wednesday's demonstrations walked up and began to take it apart. But whenever he moved a trash can or table or pallet, a man in a mask would put it back.

 "What does putting trash in the street accomplish?" asked the neighbor, 35-year-old Tarrell Gamble, as a crowd confronted him. "This is somebody's property."

 Masked men shouted and swore at Gamble, and one protester briefly put him in a headlock. They accused him of being a police officer and said, "Let's give it up for the hall monitor."

 "Everybody's so tough with a mask on," Gamble said as he continued to try to clear his street, without success.

 After two women escorted him away, Gamble said, "The protest is supposed to be about corporate greed. It's not about trashing the streets of Oakland."

 Nearby, a man in a mask said Gamble was wrong. "These are drastic measures, to make people listen," the 24-year-old said. "This is our block now." |||||


Police at Berlin's main train station on Tuesday night. Photo: DPA

 DPA/The Local · 18 Nov 2015, 17:54

 Published: 18 Nov 2015 08:47 GMT+01:00

 Updated: 18 Nov 2015 17:54 GMT+01:00

 The opposition accused Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière of playing with the public's fears on Wednesday after he refused to provide details about an alleged terror plot in Hanover. Read back on all the day's security developments here.

 KEY POINTS

 Opposition criticize interior minister for 'playing with public's fears'

 'No further threat against Hanover' say state leaders

 Bundesliga to go ahead at weekend

 Intelligence chief says threat level in Germany is high

 Turkey arrests 8 suspected Isis members headed for Germany

 17:48 - Opposition criticize interior minister for spreading fear

 Sahra Wagenknecht, head of die Linke told Tagesspiegel that interior minister Thomas de Maizière was playing with people's emotions after he refused to give details for why Germany's football match with the Netherlands was cancelled shortly before kick-off on Tuesday.

 “The interior minister is creating extreme anxiety. He is playing a highly dangerous and to an extent unconstitutional game with the public's fears,” said Wagenknecht.

 De Maizière came in for criticism on social media on Wednesday for suggesting that telling the public the details of an alleged terrorist plot against the football match would spread panic. Critics say that leaving the public in the dark is what is causing anxiety.

 17.35 - Rapper Deso Dogg likely still alive in Syria

 Berlin-born rapper Deso Dogg - real name Denis Cuspert - is probably still alive, reports Spiegel, after the US Pentagon claimed to have killed him in an attack on Isis stronghold Raqqa in October.

 Citing German security sources, Spiegel claims that telephone conversation have emerged in which Cuspert is identified as one of the callers - the conversations took place after the October 16th airstrike which the US said killed him.

 The Hamburg-based media outlet described Cuspert as a “leading member of Isis”. But this description is not held by the US Pentagon which said that they had not been specifically targeting Cuspert with the airstrike, not considering him to be a high value target.

 Cuspert has released rap videos directly threatening Germany with a terror attack.

 16:09 - NRW to step up security at Christmas markets

 Ralf Jäger, interior minister in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) announced on Wednesday plans to step up security measures at Christmas markets.

 Police will continue to patrol the streets carrying their normal weapons but will concentrate on “well visited” places such as Christmas markets, Bild reports.

 Jäger described the situation as “serious” and said that German speaking jihadists have been calling for attacks on Germany for weeks.

 15:50 - Sweden raises terror threat level

 Sweden has raised its terror threat level in response to "concrete information" of a terrorist plot, the Nordic country's Säpo security service said on Wednesday afternoon.

 15:16 - Hannover's Christmas market will go ahead

 Mayor Stefan Schostok told reporters in Hanover that the city's Christmas market would go ahead as planned.

 There is no general threat to large events in Germany, and that's true for Hanover as well, he said.

 14:21 - Turkey arrests 8 suspected Isis members headed for Germany

 Turkish police have arrested eight alleged jihadists from Morocco at Istanbul airport as they were headed for Germany.

 Press agency Anadolu reported that the men were detained as they arrived from Casablanca.

 The suspected Isis members wanted to stay for two days in Istanbul for a “tourist trip” and claimed to have booked a hotel there, but police could not verify their booking with the hotel.

 Turkish authorities found documents on one of the men showing that they planned to enter Europe via Greece with Germany as their final destination, the press agency reported.

 12:38 - Chancellor Merkel thanks people of Hanover and security services

 "I was just as sad to see the Germany-Netherlands game cancelled as millions of fans," Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a brief statement on Wednesday afternoon.

 The Chancellor thanked the people of Hanover and the fans in the stadium for their calm response and respect for the security services' "difficult decision".

 She also had special praise for the security services who, she said, made it possible for Germans to continue to enjoy large public events like football matches despite the terror threat.

 12.30 - Isis terror 'more insidious' than Germany's homegrown RAF

 Former Interior Minister Gerhart Baum, who was in office during terror by the Red Army Faction (RAF) in the late 1970s and early 1980s, said that the threat of terror from Isis was "much more insidious" than that of the far-left terrorists.

 "We knew who the perpetrators were [back then]. People remember the 'Wanted' posters," Baum told rolling news channel Phoenix.

 12:18 - Police raid at high school on Tuesday due to toy gun

 Police have confirmed that a major operation on Tuesday at a high school near Stuttgart was a false alarm.

 Police found a man at the scene carrying a toy gun. But they said the man - who was under the influence of drugs - had only incidentally been there and was on the way to visit a friend. reports the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

 On Tuesday police refused to give further details on the operation which caused panic in the town and made national headlines after a local newspaper reported a possible hostage taking situation.

 The incident illustrates the febrile atmosphere throughout the country.

 Police have been called into action on several occasions to deal with false alarms, including the arrest of seven people in Aachen western Germany on Tuesday in connection with the Paris terror attacks. All seven were later released without charge.

 11:58 - Berlin threat level 'high' says city's senator for the interior

 Berlin senator for the interior Frank Henkel has told Tagesspiegel the threat level in the capital is “high.”

 “The threat level continues to remain at a level which we take very seriously. We have every reason to remain vigilant. We advise caution, but we shouldn't let fear take over. If we are too afraid to step outside, then the terrorists have won,” Henkel said.

 11.54 - Chancellor Angela Merkel will give a press conference at 12:30

 The Local will cover the Chancellor's remarks live.

 Kanzlerin #Merkel zur Absage des gestrigen Fußball-Länderspiels, live um 12:30 https://t.co/ozwwr0ZdL7. — Steffen Seibert (@RegSprecher) November 18, 2015

 11:41 - Germany-Netherlands fans will be reimbursed for tickets

 Fans evacuated from the Hanover stadium over the bomb threat on Tuesday will have their money returned, the German Football Federation (DFB) has decided.

 #GERNED Fans erhalten ihr Geld für die Eintrittskarten zurück. Der @DFB plant zzt. den genauen Ablauf. Liveticker: https://t.co/mFuFUbPxkf — NDR Niedersachsen (@NDRnds) November 18, 2015

 11:10 - Police union against putting soldiers on German streets

 The German Police Union (DPolG) has firmly rejected a suggestion from Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble that German soldiers should take on some police work.

 "We are totally against that. Our Constitution forbids it. Only the police can do the work of the police," DPolG president Rainer Wendt told The Local.

 "The Finance Minister ought to stick to his financial work and supply us better with the resources we need."

 10:57 - 'No further threat against Hanover' say state leaders

 Lower Saxony's interior minister Boris Pistorius said at a press conference on Wednesday that there was no further specific threat against the city of Hanover - or future large public events in Germany - at the moment.

 In at sometimes testy exchanges with journalists, he repeated that the authorities would offer no details about the nature of the threat that caused them to cancel the Germany-Netherlands friendly for fear of endangering sources.

 State premier Stephan Weil added that he would not be "shrinking back into his snail shell," but living his ordinary life as a German citizen, despite the elevated terrorism threat level across Europe since Friday's attacks in Paris.

 10:40 - Spiegel reports bomb threat tip came from France

 Both Der Spiegel and Bild have reported that the tip about a possible attack came from French intelligence services.

 Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann has said that the tip-off came from a foreign intelligence agency.

 10:30 - Bundesliga to go ahead at weekend

 Reinhard Rauball, interim head of the German Football Association (DFB), told press agency DPA that “match day will go ahead” in the Bundesliga on Friday, despite security concerns raised by the cancellation of the international friendly between Germany and the Netherlands.

 Suggesting that in the future increased security at matches could become the norm, Rauball said “it's my impression that starting today football in Germany in every way has taken a new direction.”

 He added that they were “of course considering” added security for the upcoming round of matches.

 10:12 - Head of internal intelligence – 'Germany is Isis target'

 Speaking to broadcaster ARD, Hans Georg Maaßen, the head of Germany's internal intelligence service (VS), said that Germany is a target for Isis.

 SEE ALSO: Germany 'in terrorists' sights' warn experts

 “If Isis can hit us, if they can carry out terrorist attacks in Germany they will – that is our greatest concern", he said.

 Maaßen admitted that trying to cope with Isis' new strategy of carrying out sophisticated terror attacks in Europe was “a very big challenge for us”.

 Story continues below…

 But the spy chief said he would “in no way recommend” blanket cancellations of large public events in the near future, claiming that the match in Hanover was cancelled only because of a tip-off which they had to take “very very seriously”.

 09:43 - Police scale down Hanover operation.

 "No explosives were found nor did we make any arrests,” a police spokesperson said referring to the operation that went on through the night, according to Tagesspiegel.

 The police are still on the streets, but with a "much reduced presence".

 08:45 - Police patrolling Hanover streets

 Police in Hanover, where a planned Germany-Netherlands friendly football game was cancelled over a bomb threat on Tuesday night, are still patrolling the city in strength as part of the hunt for suspects."We're on the ground in various areas [of the city]," a police spokeswoman said.

 No one has yet been arrested after thousands of fans were evacuated over what Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière on Tuesday called the "bitter decision" to cancel the match.

 He added that "part of the answer to the question [of why we evacuated the stadium] would make the public feel unsafe."

 DON'T MISS: Full coverage of the events in Hanover on Tuesday night

 Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann confirmed that there had been a tip-off about a possible attack from a foreign intelligence agency.

 He had received information on Tuesday that "within the next 48 hours there would or might be an attack on a German sporting event," he said on Bavarian TV, although he added that "the cancellation also surprised me".

 Meanwhile in Paris, at least two people were killed and several police wounded in a massive police raid on apartments in the northeast of the city.

 LIVE at The Local France: 'Two dead' in police raid in northern Paris

 Police in the northern Paris district of St. Denis on Wednesday morning. Photo: DPA

 Officers are hunting for Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the alleged mastermind of Friday's attack on a stadium, bars, restaurants and a theatre in the French capital which claimed 129 lives. ||||| + READ ARTICLE

 Turkey’s state-run news agency says authorities have detained eight people at Istanbul’s main airport who they suspect could be Islamic State militants planning to make their way to Germany, posing as refugees.

 The Anadolu Agency said Wednesday the eight arrived in Istanbul from Casablanca, Morocco, and were interviewed by criminal profiling teams at Ataturk Airport. Citing police sources, the agency said one of the suspects had a hand-drawn picture of a planned route from Turkey to Germany, via Greece, Serbia and Hungary.

 Anadolu said the eight claimed to be tourists visiting Istanbul but a hotel refuted claims they had reservations there. |||||

Write a summary.

– Turkey says it has seized eight suspected ISIS militants who were trying to reach Germany. The suspects were detained at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport after arriving from Morocco. Turkey's state-run news agency says they claimed to be tourists who were staying at a hotel in the city for two days, but the hotel denied that any reservations had been made, report the AP and the Local. The agency adds criminal profiling teams found a hand-drawn map showing a route from Turkey to Germany—via Greece, Serbia, and Hungary—on one of the suspects. Authorities say the alleged militants were planning to pose as refugees during the journey. A day earlier, a friendly soccer match between Germany and the Netherlands was canceled in Hanover after a bomb threat. "No explosives were found nor did we make any arrests," a police rep says. The threat level in Berlin is now listed as "high."