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“The woman is a victim in this case, as is the life in her womb,” he continued.

 Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals moved quickly to distance themselves from his initial comments as well. Gov. John Kasich of Ohio said, “Of course women shouldn’t be punished.”

 “I don’t think that’s an appropriate response,” he told MSNBC. “It’s a difficult enough situation.”

 The campaign of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said attention should be focused on providers of abortion, not the women who receive them.

 “Once again, Donald Trump has demonstrated that he hasn’t seriously thought through the issues, and he’ll say anything just to get attention,” Mr. Cruz said in a statement, adding, “Of course we shouldn’t be talking about punishing women; we should affirm their dignity and the incredible gift they have to bring life into the world.”

 For Republicans, the chaos felt something like a recurring nightmare. After the defeat of Mitt Romney in 2012, party leaders had hoped to move beyond a reputation for offensive comments on women’s issues, emblematized by Todd Akin, a Senate candidate in Missouri who posited that victims of “legitimate rape” were somehow able to prevent pregnancy.

 Mr. Trump’s comments came as many Republicans are confronting, with escalating despair, the specter of a Trump nomination — and the electoral difficulties he would face.

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 Last week, Mr. Trump threatened to “spill the beans” on Mr. Cruz’s wife, Heidi, and posted an unflattering image of her on Twitter. On Tuesday, he forcefully defended his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who was charged with battery over allegations that he grabbed a female reporter who had tried to question Mr. Trump earlier this month.

 A New York Times/CBS News poll this month had already demonstrated Mr. Trump’s weakness with female voters, who favored the Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, 55 percent to 35 percent.

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 On Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton called Mr. Trump’s comments “horrific and telling.”

 Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, sought to tie Mr. Trump to the rest of his party, noting that Mr. Cruz opposed exceptions for abortion in cases of rape or incest. Mr. Kasich, she added, has moved to defund Planned Parenthood in Ohio.

 “All three Republicans would drag the country back to the days when women were forced to seek illegal procedures from unlicensed providers out of sheer desperation,” she said.

 Yet with his statement on Wednesday, and the scramble to clarify it, Mr. Trump also exacerbated concerns among Republicans who have questioned the authenticity of his late-in-life conversions to conservative social positions.

 Mr. Trump is already facing a difficult test in Wisconsin, where the Republican primary will take place Tuesday, and where those looking to stop his march to the nomination see a critical opportunity. A Marquette University Law School poll released just before the MSNBC interview showed Mr. Cruz in first place in the state, leading Mr. Trump by 10 points.

 Wisconsin’s governor, Scott Walker, who is deeply popular with Republicans, has taken a hard line against abortions. Last year, he signed a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, just as he was gearing up to run for president. He bowed out of the race last September after failing to gain traction, and this week endorsed Mr. Cruz.

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 Mr. Cruz has long attacked Mr. Trump for supporting abortion rights in the past, highlighting clips from a 1999 interview in which Mr. Trump called himself “very pro-choice” and condemning his positive comments about Planned Parenthood at a debate last month.

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 Mr. Trump said the group did “wonderful things” for women’s health, even as he criticized its abortion services.

 There does not appear to be any record of Mr. Trump’s shift on abortion rights before February 2011, the month he spoke at a conservative conclave and made clear he was considering running for president the next year.

 Bruce Haynes, a Republican strategist, said he could not recall “any credible corner of the movement” calling for criminal sanctions against women who sought abortions.

 Jeanne Mancini, the president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, said efforts to punish individual women were “completely out of touch with the pro-life movement.”

 “No pro-lifer would ever want to punish a woman who has chosen abortion,” she said. “We invite a woman who has gone down this route to consider paths to healing, not punishment.”

 Others worried that Mr. Trump had helped fulfill a stereotype of the anti-abortion movement.

 “He doesn’t understand pro-life people or the life issue,” said Penny Nance, the head of the conservative group Concerned Women for America and a supporter of Mr. Cruz. “He instead became the caricature that the left tries to paint us to be.”

 In Mr. Trump’s struggles, his Republican opponents seem to have sensed an opportunity. Even before the latest controversy, Mr. Cruz and Mr. Kasich had invoked their daughters while discussing Mr. Trump’s treatment of women.

 Earlier on Wednesday, Mr. Cruz appeared in Madison, Wis., to introduce a “Women for Cruz” coalition. He was joined by his wife, Heidi; his mother, Eleanor Darragh, who is seldom seen on the campaign trail; and Carly Fiorina, a high-profile supporter.

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 For much of the event, Mr. Cruz sat quietly behind a modest floral arrangement, allowing the women to speak on his behalf during a forum that seemed aimed at a rival whose name was scarcely mentioned.

 “I just wanted to say one thing about Ted,” Heidi Cruz said near the end. “I want all of the women here in Wisconsin and across this country to know how supportive Ted has always been of all the women in his life.” ||||| Donald Trump yanked the Republican Party toward a contested convention over the past 24 hours as he let rip an extraordinary series of statements on abortion, the Geneva Conventions, violence against women and his own commitment to supporting the GOP presidential nominee that seemed to obliterate the notion that the party will unite behind him anytime soon.

 The fallout for Trump has been swift, as Republican rivals denounced the real estate mogul’s escalating attacks on a reporter who accused Trump’s campaign manager of battery and his suggestion that women should be punished for seeking abortions if the procedure is outlawed — a statement Trump quickly tried to walk back.

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 He also freshly rankled leading Republicans around the country for tearing up his previous pledge to support the eventual nominee, saying Tuesday night that “we’ll see who it is.”

 The series of events gave mainstream Republicans new hope that they could prevent him from winning the nomination outright through pledged delegates. But they're also more worried than ever about a fractured party heading into the fall.

 “Trump is an embarrassment for the party. He’s not a conservative, he’s not a Republican, he’s someone who’s simply for himself,” said Ryan Williams, a GOP consultant and veteran of Mitt Romney’s campaigns. “He’s set a new standard and is going to give a number of Republicans pause about supporting him if he’s the nominee. That’s Donald Trump’s fault and Donald Trump’s fault alone.”

 Trump created yet another firestorm on Wednesday afternoon, when he lamented the existence of the Geneva Conventions. “The problem is we have the Geneva Conventions, all sorts of rules and regulations, so the soldiers are afraid to fight,” Trump said at an afternoon town hall.

 But it was his comments regarding women — both his suggestion about criminalizing abortion and his escalating attacks on Breitbart journalist Michelle Fields — that set off the loudest alarm bells.

 In a sign of how damaging his comments on abortion were, Trump swiftly reversed himself. The controversy started when MSNBC’s Chris Matthews pressed Trump on his statement that abortion “is a very serious problem, and it’s a problem we have to decide on. Are you going to send them to jail?”

 After Matthews tried to draw him out on what should happen if abortions are outlawed, Trump responded, “There has to be some form of punishment.”

 Bipartisan criticism was immediate, with Hillary Clinton calling the comment “horrific and telling” and Republican rival John Kasich strongly disputing Trump's assertion: “Absolutely not.”

 The Trump campaign went into damage control mode, emailing out a clarifying statement. “If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman,” Trump said in the statement. “The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb. My position has not changed — like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions.”

 The statement on abortion compounded his inflammatory comments about Fields, the former reporter who accused Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, of roughly yanking her arm as she tried to ask Trump a question earlier this month. Lewandowski was charged with misdemeanor battery on Tuesday.

 On Wednesday, Trump stoked the controversy by accusing Fields of provoking Lewandowski in the incident and brandishing a pen as she tried to talk to him.

 “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade challenged Trump on his account of the incident Wednesday morning, saying that campaign managers like Lewandowski "should not be putting their hands on reporters." He added, "Karl Rove didn’t do it. David Plouffe didn’t do it, David Axelrod didn’t do it. That’s why you have Secret Service, and that’s why you have your own security.”

 Trump shot back, speculating that perhaps the three campaign managers had. “OK, and you don’t know that they didn’t do it, because I guarantee you they did, probably did stuff that was more physical than this," he said. "More physical, because this is not even physical. And frankly, she shouldn’t have her hands on me. Nobody says that. But she shouldn’t have her hands on me.”

 While Trump has become a master at firing off controversial comments and earning kudos from his core supporters for his disregard for political correctness, the real estate mogul is making little headway in his recently stated goal of convincing the Republican Party to unify behind him as the front-runner.

 Trump has a large lead over rival Ted Cruz in the delegate race, 736 to the Texas senator’s 463, but it’s not clear whether he’ll be able to secure the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination before the July convention.

 Poll numbers out Wednesday for Wisconsin’s primary next week were not encouraging for the real estate mogul. The survey from Marquette Law School, the state’s most reliable pollster, showed Cruz with a 10-point lead over Trump.

 And the front-runner is winning few converts among centrist Republicans. At one point earlier this year, some on Capitol Hill and among the lobbyist crowd on K Street entertained the idea that Trump would be preferable to Cruz.

 They had considered Trump someone with whom they could cut deals, and questioned whether he really believed the fiery rhetoric he employed on the stump. But his repudiation on Tuesday night of his promise to support the eventual GOP nominee — on top of a string of other controversial statements he's made over the past few weeks — made many Republicans deeply uncomfortable, making unity an even more unlikely prospect.

 “As head of the party, it is disturbing for anybody — not necessarily Trump — saying that they may or may not support our nominee,” said Diana Waterman, chairwoman of the Maryland GOP. “At the end of it, we’re supposed to all come together. That includes the people who were not successful in getting there.”

 Another party chairman from a state with an upcoming primary, who requested anonymity to share reservations about Trump, said his theatrics take the party’s focus off members' shared rejection of Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

 “Unfortunately it seems that whenever Mr. Trump is worried he may not become the Republican nominee, he makes these sorts of comments,” the chairman said. “My concern about his latest comments is that it will only make it harder for him to convince longtime loyal grass-roots Republicans of his sincerity and to persuade them to rally behind his candidacy. All of the Republican candidates must always first consider the best interest of this country and not hurt feelings.”

 But there is also risk to Republican leaders in being openly hostile to Trump. In a contested convention scenario, there is no guarantee that Trump supporters would get in line behind another candidate should the real estate mogul fall short, particularly if they feel that he has been treated unfairly by the party — and Trump has already claimed mistreatment.

 “How things are conducted going forward matters, and I’m really personally counting on our party leadership to set an example and come together,” said Steve Munisteri, former chairman of the Republican Party of Texas.

 Munisteri said that if Trump ultimately wins the nomination, he would expect supporters of Cruz and Kasich to put aside their differences and back him, regardless of what the candidates themselves do. But, he acknowledged, Trump backers are less predictable and could set the stage for a deeply damaging moment for the Republican Party.

 There is also always the threat of a third-party bid, either from Trump himself if he doesn’t clinch the GOP nomination, or from another candidate brought in as an alternative to Trump, though Republicans well-versed in party rules note that there is limited time, and ballot access constraints could keep that headache in check.

 But as the convention nears with Trump still leading the pack, despite his fiery statements, the Republican Party’s soul-searching will become even more dire.

 “I don’t envy my friends at the [Republican National Committee] right now,” said Williams, the Romney veteran. “It’s going to be a difficult task for the RNC to try to bring the party together.”

 Nolan D. McCaskill, Ben Schreckinger and Eliza Collins contributed to this report. ||||| Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stirred up controversy when he said there should be "some sort of punishment" for women who have abortions. Here's a look back at how he "evolved" into his pro-life views. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

 “I’m pro-life, and I was originally pro-choice. I will say this, that as a developer and as a businessman I’m not sure I was ever even asked the question, ‘Are you pro-life, pro-choice?’ … I have evolved. I talk about evolving all the time. And by the way, you know who else evolved? Ronald Reagan evolved. Because Ronald Reagan signed one of the toughest abortion laws in favor of abortion in California that had been signed in many, many years. … He wasn’t very conservative [passing the law as governor], but he was a pretty conservative president.”

 — Donald Trump, CNN town hall, March 29, 2016

 There is growing attention on Donald Trump’s rhetoric on gender and women, which his critics view as misogynistic or often reduced to superficial comments about appearances (recent example: Trump’s comments about Ted Cruz’s wife). Ahead of the April 5 Wisconsin primary, Trump is facing more questions about his policy views on gender and women’s issues — particularly, his views on abortion.

 Trump often compares his self-described evolution from being a Democrat to Republican to Ronald Reagan, who was once a Democrat before becoming the Republican icon. And now, he suggests that his evolution from supporting abortion rights to vocally opposing it is like Reagan’s, who once passed a law in favor of women’s access to abortion.

 Reagan did sign a law in 1967 that liberalized abortions — six years before the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe v. Wade. But this was long before abortion was a national social policy matter, before there were such terms like “pro-choice” and “pro-life.” The circumstances were a lot different then. Reagan did evolve on his abortion views, but it was less stark of a transition than Trump’s. It’s time for a history lesson for the Republican front-runner.

 The Facts

 In 1999, Trump publicly said he was a supporter of abortion rights as a matter of women’s choice. In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Trump was asked whether he would ban abortions, or at least “partial-birth” abortions. He said he would not, and that he is “pro-choice in every respect.” (Note: This shows he was indeed asked the question, despite his statement to CNN that “as a businessman I’m not sure I was ever even asked the question.”)

 “I’m very pro-choice,” Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I hate the concept of abortion. … But still, I just believe in choice.”

 But now on the presidential campaign trail in 2016, Trump is a vocal opponent of women’s rights to abortion — even to the point of saying that women who receive illegal abortions should be subject to “some sort of punishment.” Trump explains that he hadn’t given it much thought from a policy perspective when he was a businessman. And now that he is a presidential candidate, he says he is decidedly antiabortion.

 How similar is that to Ronald Reagan’s evolution?

 In June 1967, six months after becoming the Republican governor of California, Reagan signed a bill into law that he later would call “my worst decision as governor.”

 It was the California Therapeutic Abortion Act, which aimed to make California the third state in the nation to liberalize abortion laws. Having an abortion was a crime in every state, and doctors were performing thousands of illegal abortions in the state every year (and some women were going to Mexico to get illegal abortions).

 There was no “pro-choice” or “pro-life” lobbying at the time. The battle lines were drawn along religious lines, according to Reagan biographer and former Washington Post reporter Lou Cannon. In 1967, the majority of Californians, including 67 percent of Catholics, had supported liberalizing abortion laws. (California at the time permitted abortions only to save the life of the mother.)

 Catholic Democrats generally were antiabortion, but liberal Democrats pushed for a permissive version of a law to provide women broad access to abortions. Conservatives who were not Catholics, generally Protestants, supported the proposed law, believing the government should stay out of “the boardroom and the bedroom,” Cannon wrote in “Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power.”

 Yet Republican lawmakers wanted to stop a broad-ranging version of the bill from progressing, and pushed for a less permissive version. Some Republicans also believed that if Reagan didn’t sign some sort of abortion bill into law in 1967, the issue would come back every year — or that the legislature would override his veto.

 Reagan was torn. He had not given abortion much thought and had no strong opinion prior to taking office — it wasn’t a leading social issue at the time — but he was faced with a decision that could set the tone for the rest of the country. Not helping with Reagan’s indecision, his staff were split along religious lines on the issue and had no clear consensus on which direction the governor should go. For instance, his legal affairs secretary, Edwin Meese, urged Reagan to sign the bill.

 “I did more studying and soul searching on this matter than on anything that was to face me as governor,” Reagan later said in a radio address detailing his struggle contemplating the law.

 “My answer as to what kind of abortion bill I could sign was one that recognized an abortion is the taking of a human life. … Therefore, an abortion is justified when done in self-defense. My belief is that a woman has the right to protect her own life and health against even her own unborn child. I believe also that just as she has the right to defend herself against rape, she should not be made to bear a child resulting from the violation of her person and therefore abortion is an act of self-defense. I know there will be disagreements with this view, but I can find no evidence whatsoever that a fetus is not a living human being with human rights.”

 Reagan reluctantly signed a compromise bill, and said the measure did not fully satisfy him. California became the third and largest state to legalize abortions in cases of rape, incest or when the pregnancy “would gravely impair physical or mental health” of the mother.

 Then, abortions increased exponentially, as doctors took a loose interpretation of the “mental health” provision. Annual abortions spiked, and Reagan regretted his decision once he saw how the law was being implemented. Even Democrats were surprised at how doctors interpreted this “mental health” exception.

 “It’s the only major thing that he ever did as governor or president, that I’m aware of or that I can recall, that he ever said he did the wrong thing,” Cannon recalled to The Fact Checker. Reagan later ran for president on an antiabortion platform.

 As readers can see, it clearly was a different point in history. By the time the Supreme Court considered Roe v. Wade in 1973, legalizing abortion nationally, almost half the states had followed the decisions of states like California to open up abortion laws with exceptions. Back then, even supporters of abortion rights were skeptical of Roe v. Wade decision or opposed it. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal icon, has even criticized it for empowering the antiabortion movement, and cutting off a gradual move among states to legalize abortion along with courts and state legislatures.

 The Pinocchio Test

 In a rare instance, the Republican front-runner is not glaringly incorrect. He accurately cites a controversial decision by Reagan that allowed abortion in California in cases of rape, incest and physical and mental health of the mother — one of the first states to do so. Reagan was torn on the decision; he believed the fetus was a “living human being with human rights,” but was presented with evidence of thousands of women in his state already seeking abortions illegally. Reagan’s view of allowing abortions in cases of rape, incest or life of the mother is actually consistent with what many people with “pro-life” views believe.

 Reagan signing the law was not necessarily a reflection of his support for women’s right to choice, as it was long before the terms “pro-choice” and “pro-life” existed. Rather, his decision resulted from a confluence of a grass-roots movement among women and doctors, political maneuvering from legislators in the State Assembly, and his own lack of direction on exactly how he stood on the matter. Looking back now, it is clear Reagan had “pro-life” tendencies, as we now use the term.

 We take issue with the historical comparison Trump makes. His evolution is not analogous with Reagan’s, when considering the historical context. Trump said he was “very pro-choice,” and now he identifies as “pro-life.” But he is identifying with such labels after the battle lines in the abortion debate long had been drawn. In contrast, Reagan’s evolution took place when he deliberated whether to legalize abortions for specific circumstances that he believed were appropriate: rape, incest and physical and mental health of the mother. When the last provision was interpreted far beyond what he had intended, he regretted his decision and became even more strongly antiabortion.

 Politicians obviously have the right to change their views on key issues. But Trump’s suggestion that he has “evolved” just like Reagan suggests he does not really know the history of Reagan’s decision-making on the law. Trump should drop the comparison; it’s a gratuitous one that lacks historical context, and not analogous to his own evolution.

 Two Pinocchios

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 Sign up for The Fact Checker weekly newsletter ||||| Yesterday on Meet the Press, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson made clear that he not only wants to overturn Roe v. Wade, he also opposes exceptions for rape and incest. Lots of viewers probably saw that and said, “Wow, that’s a pretty radical position to take.” And it is. But they may not realize just how radical the entire field of Republican presidential candidates is on the issue of abortion.

 I’ll be getting to exactly where the GOP candidates stand in a moment. Because public opinion on abortion has been relatively stable for decades now, because the two parties take clear and opposing positions on the issue, and because certain kinds of vague poll questions show a near-even split among Americans, reporters often assume that the public is evenly divided on the issue and therefore it will always be a wash when election time comes around. But that’s not actually true.

 To understand why, you have to separate what Americans say when asked these questions in different ways, what they say when they’re asked specific questions as opposed to general questions, and where each of the Republicans actually stand.

 The poll questions that produce roughly equal divisions come in two forms. The first asks whether respondents generally consider themselves “pro-life” or “pro-choice.” While at times one or the other has moved into the majority, those two options have stayed close in popularity for the last 15 years. The second form asks whether abortions should always be legal, always be illegal, legal under most circumstances, or legal under only some circumstances. In that case, you tend to get slightly over 50 percent saying always or mostly legal, and around 40-45 percent saying always or mostly illegal (the latest Pew data show a 55-40 division on this question; see here for trends on both questions).

 Politicians don’t have the luxury of just saying “I’m pro-life” or “I think abortion should be legal in most circumstances.” They have to tell us exactly what they’d do. And what the Republican candidates would do is not just unpopular, but unpopular even within their own party.

 I’m going to focus on two questions for the moment: whether Roe v. Wade should be overturned, and whether, if abortion is banned, there ought to be exceptions for victims of rape and incest.

 The Roe v. Wade question is critical, because it is all but guaranteed that should a Republican become president, he will appoint only Supreme Court justices who can be counted on to vote to overturn Roe, which would allow states to ban abortion completely. Right now there are four Supreme Court justices ready to overturn the decision; if the right justice (or two) retires, it would be gone.

 But that’s not what the public wants. Polls consistently show that between 55 and 65 percent of Americans say that Roe should not be overturned, while only around 30 percent say it should. And even within the Republican Party opinion is divided almost evenly. Yet with the exception of George Pataki, every single Republican candidate for president is in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade (if we assume that Donald Trump’s relatively recent conversion to the pro-life cause includes opposition to Roe; he doesn’t seem to have said specifically, but when asked, he insists that he’s pro-life and hates abortion).

 On the question of exceptions to abortion bans in cases of rape or incest, I should note that opposing such exceptions is philosophically consistent. If you believe that abortion is murder, then you ought to believe it’s always murder, however the woman got pregnant. You could also argue that rape and incest exceptions reinforce the idea that abortion access ought to be granted through some kind of puritanical virtue test — a woman who was raped didn’t willfully have sex, so therefore she isn’t a dirty sinner and she can get an abortion.

 Nevertheless, the fact is that most Americans believe women who are raped or girls who are the victims of incest should be able to access abortion. And not just a majority, but a huge majority. Polls that have asked this question find between 75 and 85 percent favoring legal abortions in case of rape and incest (see here for some of them).

 So here’s where the GOP candidates stand on that question:

 Donald Trump: Supports exceptions for rape and incest.

 Supports exceptions for rape and incest. Ben Carson: Opposes exceptions for rape and incest.

 Opposes exceptions for rape and incest. Jeb Bush: Supports exceptions for rape and incest.

 Supports exceptions for rape and incest. Marco Rubio: Opposes exceptions for rape and incest.

 Opposes exceptions for rape and incest. Ted Cruz: Opposes exceptions for rape and incest.

 Opposes exceptions for rape and incest. John Kasich: Supports he favors exceptions for rape and incest.

 Supports he favors exceptions for rape and incest. Carly Fiorina: Supports exceptions for rape and incest.

 Supports exceptions for rape and incest. Rand Paul: Proposed a constitutional amendment applying the 14th Amendment at the moment of conception, which would outlaw all abortions, including those resulting from rape and incest.

 Proposed a constitutional amendment applying the 14th Amendment at the moment of conception, which would outlaw all abortions, including those resulting from rape and incest. Chris Christie: Supports exceptions for rape and incest.

 Supports exceptions for rape and incest. Lindsey Graham: Supports exceptions for rape and incest.

 Supports exceptions for rape and incest. Bobby Jindal: Opposes exceptions for rape and incest.

 Opposes exceptions for rape and incest. Rick Santorum: Opposes exceptions for rape and incest.

 Opposes exceptions for rape and incest. Mike Huckabee: Opposes exceptions for rape and incest; even defended the government of Paraguay for denying an abortion to an 11-year-old girl who had been raped by her stepfather.

 Opposes exceptions for rape and incest; even defended the government of Paraguay for denying an abortion to an 11-year-old girl who had been raped by her stepfather. Jim Gilmore: Unclear.

 Unclear. George Pataki: Supports keeping Roe v. Wade; would presumably support rape and incest exceptions, though I was unable to find any references to him addressing them specifically.

 For good measure, the departed Scott Walker also opposed exceptions for rape and incest. That leaves us with this: 14 of the 15 remaining Republican candidates want to overturn Roe v. Wade, and 7 out of the 15 would ban abortion with no exceptions for rape and incest.

 As I said, you can argue that opposing those exceptions is a philosophically consistent position. But you can’t argue that it isn’t radical, when a majority of both Democrats and Republicans disagree, and the belief is shared by as little as 15 percent of the American public.

 We’ve talked a lot about how the Republican candidates are being pulled to the right by their base on the issue of immigration, and how that could damage the eventual nominee’s prospects in the general election. But on abortion, the base isn’t pulling the candidates; they’re out on the rightward extreme already, even more so than their constituents. ||||| Ted Cruz Rafael (Ted) Edward CruzOvernight Health Care — Sponsored by PCMA — Showdown in court over Medicaid overhaul Ted Cruz shares basketball training video as he prepares for one-on-one game with Kimmel Franklin Graham criticizes Trump policy of separating families at border MORE lashed out at Donald Trump Donald John TrumpTrump announces North Dakota rally for June 27 Kim Kardashian on running for office: ‘Never say never’ State Dept. warns Americans of terrorist threat at World Cup MORE on Wednesday for saying that women who get abortions illegally should be punished.

 “Once again Donald Trump has demonstrated that he hasn’t seriously thought through the issues, and he’ll say anything just to get attention,” Cruz said in a statement.

 “On the important issue of the sanctity of life, what’s far too often neglected is that being pro-life is not simply about the unborn child; it’s also about the mother — and creating a culture that respects her and embraces life.

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 "Of course we shouldn’t be talking about punishing women; we should affirm their dignity and the incredible gift they have to bring life into the world,” he added.

 Trump was asked what a nationwide ban on abortion would look like in an interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthews.

 “The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment,” Trump said.

 “For the woman?” Matthews asked.

 “Yeah, there has to be some form,” Trump responded.

 Trump's comments sparked a firestorm. The celebrity businessman later attempted to walk back the comments in a statement released later on Wednesday.

 “If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman,” Trump said.

 “The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb. My position has not changed — like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions.” |||||
What is a shorter version of the above article?

– Donald Trump entered the national abortion debate on Wednesday as smoothly as a burning oil tanker slamming into a fireworks warehouse. After causing an outcry by saying that if abortions are banned, women who have them should be punished, he went on to claim the issue was "unclear" before issuing a statement saying that doctors, not women who have abortions, would be the ones to be punished if abortion was outlawed. "My position has not changed—like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions," he insisted. A roundup of reactions: The statements came amid what Politico calls "24 hours of mayhem" for Trump that also included scrapping his GOP loyalty pledge, a fresh line of attack in the Corey Lewandowski case, and complaining about the Geneva Conventions. Politico predicts that with the party now hopelessly divided, a contested GOP convention is almost inevitable. Ben Carson offered a very Carsonesque defense of Trump in a CNN interview. "I don't think he really had a chance to really think about it," Carson said, adding that Trump was able to "come up with a more rational and informed type of answer" after talking to advisers. Carson said he agreed with Trump's latter position that abortion providers, not women, should be the ones to be punished if the US ever bans abortion. Ted Cruz didn't pass up the opportunity to slam Trump, the Hill reports. Trump "has demonstrated that he hasn't seriously thought through the issues, and he'll say anything just to get attention," Cruz said in a statement. "We shouldn't be talking about punishing women; we should affirm their dignity and the incredible gift they have to bring life into the world," added Cruz, who, unlike Trump, does not support exceptions for rape and incest under an abortion ban, according to the Washington Post. Some anti-abortion activists are just as outraged as pro-choice groups by Trump's earlier comments, the New York Times reports. They say the call to punish women shows that Trump's shift toward being anti-abortion is very recent—and insincere. "No pro-lifer would ever want to punish a woman who has chosen abortion," says the president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund. "We invite a woman who has gone down this route to consider paths to healing, not punishment." The Washington Post fact-checks Trump's claim that his change of position mirrors Reagan's, finding that this time, Trump is not "glaringly incorrect," although the comparison is a "gratuitous one that lacks historical context, and not analogous to his own evolution." The Post gives him two Pinocchios on a scale that goes to four.


Here is a news article: MasterCard to use selfies for security 2:41 AM ET Wed, 24 Feb 2016

 MasterCard customers will soon be able to replace their passwords with a "selfie" and a fingerprints to verify their identity and make payments online.

 The payment processing company confirmed the decision to introduce biometric checks this week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

 Ann Cairns, head of international markets for MasterCard, told CNBC that biometric checks had been trialled in the U.S. and the Netherlands and will be launching them in the U.K. soon.

 "I think the whole biometric space is a great way of protecting yourself when you are doing payments," she said. "There are a whole range of biometrics that say 'I'm me, I'm making a payment' and it just makes the whole thing more secure." ||||| Image copyright Mastercard Image caption Users will have to blink while using the Identity Check app's selfie feature

 Credit card firm Mastercard has confirmed it will accept selfie photos and fingerprints as an alternative to passwords when verifying IDs for online payments.

 It follows a trial of the software carried out in the US and Netherlands last year.

 The company told the BBC that 92% of its test subjects preferred the new system to passwords.

 One expert said that such biometric checks had the potential to cut fraud.

 However, some security researchers have questioned how easy it might be to spoof the system.

 Image copyright Mastercard Image caption A notification will tell users when they need to verify their ID after using a shopping website

 Blink test

 Mastercard announced the move at the Mobile World Congress tech show in Barcelona.

 It said the rollout this summer would involve the UK, US, Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.

 It explained that members of the public would have to download an application to their PC, tablet or smartphone to use the system.

 Image copyright Mastercard Image caption Users will be given the option of using a fingerprint instead of a selfie

 When they make an online purchase, they will still need to provide their credit card details as normal.

 But if a further authentication check is required, they will be asked to look at their phone's camera or use its fingerprint sensor rather than be told to type in selected letters from their password, as is the case at the moment.

 If the user opts for a selfie, they will have to blink into the camera to prove they are not just holding up a photo.

 Image copyright Mastercard Image caption The device on which the purchase is made confirms the ID check after it is carried out on a phone

 "Consumers hate passwords," declared Ajay Bhalla, chief of the firm's safety and security division.

 "We know the most commonly used password is 123456, so they are not secure, and people also use the same passwords for multiple sites. If one site gets hacked all the places that you use the same password get compromised - they are a big pain.

 "In the modern world everyone has a mobile phone and there is internet connectivity everywhere. So, we should be able to use biometrics [instead] to authenticate ourselves."

 Compromised checks

 Mastercard is far from the only firm experimenting with facial scans as authentication tools.

 China's e-commerce giant Alibaba recently demoed a pay-with-your-face system of its own.

 And both Microsoft's Windows 10 and Google's Android operating systems already allow users to unlock devices by looking at their cameras.

 Image copyright Microsoft Image caption Microsoft's Windows Hello software can also use iris scans as a biometric test

 Security researchers have pointed out that both facial scans and fingerprint sensors can be compromised.

 Even so, Mastercard insists its other security mechanisms should be able to prevent or at least detect suspicious behaviour.

 In addition, it says the facial scans and fingerprint data will not be transmitted in a form that could be intercepted, stolen or used by scammers.

 Battling fraud

 Smart wallet systems including Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Android Pay have already introduced consumers to the concept of using their fingerprints to authorise payments.

 Many Japanese bank ATMs also have a reader that scans the vein patterns beneath customers' fingers to let them withdraw cash.

 One expert said other biometric tests could soon become the norm.

 "Having one or more required authentication factors tied to who you are rather than what you know is going to become critical," said Windsor Holden from the tech consultancy Juniper Research.

 "The problem with online payments has always been that the card doesn't need to be present, hence the credit card companies have charged more for the transactions to cover the costs of fraud.

 "If they can introduce a mechanism that makes the system more secure than merely asking for a password, then the hope would be that fraud levels decrease and the savings can be passed back onto merchants, and perhaps consumers too."

 Follow all the BBC's MWC coverage via the "Mobile World Congress 2016" tag in our news app.

 You can also keep track of our technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones and the rest of the team covering the Barcelona event via a dedicated Twitter list. |||||
A summary of this is?

– We're all taking selfies all the time anyway, so we might as well put them to good use. The Verge reports MasterCard is rolling out "selfie pay" in 14 countries. If additional authentication is needed after online shoppers enter their credit card info, MasterCard users will be able to look into their phone or tablet's camera instead of entering a password, the BBC explains. "Consumers hate passwords," says Ajay Bhalla, MasterCard's chief of safety and security. He says people use terrible, easily hackable passwords. Biometrics, such as facial recognition and the also-debuting fingerprint authentication, could reduce fraud for online shoppers. MasterCard tested out "selfie pay" in the US and Netherlands and found 92% of test subjects liked it. CNBC reports it could make online shopping easier, as MasterCard found 53% of people forget their password at least once a week, leading a third of online shoppers to just give up on buying anything. The next step for MasterCard is using people's heartbeats to verify their identity. People's hearts create their own signature electric signal, and MaserCard is testing out a bracelet that monitors it continuously and sends that information to nearby devices to authenticate the user. Bhalla calls it "constant authentication." But that's still a ways off. MasterCard's facial recognition and fingerprint authentication will be rolled out this year.


Image of specimen. Credit: Jamie Hiscocks An unassuming brown pebble, found more than a decade ago by a fossil hunter in Sussex, has been confirmed as the first example of fossilised brain tissue from a dinosaur.

 The fossil, most likely from a species closely related to Iguanodon, displays distinct similarities to the brains of modern-day crocodiles and birds. Meninges - the tough tissues surrounding the actual brain - as well as tiny capillaries and portions of adjacent cortical tissues have been preserved as mineralised 'ghosts'.

 The results are reported in a Special Publication of the Geological Society of London, published in tribute to Professor Martin Brasier of the University of Oxford, who died in 2014. Brasier and Dr David Norman from the University of Cambridge co-ordinated the research into this particular fossil during the years prior to Brasier's untimely death in a road traffic accident.

 The fossilised brain, found by fossil hunter Jamie Hiscocks near Bexhill in Sussex in 2004, is most likely from a species similar to Iguanodon: a large herbivorous dinosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous Period, about 133 million years ago.

 Finding fossilised soft tissue, especially brain tissue, is very rare, which makes understanding the evolutionary history of such tissue difficult. "The chances of preserving brain tissue are incredibly small, so the discovery of this specimen is astonishing," said co-author Dr Alex Liu of Cambridge's Department of Earth Sciences, who was one of Brasier's PhD students in Oxford at the time that studies of the fossil began.

 The video will load shortly Animation of specimen. Credit: University of Manchester

 According to the researchers, the reason this particular piece of brain tissue has been so well-preserved is that the dinosaur's brain was essentially 'pickled' in a highly acidic and low-oxygen body of water - similar to a bog or swamp - shortly after its death. This allowed the soft tissues to become mineralised before they decayed away completely, so that they could be preserved.

 "What we think happened is that this particular dinosaur died in or near a body of water, and its head ended up partially buried in the sediment at the bottom," said Norman. "Since the water had little oxygen and was very acidic, the soft tissues of the brain were likely preserved and cast before the rest of its body was buried in the sediment."

 Working with colleagues from the University of Western Australia, the researchers used scanning electron microscope (SEM) techniques in order to identify the tough membranes, or meninges, that surrounded the brain itself, as well as strands of collagen and blood vessels. Structures that could represent tissues from the brain cortex (its outer layer of neural tissue), interwoven with delicate capillaries, also appear to be present. The structure of the fossilised brain, and in particular that of the meninges, shows similarities with the brains of modern-day descendants of dinosaurs, namely birds and crocodiles.

 In typical reptiles, the brain has the shape of a sausage, surrounded by a dense region of blood vessels and thin-walled vascular chambers (sinuses) that serve as a blood drainage system. The brain itself only takes up about half of the space within the cranial cavity.

 Environmental scanning electron microscopy images of tubular structures on the exterior of the Bexhill iguanodontian cranial endocast and within the outer laminar layer, interpreted here as meningeal blood vessels. Credit: David Norman

 In contrast, the tissue in the fossilised brain appears to have been pressed directly against the skull, raising the possibility that some dinosaurs had large brains which filled much more of the cranial cavity. However, the researchers caution against drawing any conclusions about the intelligence of dinosaurs from this particular fossil, and say that it is most likely that during death and burial the head of this dinosaur became overturned, so that as the brain decayed, gravity caused it to collapse and become pressed against the bony roof of the cavity.

 "As we can't see the lobes of the brain itself, we can't say for sure how big this dinosaur's brain was," said Norman. "Of course, it's entirely possible that dinosaurs had bigger brains than we give them credit for, but we can't tell from this specimen alone. What's truly remarkable is that conditions were just right in order to allow preservation of the brain tissue - hopefully this is the first of many such discoveries."

 "I have always believed I had something special. I noticed there was something odd about the preservation, and soft tissue preservation did go through my mind. Martin realised its potential significance right at the beginning, but it wasn't until years later that its true significance came to be realised," said paper co-author Jamie Hiscocks, the man who discovered the specimen. "In his initial email to me, Martin asked if I'd ever heard of dinosaur brain cells being preserved in the fossil record. I knew exactly what he was getting at. I was amazed to hear this coming from a world renowned expert like him."

 Explore further: A new brain-warp technique that helps to reconstruct fossil brains

 More information: Geological Society, London, Special Publications (2016). DOI: 10.1144/SP448.3

  ||||| Researchers Say They've Found A Bit Of Fossilized Dinosaur Brain

 Enlarge this image toggle caption Jamie Hiscocks/University of Cambridge Jamie Hiscocks/University of Cambridge

 A rusty-brown rock found on a beach by a fossil hunter might contain a bit of preserved dinosaur brain.

 If so, it would be the first time scientists have ever found fossilized brain tissue from a dinosaur.

 The fossil comes from a species closely related to Iguanodon, a large herbivore that lived about 130 million years ago. A collector named Jamie Hiscocks found it in 2004, near Bexhill in the United Kingdom.

 "He picked it up and noticed that it was slightly unusual in its shape and its texture," says Alex Liu of the University of Cambridge. "There's a series of bumps to this specimen that are quite characteristic of it fitting into the brain case of a dinosaur."

 This kind of fossil gets made when sediment fills up a dinosaur's skull cavity and hardens. Later, if the skull breaks off and disappears, what's left behind is a solid object that reveals the shape of the skull's inner cavity.

 What's different about this particular example, Liu says, is that the outer millimeter or so of this fossil "is actually mineralization of some of the soft tissue structures that were preserved before they decayed away within the original dinosaur brain case."

 The dead dinosaur's head may have fallen into a bog or a swamp, he says, where chemical conditions allowed the soft tissues to become mineralized.

 Hiscocks showed his unusual fossil to Martin Brasier of the University of Oxford, who was the first to recognize that it might contain preserved brain tissue. A team of researchers examined the sample in detail and found what they believe are tough collagen fibers and tiny blood vessels that are part of the protective outer covering of the brain.

 Lower down, they see hints of another textured surface that might be the actual top of the brain itself. "It's a little bit harder to convince yourself that it's definitely there," Liu says, "just because it is deeper within the specimen so it's harder to see it on the surface. But we think that we have actually got some of that tissue preserved, as well."

 One member of the research team is describing the find Thursday at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Salt Lake City. A full report appears in a special publication of the Geological Society of London that's a tribute to Brasier, who died in 2014 before he was able to publish on this find.

 Any claim of preserved soft tissue from a dinosaur tends to be controversial, and the idea that scientists might have part of an actual brain is going to get a lot of scrutiny.

 "That's a remarkable claim, just because brain tissue turns out to be one of the first things that decomposes after an animal dies," says Lawrence Witmer of Ohio University, a paleontologist who studies the soft tissues of dinosaur heads.

 He thinks the scientists make a "compelling case" that they have part of the protective outer covering of the brain.

 "What's potentially even more exciting is that they are very cautious, as good scientists are, about the possibility that they might even have some preservation of the neural tissue of the brain underneath," notes Witmer, who says this is a surprise. "We would never expect to see actual brain tissue preserved."

 Witmer thinks the bar for evidence should be very high. "These are, in a sense, extraordinary claims," he says.

 Amy Balanoff of the Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution at Johns Hopkins University calls the find "intriguing." But she'd like to see comparisons to the anatomy of birds or crocodiles, and she wants to see more details on the branching pattern of the putative blood vessels.

 "I'm not convinced," says Mark Norell of the American Museum of Natural History. He's concerned that the paper describing the find was published even though the fossil specimen is not yet in a public repository, such as a museum, where others can study it. What's more, he thinks the report generally doesn't reflect the state-of-the-art knowledge on dinosaur brain anatomy.

 If the finding stands up to scrutiny, it's unclear what the discovery could reveal about dinosaurs' intellectual capacity.

 In modern reptiles, Liu says, the brain does not take up the whole brain cavity. The brain is surrounded by a lot of protective, spongy tissue. But in this fossil, the brain's protective covering seems to be thin, suggesting that the brain was filling more of the cavity and the dinosaur could have had a greater mental capacity.

 "Understanding of dinosaurs as a whole has changed completely in the last 20 or 30 years. Dinosaurs are now seen to be much more mobile, agile, smart creatures," Liu says, "and this is just one line of evidence that supports that view."

 One thing that's almost certain is that scientists will now be going back and looking with new eyes at old fossils that are already in collections, according to Witmer.

 "It's not like we didn't think dinosaurs had brains," Witmer says, but "if you don't know what you're looking for, you're not likely to find it." |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– Are we one step closer to Jurassic Park? Probably not, but researchers do believe they've found the first ever example of fossilized brain tissue from a dinosaur, National Geographic reports. The fossil was found on an English beach in 2004, but its unique trait—mineralized pieces of brain tissue—was announced in a study Thursday. "The chances of preserving brain tissue are incredibly small, so the discovery of this specimen is astonishing," Phys.org quotes study coauthor Alex Liu as saying. Researchers believe the dinosaur, a relative of the Iguanodon, sank upside down into a pond after it died. The pond water "essentially pickled" the dinosaur's brain, and the pickled tissue was eventually replaced by minerals. The outer millimeter of the fossil seems to include mineralized blood vessels and bits of the membrane that covered the brain, NPR reports. Researchers believe it may also contain mineralized pieces of the brain itself. “That is the nearest I suspect we’re ever going to get to the whole [brain],” paleontologist David Norman tells NatGeo. One result of the new discovery: Researchers say it may show dinosaurs were smarter than we've been giving them credit for. In modern reptiles, the brain doesn't take up the entire brain case in the skull. That appears not to have been the case in this dinosaur, meaning it may have had a larger brain than previously believed. Norman says it appears the dino was at least as smart as a modern crocodile. (A bus-sized dinosaur comes with a surprise.)


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– The Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban for promoting girls' education rights is in stable condition at a military hospital, the AFP reports. Malala Yousufzai, 14, moved her limbs yesterday but is still unconscious on a ventilator. Doctors had reduced her sedative to let neurosurgeons assess her, "and as a result of it Malala responded and moved her hands and feet," said a military spokesman. "It is a positive development." In other developments: Tens of thousands today marched through Karachi, Pakistan's most populated city, in Malala's name—bringing public outcry to the level of protests over Innocence of Muslims, the AP reports. Pakistan's right-wing Islamic parties may be responsible for the delay; they have shied from criticizing Malala's shooting because they share the Taliban's desire for Islamic law. In Swat Valley, where Malala lived, one of her classmates promised she will return to school with Malala one day. "She will recover and we will go back to school and study together again," Shazia Ramzan told the Daily Mail. In trying to kill Malala, the Taliban turned her into a global icon for the girls' education movement, writes Scott Gold at the LA Times. "The idea has been flourishing in some of the world's most destitute and volatile places," writes Gold. "Today, courtesy of the Pakistani Taliban, it has a face." Click for his full article.

A Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taleban showed signs of improvement by moving her limbs Saturday, the military said, though she remains unconscious and on a ventilator.

 The shooting of 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai, who campaigned for the right to an education, has been denounced worldwide and by the Pakistani authorities, who have offered a reward of more than $100,000 for the capture of her attackers.

 “The sedation given to Malala was reduced on Saturday so that neurosurgeons could do their clinical assessment and as a result of it Malala responded and moved her hands and feet,” military spokesman Major General Asim Saleem Bajwa said.

 “It is a positive development,” Bajwa told a press conference near Army headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, close to the capital Islamabad, where Malala is being treated in a military hospital.

 “As per doctors, (the) condition of Malala is stable.”

 A team of specialist doctors are providing “constant care” to Malala and all “contingencies” were in place in case they decide to move her abroad for further treatment, the general said.

 “It is a case of serious head injury and the progress is very slow in it.”

 Two other girl students wounded with Malala were “also being taken care of at places where they can get best treatment”, he said, without elaborating.

 Bajwa said that all available resources were being used to investigate the incident and some arrests had been made, but he declined to say how many people were currently in custody and how many had been let go.

 Asked whether the military might now consider launching an offensive against the Taleban in their tribal area stronghold of North Waziristan, on the Afghan border, Bajwa said: “Such decisions are not taken overnight.”

 A military statement earlier said: “(The) health condition of Malala continues to remain satisfactory. Her vitals are okay and she is still on ventilator.”

 Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf visited Malala on Friday, paying tribute to her and two friends who were also wounded when a gunman boarded their school bus on Tuesday and opened fire.

 “It was not a crime against an individual but a crime against humanity and an attack on our national and social values,” he told reporters, pledging renewed vigour in Pakistan’s struggle with Islamist militancy.

 Bajwa Friday said the next 36 to 48 hours would be critical for Malala.

 The attack has sickened Pakistan, where Malala won international prominence with a blog for the BBC that highlighted atrocities under the Taliban who terrorised the Swat valley from 2007 until a 2009 army offensive.

 Activists say the shooting should be a wake-up call to those who advocate appeasement with the Taleban, but analysts suspect there will be no seismic shift in a country that has sponsored radical Islam for decades.

 Schools opened with prayers for Malala on Friday and special prayers were held at mosques across the country for her speedy recovery at the country’s top military hospital in the city of Rawalpindi.

 The Defence of Pakistan Council, an Islamist alliance which earlier this year carried out major rallies across Pakistan against the resumption of NATO supply lines through the country cautioned against the attack on Malala being used as a reason to launch fresh military offensives against militants.

 “We strongly condemn this attack, but it should not be used as a pretext to launch military offensive in North Waziristan,” alliance chairman Maulana Samiul Haq told a press conference in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir.

 “It would be suicidal and affect the entire country. We appeal to the military not to commit any such mistake,” Haq said.

 “The way (US President Barack) Obama has responded to the incident clearly indicates the intentions. We will not let it happen,” Haq said.

 “The world does not see or condemn killing of countless innocent girls and children in drone attacks by America, but now they are reacting to this incident,” Haq said.

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 ERROR: Macro /ads/dfp-ad-article-new is missing! ||||| We WILL defy the Taliban and go back to school, says friend shot with brave Malala

 Shazia Ramzan was hit in the shoulder and hand on the school bus

 Malala had told her she thought she would be targeted by the Taliban

 Speaking out: Shazia Razman, 14, was shot twice at the same time as her best friend Malala Yousafzai (inset) who is now in hospital

 The best friend of the 14-year-old Pakistani girl shot in the head by the Taliban yesterday vowed to defy the extremists again and return to school with her.

 Shazia Ramzan watched in horror as classmate Malala Yousafzai was shot beside her on their school bus, before the gunman turned and shot her too.

 Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday, brave Shazia, also 14, who was hit in the shoulder and hand, said: ‘She will recover and we will go back to school and study together again.’

 As Shazia sat up in her hospital bed, Malala was yesterday still critically ill in a hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, after being shot by the Taliban gunman as she travelled home on a school bus in Mingora in the strife-torn Swat Valley on Tuesday.

 Malala, who from the age of 11 defied the Taliban to write a blog for the BBC championing education for girls, was targeted by the extremists, who believe girls should be kept at home and barred from school.

 In hospital in Peshawar, Shazia said Malala had told classmates she might be a target but refused to hide from the Taliban.

 She also described the callous way the gunman shot Malala in the head and then turned his gun on her and another of Malala’s classmates before fleeing.

 Support: Afghan students show their support for Malala who was shot on the school bus by Taliban extremists

 ‘Malala told us she had been threatened by the extremists,’ she said. ‘She said she had been speaking too much against mujahideen [Taliban] and they might do something to her.’

 Describing Tuesday’s attack, she said: ‘It was just a normal school day. We were coming home after our second-term exams. The bus was taking the usual route.

 ‘Then it suddenly stopped and two men confronted us. They asked, “Which one of you is Malala?” Some of the girls started to talk and then one of the men opened fire. All the girls started crying and shouting. Malala was hit in the head and fell to the floor unconscious. There was blood everywhere. I was in total shock.

 ‘Then the man with the gun fired at me and another girl and ran away. We were all just so traumatised and shocked. Everything happened so quickly.

 Solidarity: People light candles to pray for the recovery of Malala Yousafzai in Lahore, Pakistan. Her best friend has vowed that they will return to school

 ‘The bus driver raced us to hospital. It was chaotic because everyone was screaming and crying and Malala was lying on the floor in front of me.’

 Shazia had been hit by two bullets. By yesterday, however, she was well enough to walk around her bed in the Combined Military Hospital. The third girl had comparatively minor injuries.

 Target: Malala had been told extremists wanted to harm her after she spoke out against them

 Explaining the build-up to the attack, Shazia said: ‘Malala would talk to us about the dangers she was facing but refused to change the way she lived. She just said the extremists might do something to her because she had spoken out against them so much and they might want to harm her.

 ‘She knew something might happen but she never let it affect her. She refused to be anything other than a normal schoolgirl.’

 Shazia said she was disgusted with the men who carried out the attack. ‘We don’t know who they were but I am sure they were the people Malala had been warned about,’ she said.

 As she prepared to go home to her family, Shazia said her greatest wish was to return to school with Malala – even though the Taliban has threatened to return and kill Malala.

 ‘With the grace of God, I am completely all right now. Malala will recover soon too, I hope. We will go back to school and study together again.

 ‘I am praying for Malala and praying she can join her school friends again as soon as possible. The whole nation is praying for her and I am sure she will make a full recovery.’ Shazia’s father Muhammad Ramzan, 50, who runs a bakery in Mingora, said he was horrified by the attack.

 ‘We have never been enemies with anyone,’ he said. ‘I don’t know who did this. Malala was outspoken and she had told her classmates something like this could happen but we never imagined it would happen in this way.’

 Injured: Hospital staff assists Malala at the Saidu Sharif Teaching Hospital in the Swat Valley

 Malala’s uncle Mehmood-ul-Hassan Yousafzai said her condition was improving. Doctors said the next 48 hours would be critical to her recovery. ||||| A supporter of Pakistani political party Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), reacts while holding a poster of 14-year-old schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai, who was shot last Tuesday by the Taliban for speaking... (Associated Press)

 Tens of thousands rallied in Pakistan's largest city Sunday in the biggest show of support yet for a 14-year-old girl who was shot and seriously wounded by the Taliban for promoting girls' education and criticizing the militant group.

 The Oct. 9 attack on Malala Yousufzai as she was returning home from school in Pakistan's northwest horrified people inside and outside the country. At the same time, it gave hope to some that the government would respond by intensifying its fight against the Taliban and their allies.

 But protests against the shooting have been relatively small until now, usually attracting no more than a few hundred people. That response pales in comparison to the tens of thousands of people who held violent protests in Pakistan last month against a film produced in the United States that denigrated Islam's Prophet Muhammad.

 Demonstrations in support of Malala _ and against rampant militant violence in the country in general _ have also been fairly small compared with those focused on issues such as U.S. drone attacks and the NATO supply route to Afghanistan that runs through Pakistan.

 Right-wing Islamic parties and organizations in Pakistan that regularly pull thousands of supporters into the streets to protest against the U.S. have less of an incentive to speak out against the Taliban. The two share a desire to impose Islamic law in the country _ even if they may disagree over the Taliban's violent tactics.

 Pakistan's mainstream political parties are also often more willing to harangue the U.S. than direct their people power against Islamist militants shedding blood across the country _ partly out of fear and partly because they rely on Islamist parties for electoral support.

 One of the exceptions is the political party that organized Sunday's rally in the southern port city of Karachi, the Muttahida Quami Movement. The party's chief, Altaf Hussain, criticized both Islamic and other mainstream political parties for failing to organize rallies to protest the attack on Malala.

 He called the Taliban gunmen who shot the girl "beasts" and said it was an attack on "the ideology of Pakistan."

 "Malala Yousufzai is a beacon of knowledge. She is the daughter of the nation," Hussain told the audience by telephone from London, where he is in self-imposed exile because of legal cases pending against him in Pakistan. His party is strongest in Karachi.

 Many of the demonstrators carried the young girl's picture and banners praising her bravery and expressing solidarity.

 The leaders of Pakistan's main Islamic parties have criticized the shooting, but have also tried to redirect the conversation away from Taliban violence and toward civilian casualties from U.S. drone attacks.

 Cyril Almeida, a columnist for Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, said this type of "obfuscation" prevents Pakistanis from seeing "there is a continuum from the religious right to violent Islamism."

 "The religious right creates an enabling environment for violent Islamism to recruit and prosper. And violent Islamism makes state and society cower and in doing so enhances the space for the religious right," Almeida wrote in a column Sunday.

 Malala earned the enmity of the Pakistani Taliban for publicizing their behavior when they took over the northwestern Swat Valley, where she lived, and for speaking about the importance of education for girls.

 The group first started to exert its influence in Swat in 2007 and quickly extended its reach to much of the valley by the next year. They set about imposing their will on residents by forcing men to grow beards, preventing women from going to the market and blowing up many schools _ the majority for girls.

 Malala wrote about these practices in a journal for the BBC under a pseudonym when she was just 11. After the Taliban were pushed out of the Swat Valley in 2009 by the Pakistani military, she became even more outspoken in advocating for girls' education. She appeared frequently in the media and was given one of the country's highest honors for civilians for her bravery.

 The military carried out its offensive in Swat after a video surfaced of a militant flogging a woman who had allegedly committed adultery, which helped mobilize public support against the Taliban.

 Many hope the shooting of Malala will help push the military to undertake a long-awaited offensive in the Pakistani Taliban's last main sanctuary in the country in the North Waziristan tribal area.

 The Pakistani Taliban said they carried out the shooting because Malala was promoting "Western thinking." Police have arrested at least three suspects in connection with the attack, but the two gunmen who carried out the shooting remain at large.

 The young girl was shot in the neck, and the bullet headed toward her spine. Two of her classmates were also wounded in the attack.

 Doctors at a military hospital operated on Malala to remove the bullet from her neck, and she was put on a ventilator. Her condition improved somewhat on Saturday when she was able to move her legs and hands after her sedatives were reduced.

 On Sunday, she was successfully taken off the ventilator for a short period and later reconnected to avoid fatigue, the military said. Doctors are satisfied she is making slow and steady progress and will decide whether to send her abroad for treatment. They have not said whether she suffered any brain damage or other type of permanent damage.

 The United Arab Emirates plans to send a specialized aircraft to serve as an ambulance for the girl in case doctors decide to send her abroad, the Pakistani ambassador to the country, Jamil Ahmed Khan, said Sunday.

 Visas are being finalized for the air ambulance crew and six doctors who will accompany the flight, Khan told Pakistan's Geo TV. Arrangements have been made to treat the girl at three hospitals in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, he said.

 The UAE Embassy in Islamabad could not immediately be reached for comment.

 No decision has yet been taken to send the girl abroad, but the air ambulance is part of the contingency plan, the Pakistani military said.

 Afghan President Hamid Karzai has written letters to top political and religious leaders in Pakistan denouncing the attack on Yousufzai and asking them to help battle extremism in both countries, the president's office said in a statement issued late Saturday. Karzai wrote that he views the shooting as an attack on Afghanistan's girls as well.

 ____

 Abbot reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Asif Shahzad, Zarar Khan and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Deb Riechmann in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report. ||||| Malala Yousafzai did not trade in her modest head scarf for a pair of skinny jeans. She wanted to go to school.

 For that, the Taliban tried to kill her. When her attackers learned that the freckled 14-year-old Pakistani might survive, they promised to finish the job. Malala, they explained, had been "promoting Western culture."

 The Taliban has committed all manner of atrocities over the years, many of them aimed at women. This time, the militants created an icon for a global movement — for the notion that the most efficient way to propel developing countries is to educate their girls. The idea has been flourishing in some of the world's most destitute and volatile places. Today, courtesy of the Pakistani Taliban, it has a face.

 PHOTOS: Malala Yousafzai

 "People think 'Western values' is wearing jeans and sipping pop. Malala was doing none of that," said Murtaza Haider, a Pakistan native and the associate dean of research and graduate programs at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto's Ryerson University. "All she said was: 'Would you be kind enough to reopen my school?' This is what the Taliban thinks is a 'Western value.' This is not a Western value. This is a universal value."

 Pakistan's Swat Valley, where Malala grew up, is rich in agriculture and minerals, and ringed like a halo by mountains with perennial snow. There are falcons and peridot-colored lakes, and, for a time, there was the country's only ski resort. Queen Elizabeth II visited in the 1960s.

 Then, in 2003, came an arm of the Taliban, which imposed strict religious law, as it had in neighboring Afghanistan. Music was banned. Men would wear beards. And girls would no longer go to school.

 This last bit did not sit well with Malala. When she was all of 11 years old, she started a diary about life under the Taliban's thumb.

 Entries in that diary were published by the BBC. Malala became something of a celebrity, featured in documentaries, insisting to visiting journalists that she still had rights — "to play," she said, "to sing." Most of all: "I have the right of education." She knew she was risking her life, telling a reporter at one point that if the Taliban tried to kill her, "I'll first say to them: 'What you're doing is wrong.'"

 The communications revolution that is the hallmark of Malala's generation has not yet lived up to its promise of transforming the world economy. But it has ushered in an age of instantaneous, worldwide conversation. When replacement referees in the NFL bungle crucial calls, the debate is won at the moment it begins, and the regular refs are promptly brought back in. When politicians dismiss half the country as "victims" or deliver a lackluster debate performance, the public verdict is delivered swiftly.

 Malala lived in one of the few places where that conversation still doesn't resonate. But she had unwittingly tapped into that revolution — and was back in school when she was shot and critically wounded last week. She didn't know it, but she had a voice powerful enough to contest the Taliban.

 Years before she was born, anecdotal evidence collected by development programs suggested the importance of educating girls. Knowledge in girls' heads often meant money in their pockets. And women tended to invest not in themselves, but in their communities — in healthcare, for instance, or nutrition.

 Researchers developed metrics to measure the effect. Educated women were more skilled and could make more money, but they also married later and raised healthier children. They had lower rates of disease. Extrapolate from there and the results ballooned from primary education to more efficient local government, even democratic reform.

 That movement has caught fire.

 In 2009, the book "Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide" made the compelling argument that this is the defining social issue of the 21st century, as rejecting slavery defined the 19th and fighting totalitarianism defined the 20th.

 The book spawned a television series that aired this fall. A film, "Girl Rising," documenting the struggles of girls seeking an education, is to arrive in theaters next spring and air on CNN. The movie is the centerpiece of 10x10, a global action campaign for girls education.

 Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has steered the weight of the U.S. government toward the issue, and more foreign aid has been earmarked for girls education. Corporate partners have signed on to the cause.

 "It's just that moment, the moment when you put your finger on the pulse of the problem," said Maro Chermayeff, executive producer of "Half the Sky's" outreach effort. "People are starting to understand that incredible untapped potential: the army of change that girls can be."

 Richard Robbins, director of "Girl Rising," now has a photo of Malala on his desk in Los Angeles. Traveling to Haiti, Sierra Leone and elsewhere for the film, Robbins said he found that girls encountered a host of obstacles to education: geographic isolation, for instance, or the sense that school is not a good investment because there's no job at the other end.

 "But there are very few people in the world now who are actually against education," Robbins said. "This idea that it's dangerous for a girl to have knowledge — this is the last gasp of that idea, which was pretty prevalent 200 years ago, everywhere in the world."

 There is always room for cynicism in Malala's corner of the world. Pakistan has blown numerous opportunities to combat extremism. With the planned withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan, some see an opening for more Taliban influence in the region, not less. As one Pakistani journalist tweeted: "For everyone who seems to think Malala's assassination attempt is some 'moment' — Pakistan had lots of them and guess what happened? Nothing."

 But even some hardened observers see suggestions of lasting effects. Women have protested with signs assailing the Taliban by name — unthinkable in some pockets of Pakistan. Few thought that a promised reward for information leading to Malala's assailants would do any good. On Friday, police announced that several men had been detained.

 "There's definitely international condemnation, but in equal amount there's condemnation in Pakistan," said Shamila Chaudhary, a former director for Pakistan and Afghanistan at the White House National Security Council, now a senior South Asia fellow at the New America Foundation.

 PHOTOS: Malala Yousafzai

 Some believe the attempt to kill Malala could propel the girls education movement into the Swat Valley — and then, perhaps, pose an existential threat to the Taliban.

 Shabana Basij-Rasikh attended college in the U.S. and has returned home to Afghanistan to open one of that nation's first boarding schools for girls. Students who live in regions under Taliban control attend in secret, she said. Some hide their school books in grocery bags, just as she did when she grew up under Taliban rule.

 "What Malala has achieved, the military could not," Basij-Rasikh said.

 scott.gold@latimes.com |||||


Here is a news article: HILVERSUM, Netherlands (AP) — A 19-year-old gunman who stormed into the headquarters of Dutch national broadcaster NOS demanding airtime Thursday night claimed to be from a "hackers' collective," according to a reporter who spoke to the man.

 A member of security forces is seen outside the Media Park in Hilversum, Netherlands, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015. A gunman entered the headquarters of Dutch national broadcaster NOS outside Amsterdam on... (Associated Press)

 Security forces are seen outside the Media Park in Hilversum, Netherlands, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015. A gunman entered the headquarters of Dutch national broadcaster NOS outside Amsterdam on Thursday and... (Associated Press)

 Security forces are seen outside the Media Park in Hilversum, Netherlands, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015. A gunman entered the headquarters of Dutch national broadcaster NOS outside Amsterdam on Thursday and... (Associated Press)

 A police vehicle enters the Media Park in Hilversum, Netherlands, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015, where a gunman entered the headquarters of Dutch national broadcaster NOS outside Amsterdam on Thursday and demanded... (Associated Press)

 Security forces are seen outside the Media Park in Hilversum, Netherlands, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015. A gunman entered the headquarters of Dutch national broadcaster NOS outside Amsterdam on Thursday and... (Associated Press)

 Security forces are seen outside the Media Park in Hilversum, Netherlands, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015. A gunman entered the headquarters of Dutch national broadcaster NOS outside Amsterdam on Thursday and... (Associated Press)

 NOS was off-air for around an hour. When it came back, it showed recorded footage of the young man, wearing a black suit, white shirt and black tie, and carrying a pistol.

 Speaking calmly to someone off-camera, the man said, "We are hired in by intelligence agencies." Shortly after, police arrived with their guns drawn and ordered the man to drop his weapon and put his hands up. At least five police officers then ordered him to turn around and lie down, which he did and he was arrested without a struggle.

 Police said in a statement the man demanded airtime and threatened that bombs would go off at several locations around the Netherlands if his demand wasn't met. Special police units were searching the building.

 Prosecutor Johan Bac, who spoke at a news conference in Hilversum, said the suspect was from the small town of Pijnacker near The Hague. Bac said he was being held on suspicion of making a threat, weapons possession and taking a hostage. The suspect's name wasn't released by the prosecutor.

 Officials said they were still investigating the man's background and the seriousness of the threat he posed.

 "There is a major investigation underway to get clarity as quickly as possible about what happened here tonight," Bac said.

 There was no immediate indication that the incident was related to Islamic extremism. Nobody was injured and there were no reports of shots being fired.

 NOS reporter Martijn Bink said he spoke to the man after he was arrested and he claimed to be from a hackers' collective. He didn't elaborate.

 The broadcaster later reported on its website that the man had a silencer on the pistol and threatened a security guard, forcing him to take him upstairs to the editorial offices.

 When the incident was over, NOS director Jan de Jong told the broadcaster that the headquarters had beefed up security in the aftermath of the attack on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead in Paris. The media park in Hilversum, home to many Dutch broadcasters, has been tightly guarded for years, since populist Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was gunned down in a parking lot there in 2002.

 While the broadcaster was off-air, a screen on the NOS1 channel read "Please be patient" in Dutch. All staff were evacuated from the building as the situation unfolded and remained outside nearly two hours later as police searched the building. NOS resumed broadcasting from a studio in The Hague.

 Staff at NOS led the man into a studio near the studio where the 8 p.m. news was to have been broadcast live. In the studio, he spoke to the security guard he had forced to take him into the offices. He never appeared live on television.

 Calls to NOS offices in Hilversum, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of Amsterdam, went unanswered Thursday night.

 ___

 Mike Corder reported from The Hague. ||||| * Young man in suit arrested in television studio

 * Man threatened security guard, suggested he had accomplices

 * TV says man is student who lost parents, not on jihadist list

 * Dutch minister says man appears to have acted alone (Adds police identifying man as 19-year-old Dutchman)

 By Thomas Escritt and Toby Sterling

 AMSTERDAM, Jan 29 (Reuters) - A 19-year-old Dutchman with a pistol forced his way into the studios of the national broadcaster NOS on Thursday demanding to be allowed to go on air, but was quickly arrested, officials said.

 Wearing a black suit and tie, the man entered the studio after threatening a guard with a pistol, witnesses said. It was unclear how he passed through security, which was increased after the attacks in Paris earlier this month.

 Footage aired on Dutch TV showed the man pacing in the studio with a black pistol behind his back.

 He had intended to speak to the country on the most popular evening news broadcast, but was led to an empty studio by a quick-thinking security guard.

 "This is taking too long," the man said. Then police stormed into the studio yelling, "Drop it! Drop it! And get on your knees!". He dropped the gun, saying, "I dropped it. It's dropped", and the police put handcuffs on him and took him away.

 The man lives in the central Dutch town of Pijnacker, near the university town Delft, officials said, declining to provide details. They refused to comment on media reports that he was a student whose parents had recently died and that he was not on a watchlist of Islamist militants.

 He was being questioned and could be charged with kidnapping, possession of a firearm and threatening people with a weapon, prosecutor Johan Bac said at a press conference.

 No one was hurt, but the NOS television broadcaster cancelled its two main nightly newscasts.

 The man's motive was unclear; the NOS footage showed him saying, "The things that are going to be said (pause) those are very large world affairs. We were hired by the security service."

 Police special forces swept the building for explosives and found nothing, police spokesman Christine Scholts said.

 "We are currently investigating who this man is and what he wants," she said. The police were looking into claims that he had accomplices around the country with explosives.

 "He took the security guard hostage and said he wanted air time. If they didn't give it to him, he said there would be bombs in different places in the Netherlands that would explode if he didn't get time on TV," Scholts said.

 The threats were reportedly also contained in a letter that the man took to the studio, a purported copy of which was aired by the RTL news channel.

 "Realise that I am not on my own," it said. "Furthermore, eight high explosives have been planted that contain radioactive material. If you don't take me to studio 8 to make my broadcast, we will be forced to step into action."

 Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the letter.

 Dutch Minister for Security and Justice Ivo Opstelten told the ANP national news agency the man appeared to have acted alone.

 Security has been tightened across Europe since jihadist attacks on the offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in Paris this month, as well as the killing of two gunmen in Belgium during raids on an Islamist group that authorities said were planning to attack police.

 NOS television said the gunman appeared to be a student who had recently lost both parents. It also said he did not figure on security services' lists of suspected Islamist militants.

 NOS produces the most widely watched television newscast in the Netherlands and is based in the main national broadcast park in Hilversum.

 Security has been tight there since populist politician Pim Fortuyn was shot outside a studio in 2002.

 As the gunman entered the studios on Thursday, NOS's main news channel displayed a message that read, "In connection with circumstances, no broadcast is available at this time." (Writing by Anthony Deutsch. Editing by Kevin Liffey, Susan Fenton, Toni Reinhold) ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The man dropped the fake gun when police stormed the studio

 A man wielding a fake gun has been arrested in a studio of Dutch news broadcaster NOS, causing the main evening bulletins to be cancelled.

 Staff were evacuated from the building in the Media Park in the city of Hilversum.

 The man, smartly dressed and carrying what appeared to be a long pistol, paced around a studio, reportedly demanding airtime.

 Armed police then stormed into the studio and overpowered him.

 Prosecutors later said that the man, aged 19 and from the town of Pijnacker near The Hague, was in police custody.

 He is being held on suspicion of making a threat, weapons possession and taking a hostage, officials added.

 Police combed the building, declaring it safe shortly after 22:00 (21:00 GMT).

 Justice and Safety Minister Ivo Opstelten said it appeared that the man had been acting on his own.

 During the disruption to the NOS news programme, the channel broadcast a message reading: "In connection with circumstances, no broadcast is available at this time."

 Image copyright EPA Image caption Staff were evacuated from the studios while armed police searched the buildings

 The man's motive was unclear. Dutch media reported that he was believed to be a student at a technical university and had been living with his mother and stepfather.

 The NOS footage shows him saying: "The things that are going to be said [pause] - those are very large world affairs. We were hired by the security service."

 A threatening letter the man allegedly gave to staff, warning of bomb and cyber attacks if he was prevented from going on air, has been published on the NOS website (in Dutch).

 A reporter who spoke to him said he had claimed to be from a "hackers' collective", AP news agency says.

 Studio arrest

 When the channel came back on the air, it broadcast video of the man wandering about a studio.

 According to NOS director Jan de Jong, he had wanted to go to the main evening news studio but instead a guard took him to a studio where daytime bulletins are broadcast.

 Dressed in a black suit, white shirt and black tie, and carrying what appeared to be a long black pistol, he can be seen on the video walking around in the studio, which appears to be empty.

 Armed police then storm in, shouting: "Drop it! Drop it! Get on your knees!"

 He drops the gun, saying: "I dropped it. It's dropped."

 Police then put handcuffs on him and take him away.

 According to Mr de Jong, the man had a list of demands and wanted 10 minutes' airtime.

 Controversial politician Pim Fortuyn was shot dead in the Media Park in 2002 after giving a radio interview. ||||| Police said a man who was shown on Dutch TV pacing back and forth in the network’s TV studio with what appeared to be a firearm was actually carrying a fake pistol.

 In video posted online by the Dutch outlet NOS shortly after the incident today, the young man in a suit is shown holding what appears to be a pistol with a silencer attached as he speaks to someone off camera for several minutes in a NOS studio. Eventually, police can be heard entering the room and yelling at the man. He calmly drops the “pistol” and police take him into custody.

 Earlier NOS had reported that its newsroom had been evacuated. The man had demanded airtime, the station said. No shots were reportedly fired and later, police told NOS the weapon was a fake. |||||
A summary of this is?

– A strange drama unfolded today at Dutch national broadcaster NOS, where a young man clad in a suit and wielding what appeared to be a pistol demanded air time before being arrested, reports the BBC. Police later said the pistol was fake, reports ABC News. Authorities have identified the culprit only as a 19-year-old from the town of Pijnacker near the Hague. His apparent plan was to address the nation during the evening news broadcast, but Reuters credits a "quick-thinking security guard" with leading him into an empty studio instead. Video shows him pacing and complaining that "this is taking too long" before several officers enter the studio and arrest him without a struggle. While he was pacing, the man said, "The things that are going to be said (pause) those are very large world affairs. We were hired by the security service." He also had a letter threatening the detonation of radioactive bombs if he didn't get on the air. A NOS reporter said the man told him that he was from a "hackers' collective," without elaboration, reports AP. Though he didn't get on the air, the man did manage to disrupt the national news. Staffers fled the studio, and viewers instead saw a logo on their screens reading, "Please be patient." NOS was off the air about an hour.