Controversial Arizona lawman targeted by credit card scam

PHOENIX (Reuters) - A controversial Arizona lawman, who styles himself "America's Toughest Sheriff" for his relentless pursuit of criminals, said on Tuesday that he has himself become a victim of credit card fraud.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said his credit card information had been used to buy $291 in groceries in Chicago - a city he said he had not visited in years.

A controversial figure for housing county detainees in a Spartan "Tent City" jail and for sweeps targeting illegal immigrants across metro Phoenix, Arpaio said fraudsters used hisDiscover card last week to shop at a Jewel supermarket in the city.

"I haven't been to Chicago since I was a young federal narcotics agent in 1957 ... so I sure couldn't have been buying groceries in that supermarket," Arpaio told Reuters, adding: "This seems to be a widespread problem across our nation."

He said he was alerted to the scam by Discover, and that no arrests had been made.

Bank card fraud is on the rise worldwide. One international study published last year found more than a quarter of consumers reported having been hit by scammers in the previous five years.

Local CBS affiliate KPHO Phoenix reported Arpaio would consider not pressing charges if the perpetrator was struggling, although he said later he had concluded that an organized gang was likely responsible.

"I was just saying 'Jesus, some poor guy in Chicago stole my card number and he had to feed his kids and they had no food' ... but no, this was like an organized effort and whoever's doing this should go to jail for 100 years," he said.

Arpaio was swept to a sixth term in office in November by supporters of his hardline stance on crime and illegal immigration in the Phoenix area. He is also fighting lawsuits from the government and Hispanic drivers who accuse him of civil rights violations and racial profiling, which he denies.

(Reporting by Tim Gaynor; editing by Cynthia Johnston and Christopher Wilson)

North Korea dreams of an American city in flames

SEOUL (Reuters) - New York under missile attack is remote dream for impoverished North Korea, yet that is precisely what the latest propaganda video from the isolated state shows as it readies a third nuclear test.

The video, posted on the semi-official Uriminzokkiri website (http://www.uriminzokkiri.com/) and fast becoming a viral Internet hit, shows a U.S. city in flames in scenes reminiscent of 9/11 -- part of a dream sequence in which a photographer circles the earth in a fictionalised North Korean space shuttle.

The rocket depicted in the crude animation, whose backing track is an instrumental version "We Are the World", is labelled the Unha-9 and the satellite is the Kwangmyongsong-21 as the young man dreams of photographing the earth from space.

"Black smoke is seen somewhere in America," Korean the text of the video says. "It seems that the nest of wickedness is ablaze with the fire it started."

The video was removed from YouTube due to a copyright claim by Activision Games Inc, from whose "Call of Duty" title the images of the burning city appeared to have been taken, but was still accessible elsewhere on the Web.

So far, North Korea has launched the Unha-3 rocket and is also on the third version of its satellite, which finally made it into space in December last year at the third attempt, triggering the new sanctions from the United Nations.

The North is banned by the United Nations from developing missile and nuclear technology but says that it has the sovereign right to a peaceful space programme.

A North Korean space shuttle is beyond the wildest dreams of a country whose economy is smaller than it was 20 years ago and where around a third of children are malnourished.

Despite its bluster and threats to the United States, which the North labels a "hostile" state, Pyongyang is nowhere near being able to deliver a warhead of any kind capable of hitting an American city, although its Unha-3 rocket does have a theoretical range of 10,000 km (6,200 miles) which could reach the U.S. mainland.

North Korea has trailed plans to carry out a third nuclear test, which experts believe is imminent. It could use highly enriched uranium for the first time in a bid to conserve its limited stocks of plutonium used in tests in 2006 and 2009 tests.

Washington has warned that a third test would trigger more sanctions against Pyongyang, but it took a conservative line on the latest agit-prop video from North Korea.

"I've seen it," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told a press conference in Washington, referring to the video that was released at the weekend. "I'm clearly not going to dignify it by speaking about it here."

North Korea remains technically at war with both South Korea and the United States after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

Its hyper-active propaganda machine has threatened on many occasions to turn the South Korean capital Seoul into a "Sea of fire" and it has also labelled South Korean President Lee Myung-bak a "rat bastard" and staged mock killings of him.

The latest video, which by Wednesday had been viewed more than 100,000 times on the Live Leak website, ends denouncing the "schemes of imperialists to isolate and oppress us". (http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=203_1360053143)

"They will not be able to stop our journey toward the final victory," is says.

(Addtional reporting by Paul Eckert in WASHINGTON; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Well this is terrible!

White House defends drone-war killing of Americans

By Olivier Knox, Yahoo! News | The Ticket – 17 hrs ago

A tribesman walks near a building damaged last year by a U.S. drone airstrike targeting suspected al-Qaida militants …The White House on Tuesday defended targeted assassinations of Americans thought to consort overseas with terrorists as “necessary,” “ethical” and “wise,” as the Obama administration faced fresh questions about its sharply expanded drone war.

"We conduct those strikes because they are necessary to mitigate ongoing actual threats—to stop plots, prevent future attacks and, again, save American lives,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters. “These strikes are legal, they are ethical, and they are wise."

Carney’s comments came after NBC News published a Justice Department memo that lays out a broad rationale for targeting individual Americans anywhere outside the U.S. for assassination—without oversight from Congress or the courts, and even if the U.S. citizen in question is not actively plotting a specific terrorist attack.

The 16-page document, obtained by NBC News, emerged days before John Brennan, Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser and the foremost architect of America’s hugely controversial unmanned aerial vehicle war, goes before the Senate Intelligence Committee in a Thursday hearing on his confirmation as CIA director.

Obama campaigned in 2008 as a fierce critic of George W. Bush’s national security policies, notably interrogation practices widely seen as torture. He also left little doubt that he would order unilateral strikes inside another country if he deemed them necessary. In office, he has apparently learned to stop worrying and love executive power—the literal power of life and death over fellow U.S. citizens overseas when he suspects they are consorting with extremists groups that may be targeting America. So, under what circumstances does he have the right to act?

The memo says “an informed, high-level official of the U.S. government” must decide that the target is a "senior operational leader" of al-Qaida or "associated forces"; “poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States”; and that an attempt to capture that individual is “infeasible.”

“Targeting a member of an enemy force who poses an imminent threat of violent attack to the United States is not unlawful. It is a lawful act of self-defense,” the document asserts.

"Imminent threat"? That seems reasonable and is a traditional standard for military action. Except, as NBC investigative reporter Michael Isikoff notes, the memo adds that “the condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.”

Instead, that previously mentioned "high-level official" can determine that the potential target was “recently” involved in “activities” posing a threat of an attack and that “there is no evidence suggesting that he has renounced or abandoned such activities.”

Isikoff notes the memo does not define "activities" or "recently," leaving that up to the administration to determine on a case-by-case basis.

A reporter asked Carney about the case of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the teenage son of Anwar al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida supporter killed by a U.S. drone in Yemen. The boy, 16, was killed in another drone strike about two weeks after his father. Was the son a “senior operational leader” of a terrorist group, a reporter asked. That seemed to stump Carney. “I’m not going to talk about individual operations that may or may not have occurred.”

But Obama wages this 21st-century war in a manner “consistent with the Constitution and our laws,” while aides review the difficult legal and ethical questions “with great care and deliberation,” Carney said.

The memo notes that the president can order a strike against al-Qaida far beyond the battlefield of Afghanistan, and it makes clear that he will not be constrained by national sovereignty. Either a country will give the green light to drone strikes on its territory, or America will strike if that country is "unable or willing" to do so.

This is no surprise. Obama famously said in the 2008 campaign that he would order an attack inside Pakistan to get Osama bin Laden, whether or not Islamabad signed off. He made good on that promise, ordering the raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 1, 2011, which killed the terrorist leader.

The memo is sure to trigger another round of questions from Congress about the drone war, which has been shrouded in secrecy. And it comes at a time when that campaign is powerfully unpopular overseas, according to a June 2012 Pew Research poll. While 62 percent of Americans approve of the approach, 44 percent of respondents in staunch ally Britain do. And the numbers plummet in countries with large Muslim populations: 6 percent in Egypt, for instance, and 9 percent in NATO ally Turkey.

That's in part the reflection of anger over civilian casualties from such attacks. Obama has grappled with that problem ever since the very first drone strike on his watch, a Jan. 23, 2009, attack that reportedly claimed the life of "an innocent tribal elder" in Pakistan. A May 2012 New York Times report said the administration minimizes civilian casualties by counting "all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants."

The memo drew a withering response from the American Civil Liberties Union.

“This is a profoundly disturbing document, and it’s hard to believe that it was produced in a democracy built on a system of checks and balances,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project. “It summarizes in cold legal terms a stunning overreach of executive authority—the claimed power to declare Americans a threat and kill them far from a recognized battlefield and without any judicial involvement before or after the fact.”

Colorado lawmakers want gun owners exposed to civil liability

DENVER (Reuters) - Owners and makers of assault-style weapons would face civil liability under a package of measures unveiled on Tuesday by top lawmakers in Colorado, a state shaken by some of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history.

The bills, introduced by Democrats who control the state legislature, could push Colorado to the forefront of a national gun control debate reignited by several mass shootings last year, including massacres of schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut, and moviegoers in suburban Denver.

Other states such as New York have moved to further restrict military-style assault weapons. But if the measures become law, Colorado would hold owners, manufacturers and distributors of firearms more accountable for gun violence.

Owners of semi-automatic rifles would be subject to strict liability for civil damages caused by their weapons, and state statutes that shield manufacturers, importers and dealers from such liability would be lifted.

Handguns, bolt-action rifles and shotguns would be exempt from the measure.

If passed it would put Colorado at odds with a 2005 federal law protecting gun manufacturers from being held liable for crimes committed with their products.

"Coloradans have asked us to lead on this issue, not to stand idly by while children are being gunned down in schools and movie theaters," state Senate President John Morse said at a news conference in Denver.

The Democrats, who hold a majority in both houses of the Colorado Legislature, also urged passage of bills to ban sales of high-capacity ammunition magazines and to extendbackground checks for gun purchases.

A previous loophole that exempted firearms sales at gun shows from background checks was closed following the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, where two students shot a teacher and 12 students to death before committing suicide.

Columbine stood as the deadliest U.S. public school shooting on record until 20 first-graders and six adults were slain by a gunman in December at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Sandy Hook came five months after 12 people were killed and 58 were wounded by a gunman who opened fire during the midnight screening of a Batman film in the Denver suburb of Aurora.

GOVERNOR OPEN TO DISCUSSION

Flanked by relatives of victims of the Columbine, Sandy Hook and Aurora shootings, Morse and House Speaker Mark Ferrandino also called for measures to prevent individuals under protective orders or convicted of domestic violence from possessing guns.

They further urged requiring concealed-carry permit holders to undergo in-person training.

Governor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, has said he supports universal background checks and legislation to require that involuntary confinements of people with mental illnesses be reported more swiftly to databases used in screening potential gun buyers.

Both those measures were included in the package unveiled on Tuesday.

Beyond that, Hickenlooper "is open to a discussion about magazine limits and other ideas designed to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people," spokesman Eric Brown said.

Spokesmen for the majority leadership said it remained to be seen how many Democrats in the legislature would embrace the various measures in the package.

"Some will have unanimous support and some not so much," said Dean Toda, a spokesman for the House majority.

Firearms ownership remains a politically touchy issue in Colorado despite its recent history of gun violence.

"These proposals cannot make Coloradans safer," Senate Republican leader Bill Cadman said in a statement criticizing the Democratic leadership. "When only criminals have guns, more citizens will become victims."

(Additional reporting and writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Xavier Briand)

Report: Warming bringing big changes to forests

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — Big changes are in store for the nation's forests as global warming increases wildfires and insect infestations, and generates more frequent floods and droughts, the U.S. Department of Agriculture warns in a report released Tuesday.

The compilation of more than 1,000 scientific studies is part of the National Climate Assessment and will serve as a roadmap for managing national forests across the country in coming years.

It says the area burned by wildfires is expected to at least double over the next 25 years, and insect infestations often will affect more land per year than fires.

Dave Cleaves, climate adviser to the chief of the U.S. Forest Service, said climate change has become the primary driver for managing national forests, because it poses a major threat to their ability to store carbon and provide clean water and wildlife habitat.

"One of the big findings of this report is we are in the process of managing multiple risks to the forest," Cleaves said during a conference call on the report. "Climate revs up those stressors and couples them. We have to do a much better job of applying climate smartness ... to how we do forestry."

The federal government has spent about $1 billion a year in recent years combating wildfires. Last year was the warmest on record in the lower 48 states and saw 9.2 million acres burned, the third-highest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's website.

Insect infestations widely blamed on warming temperatures have killed tens of millions of acres of trees.

Forest Service scientist James Vose, the report's lead author, said the research team found that past predictions about how forests will react to climate change largely have come true, increasing their confidence in the current report's predictions.

The report said the increasing temperatures will make trees grow faster in wetter areas of the East but slower in drier areas of the West. Trees will move to higher elevations and more northern latitudes, and disappear from areas on the margins of their range.

Along with more fires and insect infestations, forests will see more flooding, erosion and sediment going into streams, where it chokes fish habitat. More rain than snow will fall in the mountains, shortening ski seasons but lengthening hiking seasons. More droughts will make wildfires, insect infestations, and the spread of invasive species even worse.

The nation's forests currently store 13 percent of the carbon generated by burning fossil fuels every year, and losing trees to fire and insects makes it likely in coming years that forests in the West will start giving off carbon as they decay, the report said. It suggested that burning the trees cut during thinning operations in bioenergy plants to generate electricity would help reduce the carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Beverly Law, professor of global change forest science at Oregon State University, said in an email that her research in Oregon showed that despite more fire, the amount of carbon stored in forests continues to increase.

Tara Hudiburg, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois, said there is little conclusive evidence that burning trees for bioenergy helps reduce overall carbon emissions.

Andy Stahl of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, a watchdog group, said the agency traditionally has been guided by political pressures, and he has seen no evidence that concern over climate change is now playing a role.

Cleaves said climate coordinators are stationed at every national forest across the country, every regional headquarters, and at each research station. The threat of future flooding has prompted the Olympic National Forest in Washington state to start upgrading the culverts that carry storm water runoff on logging roads.

The report did not specifically address whether logging would decrease due to more thinning projects generated by global warming concerns. But it did say that privately owned timberlands would be much quicker to react to market pressures related to global warming than the national forests.

Cleaves said thinning projects designed to make forests more resilient to a changing climate were likely to produce less timber and revenue, because they tend to leave big trees standing.

The Forest Service has struggled to pay for thinning projects that don't generate revenue. Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber has been exploring the idea of tapping state lottery funds to pay the Forest Service to plan timber sales in fire-prone areas.

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