Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/117233
Saturday, March 23, 2013 ��� Daily News 7A WORLD BRIEFING Obama warns of extremist threat in Syria AMMAN, Jordan (AP) ��� Anxious to keep Syria���s civil war from spiraling into even worse problems, President Barack Obama said Friday he worries about the country becoming a haven for extremists when ��� not if ��� President Bashar Assad is ousted from power. Obama, standing side by side with Jordan���s King Abdullah II, said the international community must work together to ensure there is a credible opposition ready to step into the breach. ������Something has been broken in Syria, and it���s not going to be put back together perfectly immediately ��� even after Assad leaves,������ Obama said. ������But we can begin the process of moving it in a better direction, and having a cohesive opposition is critical to that.������ He said Assad is sure to go but there is great uncertainty about what will happen after that. ������I am very concerned about Syria becoming an enclave for extremism,������ Obama said, adding that extremism thrives in chaos and failed states. He said the rest of the world has a huge stake in ensuring that a functioning Syria emerges. Former inmate dies in Texas shootout DECATUR, Texas (AP) ��� A former Colorado inmate and white supremacist at the center of a twostate mystery is dead after a high-speed chase and shootout with Texas deputies. Now investigators are trying to piece together whether he killed the chief of Colorado prisons and a pizza delivery man and where he was headed when Texas police stopped him. Evan Spencer Ebel, 28, is a Colorado parolee with a long record of convictions since 2003 for various crimes including assaulting a prison guard in 2008. He was a member of a white supremacist prison gang called the 211s, a federal law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the case and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. Colorado officials would not confirm Ebel���s gang ties or say whether they had anything to do with the death of prisons director Tom Clements. But they said that, since the Tuesday night killing, state troopers have provided extra security for Colorado government officials. ������We are at a heightened alert,������ said Steve Johnson of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation at a Friday news conference here. Denver police said they were ������confident������ he was also involved in the death of Nathan Leon, 27, the pizza man whose body was found Sunday. 2 teens arrested in slaying of baby in stroller BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) ��� Police arrested two teenagers Friday who are suspected in the shooting death of a 13-month-old baby in a stroller and wounding the baby���s mother during an attempted robbery. Seventeen-year-old De���Marquis Elkins is charged as an adult with first-degree murder, along with a 14-year-old who was not identified because he is a juvenile, Police Chief Tobe Green said. Police announced the arrest Friday afternoon after combing school records and canvassing neighborhoods searching for the pair. The chief said the motive of the ������horrendous act������ was still under investigation and the weapon had not been found. The mother, Sherry West, wept Friday while she told The Associated Press that she pleaded with the gunman and a younger accomplice who approached her Thursday morning while she walked near their home in coastal Brunswick. ������He asked me for money and I said I didn���t have it,������ she said. ������When you have a baby, you spend all your money on babies. They���re expensive. And he kept asking and I just said ���I don���t have it.��� And he said, ���Do you want me to kill your baby?��� And I said, ���No, don���t kill my baby!��������� Cyprus lawmakers to vote on plan NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) ��� Cypriot lawmakers were finalizing Friday a new plan they hope will raise enough money to qualify the country for a bailout package and help it avoid financial ruin next week. Cyprus��� president, Nicos Anastasiades, will travel to Brussels on Saturday to present the plan to the country���s prospective creditors, its fellow eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund. There has been no indication yet that they will accept it. The package of nine laws was expected to be voted on in Parliament Friday night, three days after lawmakers decisively rejected a plan that would have seized up to 10 percent of people���s bank deposits. Cyprus has been told to raise 5.8 billion euros ($7.5 billion) to qualify for 10 billion euros ($12.9 billion) in rescue loans from the eurozone and the IMF. The country faces a pressing Monday deadline, when the European Central Bank has said will stop provide emergency funding to the country���s banks it a new plan is not in place. Without the ECB���s support, Cypriot banks would collapse on Tuesday, pushing the country toward bankruptcy and a potential exit from the 17country euro currency union. FAA to close 149 air traffic control towers CHICAGO (AP) ��� Under orders to trim hundreds of millions of dollars from its budget, the Federal Aviation Administration released a final list Friday of 149 air traffic control towers that it will close at small airports around the country starting early next month. The closures will not force the shutdown of any of those airports, but pilots will be left to coordinate takeoffs and landings among themselves over a shared radio frequency with no help from ground controllers. All pilots are trained to fly using those procedures. The plan has raised concerns since a preliminary list of facilities was released a month ago. Those worries include the impact on safety and the potential financial effect on communities that rely on airports to help attract businesses and tourists. ������We will work with the airports and the operators to ensure the procedures are in place to maintain the high level of safety at non-towered airports,������ FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in a statement. The FAA is being forced to trim $637 million for the rest of the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. The agency said it had no choice but to subject most of its 47,000 employees, including tower controllers, to periodic furloughs and to close air traffic facilities at small airports with lighter traffic. The changes are part of the across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration, which went into effect March 1. Fla. to probe 2nd charity sweepstakes ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (AP) ��� Fresh off a nearly $300 million racketeering case involving a veterans��� charity that benefited from simulated gambling at Internet cafes, Florida regulators will investigate a children���s cancer group connected to a similar operation that is four times bigger. The new probe comes in response to Associated Press inquiries about Children���s Cancer Cooperative, a group that operates out of a South Carolina bingo parlor, shares a lawyer with Allied Veterans of the World and has collected cash from more than 200 of the sweepstakes cafes in Florida. In exchange for the money that has flowed into the Children���s Cancer Cooperative from the cafes, the charity���s name is listed as sponsoring sweepstakes prizes offered at the cafes, giving players the impression money lost on the fastmoving games mimicking Vegas-style slots goes to help sick kids. As with the Allied Veterans case announced earlier this month, the central questions will be how much money the cafes raised, how much of that should have been taxed, and how much ultimately went to charity. When authorities in Florida charged 57 people in the Allied Veterans case, they labeled Jacksonville attorney Kelly Mathis ��� who has also for years represented Children���s Cancer Cooperative ��� the architect of the scheme. The resulting political and legal maelstrom triggered the resignation of Republican Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, who had done consulting work for the charity, and sent top elected officials from both parties in Florida and North Carolina scrambling to return or at least explain the more than $1 million in campaign contributions they accepted from donors linked to Allied.