Potential explosives sent to Hillary Clinton, Obama, Time Warner

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK - Police intercepted suspected explosive devices sent to former U.S. President Barack Obama, former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and the CNN bureau in New York that apparently targeted figures disparaged by right-wing critics two weeks before U.S. congressional elections.

With the country deeply polarized under President Donald Trump, the packages brought a new level of tension to political contests that will decide whether Democrats can challenge the majorities now held by Trump's Republicans in Congress.

The package to Clinton was found late Tuesday while the one addressed to Obama was recovered early Wednesday, both during routine off-site mail screenings, the Secret Service said. Obama and Clinton were not at risk, they said.

A bomb was delivered earlier this week to the suburban New York home of George Soros, a major Democratic Party donor.

The Time Warner Center housing a CNN newsroom in New York was evacuated "out of an abundance of caution" after a suspicious package was received in the mail room, CNN President Jeff Zucker said in a note to employees. He said CNN was checking its bureaus worldwide.

New York police issued an emergency alert urging people around the building, which is on the southern edge of Central Park, to "shelter in place." Police later said they had safely removed the suspicious device from the Time Warner Center.

CNN is a frequent target of Trump, who routinely calls the news media the "enemy of the people" and belittles critical coverage as "fake news."

CNN reported the package it received was addressed to former CIA director John Brennan, a periodic guest commentator on the cable network.

Brennan, who led the CIA under Obama, has been an outspoken critic of Trump, calling the president's performance during a July joint news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki "nothing short of treasonous."

Trump in August revoked Brennan's security clearance in retaliation for the criticism.

The White House, in a statement, condemned the attempted attacks on Obama and Clinton.

"These terrorizing acts are despicable, and anyone responsible will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said. "The United States Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies are investigating and will take all appropriate actions to protect anyone threatened by these cowards."

Trump was briefed on the suspicious packages "and we're taking it very seriously," said a senior White House official.

In Florida, the building that houses the office of U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a former Democratic Party national chairwoman, was evacuated after a suspicious package arrived in the mail, WFOR-TV in Miami reported, citing Sunrise police.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers condemned the attempted attacks, saying political violence has no place in the United States, even as some Democrats said Trump's rhetoric was escalating tensions.

"Words matter. Leadership matters. This is the country @realDonaldTrump has created, and he must condemn such acts of terrorism in the strongest terms," Democratic U.S. Representative David Price tweeted.

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the top Republican in Congress, called the acts "reprehensible," adding, "We cannot tolerate any attempt to terrorize public figures."

The package addressed to Clinton at her home in the New York suburb of Chappaqua was an explosive device, the New York Times reported.

Former President Bill Clinton was home when the device was intercepted at a Secret Service facility not near the Clintons' home, MSNBC reported. It said Hillary Clinton was in Florida attending fundraising events.

A federal law enforcement official told Reuters that more than one of the packages appears to have the same construction or design. Another source told Reuters the FBI was still evaluating whether the suspicious packages contained dangerous or explosive materials.

The Chappaqua Patch, a local news website, citing a law enforcement official, reported the devices sent to Soros, Obama and Clinton appeared to be a pipe bomb. "Not fancy but definitely functional," the official said.

The New York Police Department's bomb squad said the package at the Time Warner Center, which also houses stores and restaurants, appeared to be an explosive device, CNN reported.

The discovery of the packages came after a small bomb was found earlier this week at the home of billionaire liberal donor Soros in the New York City suburb of Katonah, about 10 miles (16 km) from the Clintons' home.

"Nothing made it to their home," Bill Clinton's spokesman said in an email. A spokesman for Hillary Clinton referred queries to the Secret Service statement. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

FBI, New York police aware of Islamic State video, say no specific threat

NEW YORK - There is no "specific and credible threat" against New York City, despite a newly released Islamic State video suggesting America's most populous city is a potential target of attacks such as those in Paris, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Wednesday.

Police Commissioner William Bratton agreed with the mayor during an evening news conference by both men outside a police precinct in Times Square, adding that there was nothing new about the video, which he called "hastily produced."

"There is no credible and specific threat against New York City," de Blasio said, encouraging New Yorkers to "go about their business" as normal, while remaining watchful.

Islamic State has claimed credit for Friday's attacks in Paris that killed 129 people in shootings and suicide bombings at a concert hall, restaurants and a soccer stadium in Paris.

The assault on the French capital stirred memories in New York of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks that felled the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, killing more than 2,600 people.

The Islamic State video, which runs for nearly six minutes, includes a scene that appears to show a suicide bomber making preparations and zipping up a jacket, according to a description provided by SITE Intelligence Group, a Bethesda, Maryland, organization that tracks militant groups.

The clip briefly shows Times Square and Herald Square, two Midtown Manhattan crossroads popular with tourists, and a suicide bomber holding what appears to be a trigger. Most of the footage is scenes of Paris and French President Francois Hollande.

"Footage of New York shown in the ISIS video was taken from a video released by the group in April of this year. So while NYC is, and has been, a target for ISIS, today's video does not warrant any kind of panic," SITE director Rita Katz said in an email to Reuters.

De Blasio said New York City's police force of 35,000, the country's largest, was working tirelessly to keep the city safe from another attack.

"Just in this last week, we've initiated the first wave of our new Critical Response Command, which will grow to 500 officers specifically dedicated to anti-terrorism activities," he said.

The new unit will supplement an existing 1,000-officer counterterrorism program, police said.

The FBI said through a spokeswoman it was aware of news reports about the video and "ongoing terrorist threats to NYC," and would fully investigate.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Two New York police officers killed, gunman dead: media

NEW YORK - A gunman fatally shot two New York police officers as they sat in their squad car on Saturday and then killed himself, in what may have been a revenge attack over police treatment of minorities, U.S. media said.

The police deaths in Brooklyn followed weeks of protests in New York and other parts of the United States after separate cases in which grand juries declined to charge two white police officers involved in the deaths of two unarmed black men.

Quoting a law enforcement source, NBC's New York affiliate reported that the gunman may have been seeking retribution against police after posting a threatening message on a social media account.

The New York Times said the slain officers had been patrolling in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant section of the borough. NYPD Deputy Chief Kim Royster said it appeared the shots struck them in the upper body, the Times reported.

It said the gunman opened fire on the officers from the patrol car's passenger side and fled into a nearby subway station. The man then died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, Royster told the newspaper.

A police spokesman could not confirm the newspaper account, but he said the officers had been taken to Brooklyn's Woodhull Medical Center and their conditions were unknown.

The spokesman identified the shooter as a 28-year-old man and said he had been taken to Brooklyn Hospital Center. A weapon has been recovered, he said.

New York police have come under intense pressure in recent weeks, with protests erupting after a grand jury declined to charge an officer involved in the chokehold death of Eric Garner during an arrest attempt in the borough of Staten Island.

Mike Isaac, a neighborhood resident, told CNN that Saturday's shooting took place in a largely African-American neighborhood that and had been tense since the protests over Garner's death. "The mood is pretty freaked out," he said.

Police set up a perimeter for several blocks around the street corner where the shooting occured. Only residents were allowed to cross the police line and the subway line where the gunman reportedly shot himself was shut down.

"I just feel sorry for the policemen that got killed," said neighborhood resident Olin Barton, a 78-year-old retiree.

"I don't think there's a relationship with Garner, I doubt so anyway. It must have been someone mentally ill."

The grand jury's decision this month on the officer involved in Garner's death followed widespread demonstrations in the United States over a grand jury decision last month not to indict a police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, a teenager in Ferguson, Missouri.

The protests have continued sporadically - on Saturday demonstrators against police violence shut down part of the Mall of America in Minnesota on Saturday, one of the nation's largest shopping centers, a community group said.[ID: nL1N0U40O1]

The Times said the last fatal shooting of a New York City police officer was in 2011.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported last month that 76 law enforcement officers in the United States died last year while on duty, including 27 during criminal acts, a sharp drop from 2012.

CONDEMNATIONS OF SHOOTINGS

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a New York civil rights leader who has supported the families of Brown and Garner, said he was outraged by the officers' killings, if they were related to the deaths of Garner and Brown.

"Any use of the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, in connection with any violence or killing of police, is reprehensible and against the pursuit of justice in both cases," he said in a statement.

In Los Angeles, Urban Policy Roundtable President Earl Ofari Hutchinson and other civil rights leaders also condemned the shootings in a statement.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson, Sebastien Malo and Jonathan Allen; editing by G Crosse, Gunna Dickson and Frances Kerry)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

NY club shut down after Chris Brown, Drake brawl

NEW YORK -- New York police have shut down a nightclub after R&B singer Chris Brown and rapper Drake got into a brawl over fellow artist Rihanna which left eight injured, authorities and local media said.

A New York Police Department spokeswoman told AFP the W.i.P. (Work in Progress) basement club in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood was closed late Saturday due to unspecified "code violations."

"They were closed indefinitely until they clear up the violations," she added.

Among those injured in the fight in the early hours of Thursday were three black men aged 23 to 30, a black woman, two white women and two Hispanic women, according to police.

The spokeswoman, who would not reveal the victims' identities, said the injuries included lacerations to the face, forehead, neck, head and arm, a possible concussion and a contusion to the front of the head.

The New York Daily News cited a witness as saying that Drake, who briefly dated Rihanna after she broke up with Brown, started the brawl by hurling a bottle of alcohol at Brown.

"Drake threw the bottle at Brown, but it missed him and hit his bodyguard," aspiring director and musician Kenneth McCray told The News. "It looked like it was Drake that started throwing bottles."

McCray said he was standing nearby during the bloody confrontation between the two men's entourage.

"After Drake's crew threw a few bottles the other side started returning bottles," he added, noting that Drake also threw some punches and may have hit Brown or his bodyguard.

"It was crazy. Some of the bottles were already full. They were like bombs. People were running and screaming."

Brown's lawyer Mark Geragos said he had presented evidence that "clearly demonstrates that it is Drake who instigated all of this."

The singer, who assaulted Rihanna on the eve of the Grammy Awards in February 2009, required "numerous" stitches to close a wound to his chin, said Geragos, while his current girlfriend Karrueche Tran had a concussion and his bodyguard Big Pat needed 18 stitches to close a head wound.

NBA star Tony Parker, who plays for the San Antonio Spurs, was also said to have been hit in the eye by shards of glass, leaving him unable to play for at least a week.

Photos of the scene posted on Twitter and The New York Daily News showed dozens of bottles scattered across the room, with large shards of glass and liquor strewn across the floor.

source: interaksyon.com

Was Fil-Am teen bullied to death? Yonkers police investigating but say maybe not

New York police are investigating the death last Tuesday of a 14-year-old Filipino-American in Yonkers, with conflicting reports either imputing or dismissing "bullying" as a factor in her alleged suicide.

The Fil-Am teener, identified as Eira Maghuyop, until her death a student of Ursuline School in New Rochelle, Westchester County, allegedly committed suicide. MyFoxNY.com, the online portal of Fox News 5, said that "some friends on Facebook said Eira was bullied." But after investigating, Fox News said, "police say that is not the case."

Maghuyop was found dead at her home in Yonkers on Tuesday. Allegations that she took her life after bouts of bullying seemed to be fueled by some of her friends' posts on Facebook. But according to the International Business Times, her parents told investigators that she seemed to have a "normal" day on the eve of her death, "and even laid out her clothes for the next day."

The teener was apparently an active user of Tumblr, where the profile page proclaims herself "100% Filipino".

The Ursuline School issued a statement on Friday: "Today we visited our student's family and offered comfort. We have held special assemblies for all of our students, who are in mourning. We have made available extra counselors to the students and staff."

Yonkers police said they are still investigating Maghuyop's death.

source: interaksyon.com