The Jim Bakker Show

Tight Security at July 4th Fests to counter terror fears, gun violence

member of the U.S. Army National Guard monitors commuters at Grand Central Station as security increases leading up to the Fourth of July weekend in Manhattan,

By Barbara Goldberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The United States celebrates July Fourth on Monday with parades, hotdog eating contests and fireworks shows amid heightened security because of concerns about terrorism in New York and timeworn holiday gun violence in Chicago.

Millions of Americans will mark independence from Britain with celebrations as boisterous as a music-packed party by country music legend Willie Nelson for 10,000 people at a race track in Austin, Texas and as staid as colonial-era costumed actors reading the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives in Washington.

History may be in the making in the traditional hotdog-eating contest at New York’s Coney Island. Joey “Jaws” Chestnut – a world record holder who ate 69 hotdogs in 10 minutes – attempts to regain his Mustard Yellow International Belt from Matt Stonie, who last year ended Chestnut’s run of eight straight victories.

With the holiday taking place days after the attack at Istanbul’s international airport, the New York Police Department will deploy eight new canines known as vapor wake dogs, trained to sniff out body-worn explosives, Commissioner Bill Bratton said on Friday.

The department’s human presence this holiday will be increased by nearly 2,000 new officers who graduated Friday from the New York City Police Academy.

“As we always have the capacity in New York to put out a lot of resources, that’s the name of the game, in dealing with terrorist threats,” Bratton said.

Police in Chicago, which has seen a spike in gun murders this year, announced a stepped up presence with more than 5,000 officers on patrol over the long weekend, traditionally one of the year’s most violent, said Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson. Local media reported on Friday that 24 people had been shot over the past 24 hours, three fatally.

Dry weather forecasts across the country thrilled fireworks lovers, although some spots in Michigan have been so rain-starved that pyrotechnic shows were canceled in a handful of communities near Detroit to prevent fires.

NFL star Jason Pierre-Paul, who lost fingers as one of the 12,000 people injured and 11 killed in fireworks accidents last year, appeared in a public service announcement ahead of the 2016 holiday to urge greater caution.

“I lit up a firework, thought I could throw it away real quick and in a split second it blew off my whole hand,” the New York Giants defensive end said in the spot produced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York, Fiona Ortiz in Chicago, Adam DeRose in Washington, and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Alistair Bell)

Armed guards to patrol French beaches this summer

Special intervention French gendarmes and police arrive at the scene of an operation

PARIS (Reuters) – Police officers armed with automatic pistols will patrol France’s beaches for the first time this summer, a national police spokesman said on Wednesday.

Around 100 police officers will carry the pistols, rather than the customary telescopic truncheons, when sent on beach safety duties for the peak summer season, the official said.

“This is not about a specific terrorist threat to France’s beaches but rather a decision to increase security generally given the very high threat level nationwide,” the official said.

Many French beaches are staffed during the July-August peak holiday period with lifeguards and a small team of safety and health staff headed up by an officer from the CRS riot police department.

France is on high security alert after Islamist militants killed 130 people in attacks in Paris last November.

(Reporting by Gerard Bon; Writing by Brian Love; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

EU allows Iran’s state carrier to resume flights in bloc

By Julia Fioretti

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Iran’s state airline, which has just reached an agreement with Boeing Co to purchase new jetliners, can resume flights in the EU, the European Commission said on Thursday.

Iran is dangling the prospect of significant business for Western planemakers as it emerges from decades of sanctions.

While the European Commission, the EU’s executive, said Iranair could resume flights, some of the carrier’s aircraft would remain on the EU’s safety blacklist.

“I am happy to announce that we are now also able to allow most aircraft from Iranair back into European skies,” said EU Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc. The Commission said the decision followed a visit to Iran by the EU executive in April.

The Commission also removed Indonesian budget carrier Lion Air, a major buyer of Airbus and Boeing jets, from its safety blacklist.

Iranair will be allowed to fly all of its planes in the EU except the Boeing 747-200s, Boeing 747SPs and Fokker 100s, the Commission said.

Iran needs an estimated 400 jets to renew its fleet and prepare for projected growth, according to Iranian and Western estimates.

Tehran said on Tuesday that it had reached an agreement with Boeing for the supply of jetliners, reopening the country’s skies to new U.S. aircraft for the first time in decades.

The Iranian flag carrier also agreed in January to buy 118 jets worth $27 billion from Airbus and is discussing further orders with Airbus.

The decision to remove Lion Air from the EU blacklist could also potentially lead to the Indonesian carrier buying more planes, analysts have said.

Lion’s five airlines operate a combined fleet of more than 200 aircraft, mostly Airbus A320s and Boeing 737s. The company, which plans a stock exchange listing possibly early next year, has around 500 more aircraft on order, and expects to take delivery of 40 aircraft this year.

The EU executive also removed Indonesia’s Citilink, Batik Air, Air Madagascar and all Zambian airlines from its blacklist.

(Reporting by Julia Fioretti; Editing by Susan Fenton)

Disney hikes security at theme parks with ‘visible safeguards’

Security officers staff the entrance at the Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida, U.S. June 13, 2016.

By Barbara Liston

(Reuters) – Walt Disney Co has raised security at its theme parks, the company said on Monday after the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history in Orlando, Florida, the home of Walt Disney World.

“Unfortunately we’ve all been living in a world of uncertainty, and during this time we have increased our security measures across our properties, adding such visible safeguards as magnetometers, additional canine units, and law enforcement officers on site, as well as less visible systems that employ state-of-the-art security technologies,” spokeswoman Jacquee Wahler said in an email statement.

New York-born Omar Mateen, 29, killed 49 people in an Orlando, Florida, nightclub on Sunday. Mateen had scouted Walt Disney World as a potential target, People Magazine said on Monday, citing an unnamed federal law enforcement source. Reuters was unable to verify the report.

Disney World is the best known tourist destination in Orlando, a Florida city with several theme parks.

Outside the Magic Kingdom theme park at Walt Disney World, where a U.S. flag flew at half mast in mourning, vacationers Ernst and Rose Lorentzen on Monday said that they had seen more uniformed security guards, marked vehicles and dog units at resort properties since the shooting. They said they had arrived at Disney World on June 8.

Bags of all guests are searched and some are selected for checks with a magnetometer, or metal detector. “They’re really doing a lot of random searches. Maybe one out of eight people,” Rose said.

Their Disney hotel where they are staying also has been more vigilant. They “gave us a look-see and checked our passes at the gate,” said Ernst, who is retired and declined to give his age. “Makes me feel like they’re more alert,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Timothy Ahmann in Washington; Writing by Mohammad Zargham and Peter Henderson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrew Hay)

Ex NATO and U.S. defense chiefs warn U.K. against an EU exit

Former NATO secretary-general Fogh Rasmussen speaks during a meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Kiev,

LONDON (Reuters) – Former NATO secretary generals warned on Tuesday that a British exit from the European Union would help enemies of the West while ex-U.S. foreign and defense chiefs cautioned that Britain would have less clout outside the bloc.

The double warning comes as the two campaigns for and against Brexit step up their rhetoric about the impact staying or leaving the EU would have on Britain’s security.

Prime Minister David Cameron said on Monday that Britain was safer in the EU while former London mayor Boris Johnson, a member of his Conservative Party, accused him of suggesting World War Three would break out should Britons vote to leave in a referendum on June 23.

The five ex-NATO chiefs – Peter Carrington, Javier Solana, George Robertson, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Anders Fogh Rasmussen – said the imposition of EU sanctions against Russia and Iran, a move led by Britain, showed the importance of the bloc.

“Brexit would undoubtedly lead to a loss of British influence, undermine NATO and give succor to the West’s enemies just when we need to stand should-to-shoulder across the Euro-Atlantic community against common threats,” they wrote in a letter to the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

In a separate letter to the Times, 13 former U.S. secretaries of state and defense and national security advisers from every U.S. administration from Barack Obama’s to Jimmy Carter’s in the 1970s said Britain’s global position would suffer if it left the EU.

“We are concerned that should the UK choose to leave the European Union, the UK’s place and influence in the world would be diminished and Europe would be dangerously weakened,” said the letter signed by, among others, former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Madeleine Albright.

Their warning echoes a similar message from Obama during the U.S. president’s visit to Britain last month.

Those campaigning for Brexit have repeatedly dismissed such warnings, saying membership of NATO, rather than the EU, was key to British security.

In a sign of deepening divisions within Cameron’s own party, Iain Duncan Smith, the former Work and Pensions Secretary, said Germany had sabotaged the prime minister’s plans to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU, forcing him to drop his plans to demand an emergency brake on migration.

“They have a de facto veto over everything,” Duncan Smith told Tuesday’s Sun newspaper which accompanied their story with a picture of German Chancellor Angela Merkel holding a puppet Cameron.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Turkey has prevented 85 security incidents since January

Police officers secure the area after an explosion in front of the city's police headquarters in Gaziantep

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey has prevented 85 “major incidents” since January, many involving live bombs, the government’s spokesman said on Monday, a day after the sixth suicide bombing in a Turkish city this year.

“We are making great efforts in the struggle against terror,” Numan Kurtulmus told reporters at a briefing in the capital, Ankara.

“We have prevented 85 major incidents since January. Forty-nine of those included live bombs.”

Turkey has been hit by a series of suicide bombings this year, including two in its largest city Istanbul blamed on Islamic State, and two in the capital Ankara which were claimed by a Kurdish militant group. It has also faced attacks from far leftist groups, mostly on police and security forces.

On Sunday, two police officers were killed and 22 people wounded by a suicide car bomb in the southeastern city of Gaziantep.

Last week, a suicide bomber blew herself up near the main mosque in the northwestern city of Bursa, injuring eight people. The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK), an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, has since claimed responsibility for the attack.

(Reporting by Ercan Gurses; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Andrew Roche)

FBI paid more than $1.3 million to break into San Bernardino iPhone

By Julia Edwards

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey said on Thursday the agency paid more to get into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters than he will make in the remaining seven years and four months he has in his job.

According to figures from the FBI and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Comey’s annual salary as of January 2015 was $183,300. Without a raise or bonus, Comey will make $1.34 million over the remainder of his job.

That suggests the FBI paid the largest ever publicized fee for a hacking job, easily surpassing the $1 million paid by U.S. information security company Zerodium to break into phones.

Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in London, Comey was asked by a moderator how much the FBI paid for the software that eventually broke into the iPhone.

“A lot. More than I will make in the remainder of this job, which is seven years and four months for sure,” Comey said. “But it was, in my view, worth it.”

The Justice Department said in March it had unlocked the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone with the help of an unidentified third party and dropped its case against Apple Inc <AAPL.O>, ending a high-stakes legal clash but leaving the broader fight over encryption unresolved.

Comey said the FBI will be able to use software used on the San Bernardino phone on other 5C iPhones running IOS 9 software.

There are about 16 million 5C iPhones in use in the United States, according to estimates from research firm IHS Technology. Eighty-four percent of iOS devices overall are running iOS 9 software, according to Apple.

The FBI gained access to the iPhone used by Rizwan Farook, one of the shooters who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California on Dec. 2.

The case raised the debate over whether technology companies’ encryption technologies protect privacy or endanger the public by blocking law enforcement access to information.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards in Washington; additional reporting by Julia Love in San Francisco; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

EU May Require Visas from Americans

File picture shows European Union flags fluttering outside the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels

By Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union executive is considering whether to make U.S. and Canadian citizens apply for visas before traveling to the bloc, a move that could raise tensions as Brussels negotiates a trade pact with Washington.

Only Britain and Ireland have opt-outs from the 28-nation EU’s common visa policy and the European Commission must decide by April 12 whether to demand visas from countries who have similar requirements in place for one or more EU state.

Washington and Ottawa both demand entry visas from Romanians and Bulgarians, whose states joined the EU in 2007. The United States also excludes Croatians, Cypriots and Poles from a visa waiver scheme offered to other EU citizens.

“A political debate and decision is obviously needed on such an important issue. But there is a real risk that the EU would move towards visas for the two (Americans and Canadians),” an EU source said.

Whether such a step was practical, however, was in question given that it would seriously undermine the EU’s vast and lucrative tourist industry. The U.S. and Canadian missions to Brussels were not immediately available for comment.

The discussion, prompted by U.S. and Canadian refusals to waive their visa requirements for holders of some EU member states’ passports, will take place on Tuesday, just over a week before U.S. President Barack Obama arrives in Europe on a visit that will include trade talks.

Trade negotiations between Brussels and Washington are at a crucial point since both sides believe their transatlantic agreement, known as TTIP, stands a better chance of passing before Obama leaves the White House in January.

Obama is due to visit Britain before meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a trade fair in Hanover on April 24.

“There are major question marks over TTIP, no one could now say exactly how it’ll go in the end. We’ll see if we can get Obama in Hanover to commit to more of what we want,” said one European Parliament member tracking TTIP.

(Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Mark Heinrich)

U.S. Senate Boosts Travel Security

Passengers make their way in a security checkpoint at the International JFK airport in New York

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans and Democrats in the Senate reached a deal on Thursday to boost travel security at airports in the aftermath of the Brussels attacks, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Under the deal, the source said, lawmakers agreed to amend a Federal Aviation Administration bill with provisions that would bolster the vetting of airport employees with access to secure areas and authorize the Transportation Security Administration to donate security equipment to foreign airports with direct flights to the United States.

The provisions would also order a new U.S. assessment of foreign cargo security programs, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

Lawmakers and their aides were continuing to negotiate over other security items that could also be added, including federal grant money for training state and local law enforcement to respond to emergencies involving armed attacks, the source said.

The deal is being brokered by Senator John Thune of South Dakota, Republican chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, and the panel’s top Democrat, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, the source said.

In coming days, the Senate is expected to vote on the FAA authorization bill, which would renew the aviation agency’s programs through September 2017.

The House of Representatives has been considering its own FAA legislation. That bill also calls for the privatization of the U.S. air traffic control system, a measure that is not in the Senate’s legislation.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Apple, Google Products Target of Court Order

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday said it had identified 63 cases across the U.S. in which the federal government asked for a court order compelling Apple Inc or Google to help access devices seized during investigations.

The cases predominantly arise out of investigations into drug crimes, the ACLU said, adding that the data indicate such government requests have become “quite ordinary.”

Representatives for the Justice Department and Apple declined to comment.

A spokesman for Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc, declined to say how frequently it has cooperated with All Writs Act requests or orders, and how often it has contested them.

The Justice Department previously disclosed that Apple has received 70 court orders requiring it to provide assistance since 2008, which it obeyed without objection.

However, last October Apple contested a Justice Department demand for assistance in a Brooklyn drug case. Since then, Apple has objected to several other government requests for help accessing devices across the country, the company said in a court filing last month.

A U.S. judge in Brooklyn agreed with Apple and ruled that Congress has not authorized the government to ask for the help it demanded of the company. The Justice Department has appealed that ruling.

The ACLU report comes after the Justice Department withdrew a request for Apple’s assistance in California, saying on Monday it had succeeded in unlocking an iPhone used by one of the shooters involved in a rampage in San Bernardino in December without Apple’s help.

Other cases involving government requests for Apple’s help are still pending.

A variety of Apple and Google products have been targeted by court orders, according to the ACLU report. In one, an Apple iPhone 5 was seized by a man arrested in 2013 for importing methamphetamine from Mexico.

A California court ordered Apple to help the Justice Department bypass the passcode and copy data onto an external hard drive. The order does not specify which operating system was running on the phone.

(Reporting by Dan Levine)

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