Trump falters in Wisconsin as Cruz wins big

By Holly Bailey

NEW YORK—Texas Sen. Ted Cruz soundly defeated Donald Trump in Wisconsin’s Republican presidential primary Tuesday, winning close to 50 percent of the vote in a three-man contest and potentially giving a burst of new momentum to efforts to stop the real estate mogul from clinching the GOP nomination. The outcome appeared to increase the odds of a contested convention this summer.

“Tonight is a turning point. It is a rallying cry,“ Cruz declared at his election night in Milwaukee. “We have a choice, a real choice.”

But it was too soon to tell whether Cruz’s victory was a sign that the #NeverTrump movement is truly gaining steam or if it was merely a bump in the road for Trump, who has spent the last several days trying to regain momentum after a series of self-inflicted wounds to his campaign.

While exit polls showed Trump won among moderates and preliminary results showed him doing well in rural parts of the state—where he had been expected to do best—there were some troubling signs for the real estate mogul’s campaign. Among them were Cruz’s decisive win among women and suburban voters—two constituencies that Trump has struggled to win so far.

Those two voting blocs could be pivotal as the race shifts toward Northeastern states such as New York, which is considered favorable terrain for Trump but where Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a distant third in Wisconsin, are looking to peel off as many delegates as possible to stop him from winning the nomination outright.

Aided by an endorsement from Gov. Scott Walker, Cruz easily won a key GOP stronghold in Wisconsin—the suburbs of Milwaukee, home to college-educated, middle-class Republicans. The loss underscores the difficulty Trump has had winning over suburban Republicans in the contest so far—including in places like Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia, states he easily won overall but where he lost in the suburbs of major cities.

That’s a worrying trend for Trump in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maryland, where the Republican electorate is largely suburban and where Trump needs to win to avoid a floor fight at the convention.

While initial results suggested Cruz would win most of Wisconsin’s 42 delegates, Trump still leads the Texas senator in the delegate race by at least 200 delegates. But another hint of trouble came in the exit polls, which found 58 percent of those who voted were “concerned” or “scared” about the prospect of Trump winning the presidency.

The numbers come as Trump has tried to position himself as the eventual GOP nominee, bragging that he can be a unifying force in the party even as he struggled with discipline in what has been one of the toughest weeks of his candidacy so far, marred by political missteps that unquestionably hurt his campaign in Wisconsin.

Sen. Ted Cruz embraces his wife Heidi at his Wisconsin primary night rally April 5 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Photo: Jim Young/Reuters)

Among them were Trump’s fumbling answers on abortion—including his call for “punishment” for women who have one illegally, which he later walked back—and his re-tweet of a supporter who had posted an unflattering photo of Cruz’s wife, Heidi. Trump also faced criticism for his defense of his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who has been charged with simple battery for allegedly grabbing a female reporter during a campaign event last month.

Cruz quickly sought to take advantage of Trump’s flubs—holding several events in recent days to directly appeal to female voters, who polls suggest have been alienated by Trump’s behavior and rhetoric. On Monday, Cruz held a campaign event with Fox News’s Megyn Kelly, whom Trump has repeatedly attacked, where he suggested his rival has a problem with “strong women”—a phrase he repeated during his victory speech Tuesday night.

It’s a phrase Cruz is likely to employ again as the race shifts toward Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states like New York and Pennsylvania, where women make up a major part of the Republican electorate. If the real estate mogul can’t win those states outright, his path to win the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination grows ever more difficult.

Trump, who is scheduled to kick off his New York campaign with a rally in Long Island on Wednesday, is still trying to unite the party behind his bid and cast himself as a more serious candidate. In recent days, he’s held smaller rallies where he tried to project a calmer presence and resisted engaging with protesters. On Tuesday, his campaign told the Washington Post he would deliver a series of policy speeches in coming weeks as he looks toward the general election.

Still, Trump couldn’t resist lashing out on Wednesday, portraying his share of the vote, about a third, based on incomplete returns, as a victory against his critics. The statement, attributed to his “campaign” and not the candidate personally, railed against “Lyin’ Ted Cruz” and accused the senator of illegally coordinating with super PACs “who totally control him.”

“Donald J. Trump withstood the onslaught of the establishment yet again,” the statement said. “Ted Cruz is worse than a puppet–he is a Trojan horse, being used by the party bosses attempting to steal the nomination from Mr. Trump.”

Clash over black mosque triggers angry crowd in South Dallas

Krystal Muhammad with a shot gun and other members of the New Black Panther Party stand guard across the Muhammad Mosque in Dallas, Saturday, April 2, 2016. (Jae S. Lee/The Dallas Morning News)

SARAH MERVOSH | The Scoop Blog

Racial tensions in South Dallas almost exploded at an anti-mosque protest Saturday afternoon before quickly dissolving when the protesters retreated. A few hundred South Dallas residents, mostly black, flooded Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to oppose a planned demonstration by a mostly white group that routinely protests outside mosques.

Both sides were armed. Dallas police stood guard on a funeral home’s roof as black counterprotesters swarmed the parking lot of Eva’s House of Bar-B-Q, vowing to defend their streets and chanting “black power.”

“This is what they fear — the black man,” said activist Olinka Green. “This is what America fears.” The anti-mosque group showed up in camouflage, carrying guns and an American flag, FOX 4 reported. They left soon after and the protests ended without incident. “It’s a people’s victory here in South Dallas today,” said Yafeuh Balogun of the Huey P. Newton Gun Club, named for the founder of the original Black Panther Party.

Balogun, who helped organized the counterprotest, added that he wasn’t “surprised” the group withdrew when confronted by the emotional crowd. “Would you come out and face them?”

The Bureau of American Islamic Relations, or BAIR, had planned to protest against the Nation of Islam mosque at 1 p.m.

The group rallies against what it calls radical Islamism. Its name riffs on the national Muslim advocacy group CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. BAIR has protested multiple times outside the Islamic Center of Irving and had threatened a protest outside the Nation of Islam two weeks ago, but no one showed up.

The group decided to protest at the Nation of Islam on Saturday, accusing the mosque of “promoting violence against Americans openly and publicly,” according to a Facebook page about the event.

A police officer uses binoculars across from the Muhammad Mosque to monitor the situation. (Jae S. Lee/Staff Photographer

“We cannot stand by while all these different Anti American, Arab radical Islamists team up with Nation of Islam/Black Panthers and White anti American Anarchist groups, joining together in the goal of destroying our Country and killing innocent people to gain Dominance through fear!” the event invite says.

The Huey P. Newton Gun Club and the New Black Panther Party were among those to come out in opposition. They, too, wore full gear and carried rifles.

Krystal Muhammad, national chair of the New Black Panther Party, accused BAIR of trying to “intimidate and bully” the mosque. She and others lined Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, armed and dressed in black, because “no one else will protect our people.” Down the street, in the barbecue restaurant’s parking lot, anger at Saturday’s anti-Islamic outsiders quickly bubbled into shouts about racism and classism in America.

A chorus of voices cried out in support of “black power.” They bellowed to shield their home from white infiltration: “Whose streets? Our streets?” One man swore at a white TV reporter and later shouted, to no one in particular, that “we got the right to shoot back” if tensions escalated. Robert Greaves, who lives in South Dallas, said his community owed no explanation for its anger and frustration. “This is the black America that white America made,” he said.

U.S. stands ready to help diversify Nigeria’s economy

U.S. stands ready to help Nigeria diversify its economy beyond oil, an assistant regional secretary said at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Photo by sakhorn/Shutterstock

WASHINGTON, March 30 (UPI) — The United States stands ready to assist Nigeria in diversifying its economy beyond the oil sector, a regional U.S. secretary said from Washington, D.C.

The International Monetary Fund warned the impact of lower crude oil prices were adding pressure to a Nigerian economy in need of deep structural reforms. The country’s oil-dependent economy has struggled under the strains that have emerged since crude oil prices first dropped below the $100 per barrel mark in 2014. From the pressure of oil prices alone, the government’s deficit doubled to about 3 percent of the gross domestic product last year.

About half of the Nigerian population lives on less than $1.25 per day. Plagued by problems ranging from terrorism to corruption, the country has been struggling to address deep-rooted economy gaps.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. assistant secretary for African Affairs, told officials gathered at the U.S. Institute of Peace the country has an “incredible” opportunity for growth if it utilizes its natural resources, including oil and gas, effectively. For inclusive and broad-based expansion, however, she said Nigeria needs to look beyond energy.

“There are areas in which we stand ready to partner with Nigeria to help the government advance important goals, including increasing non-oil revenue,” she said.

In early March, Nigerian Petroleum Minister and Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. Emmanuel Kachikwu said the state oil company would be divided into 30 independent companies in an effort to address corruption and revenue losses.

Nigeria is the No. 8 oil exporter to the United States, behind Kuwait, sending 78,000 barrels per day to the country for the week ending March 18. That’s down 251,000 bpd from the previous week, but up substantially from the 14,000 bpd sent during the same week last year.

Full-year Nigerian oil production has held steady at around 1.8 million bpd, though energy companies working in the country have had to halt operations at times because of security threats.

Donald Trump on campaign manager’s assault charge: There’s ‘nothing there!’

Trump speaks with Lewandowski by his side during a news conference at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., on March 15. (Photo: Joe Skipper/Reuters)

By Dylan Stableford…

A defiant Donald Trump expressed his support for campaign manager Corey Lewandowski on Tuesday after he was charged with assault by the Jupiter (Fla.) Police Department, even as surveillance footage obtained from the Republican frontrunner’s own golf club showed Lewandowski grabbing a reporter who he previously said he “never touched.” “Look at tapes,” Trump tweeted. “Nothing there!” Lewandowski was charged with simple battery stemming from an incident involving Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields in the ballroom of the Trump National Golf Club following a March 8 press conference there. “Why is she allowed to grab me and shout questions?” Trump tweeted in response. “Can I press charges?”

“I can only say Corey is a fine person,” Trump told reporters during an impromptu press conference aboard his plane Tuesday afternoon after landing in Wisconsin. “If you look at her, she’s grabbing at me. And he was acting as an intermediary.”

“The news conference was over and she was running up and grabbing and asking questions and she wasn’t supposed to be doing that,” Trump continued. “If you look at that tape, he was very, very seriously maligned. And I think that’s unfair.

Trump’s Republican rivals were quick to condemn him for not reprimanding Lewandowski.

“We probably would suspend somebody,” Ohio Gov. John Kasich said. “That’s frankly totally and completely inappropriate. It could’ve been one of my daughters.”

At CNN’s Republican Presidential Town Hall, Texas. Sen. Ted Cruz was asked if he would’ve fired Lewandowski over the incident.

“Of course,” Cruz said.

The GOP frontrunner was unmoved.

“I think it’s a very, very sad day in this country when a man could be destroyed over something like that,” Trump said. “I can’t destroy a man. I can’t destroy him. He’s got a beautiful wife and children, and I’m not gonna destroy a man for that.”

Lewandowski turned himself in to Jupiter police early Tuesday morning, entered a plea of not guilty and was released. He’s scheduled to appear in court on May 4.

“Mr. Lewandowski is absolutely innocent of this charge,” the Trump campaign said in a statement.

Fields says she was attempting to ask Trump a question when she was grabbed and nearly thrown to the ground by Lewandowski.

“Trump acknowledged the question, but before he could answer, I was jolted backwards,”Fields wrote in a blog post. “Someone had grabbed me tightly by the arm and yanked me down. I almost fell to the ground, but was able to maintain my balance. Nonetheless, I was shaken.”

While Fields did not see who grabbed her, a reporter for the Washington Post told her it was Lewandowski.

“I quickly turned around and saw Lewandowski and Trump exiting the building together. No apology. No explanation for why he did this,” she wrote. “Even if Trump was done taking questions, Lewandowski would be out of line. Campaign managers aren’t supposed to try to forcefully throw reporters to the ground, no matter the circumstance.”

Both Lewandowski and the Trump campaign had vehemently denied Fields’ claims.

“The accusation … is entirely false,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in a statement two days after the alleged incident. “As one of dozens of individuals present as Mr. Trump exited the press conference, I did not witness any encounter. In addition to our staff, which had no knowledge of [the] situation, not a single camera or reporter of more than 100 in attendance captured the alleged incident.”

Trump accused Fields of fabricating the story because Secret Service officers at the event told him that nothing happened.

“This was in my opinion made up,” Trump told CNN after a GOP debate in Miami. “I didn’t see anything. All of a sudden, we heard about it later on, but the Secret Service said nothing happened. Everybody said nothing happened. Perhaps she made the story up. I think that’s what happened.”

Fields, in turn, tweeted a photo of her bruised left arm.

“I don’t know those bruises were from that,” Trump said during his impromptu press conference. “How do you know those bruises weren’t there before? I’m not a lawyer. She said she had a bruise on her arm. I mean, to me, if you’re going to get squeezed, wouldn’t you think you’d let out a scream?”

Lewandowski went as far as to call Fields “delusional.”

“I never touched you,” Lewandowski tweeted on March 11. “As a matter of fact, I have never even met you.”

Fields filed a police report the same day.

After the incident, Breitbart News CEO and president Larry Solov issued a tepid statement calling on Lewandowski.

“What Michelle has told us directly is that someone ‘grabbed her arm’ and while she did not see who it was, Ben Terris of the Washington Post told her that it was Corey Lewandowski,” Solov said. “If that’s the case, Corey owes Michelle an immediate apology.”

Both Fields and Breitbart News editor Ben Shapiro subsequently resigned in protest.

“Today I informed the management at Breitbart News of my immediate resignation,”Fields said in a statement on March 14. “I do not believe Breitbart News has adequately stood by me during the events of the past week and because of that I believe it is now best for us to part ways.”

Mississippi woman who attempted to join ISIS pleads guilty to terror charge

Jaelyn Young poses for a photo in 2012. (Melanie Thortis/The Vicksburg Evening Post via the AP)

Foxnews.com – She tried to trade in her pom-poms for suicide bombs.

Former Mississippi State chemistry major Jaelyn Young – who had been a high school cheerleader, honor student and homecoming maid – pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to one count of conspiring to provide material support to ISIS. She’ll be sentenced at a later date.

The Vicksburg beauty turned her back on her teenage pageantry after she converted to Islam in March 2015, when she began wearing a burqa and distancing herself from non-Muslim friends. Prosecutors said she “began to express hatred for the U.S. government” and expressed “support for the implementation of Shariah law in the United States.”

Young, whose father is a police officer and Navy veteran, sought to travel to Syria with her fiancé, Muhammad Dakhlalla, in order to become a medic for a terrorist group infamous for its cruel treatment of women and non-members. Dakhlalla pleaded guilty to a similar charge on March 11 and is also awaiting sentencing.

But far from a case of a love-stricken young girl following her beau to a Middle Eastern fantasy, Young agrees with prosecutors who say she was the primary driver of the intended move to Syria and continually prodded Dakhlalla to speed up their passport approval so they could leave.

“I found the contacts, made arrangements, planned the departure,” prosecutors said she wrote to her family in a “farewell letter” last August. “I am guilty of what you soon will find out.”

Young, whose father is a police officer and Navy veteran, sought to travel to Syria with her fiancé, Muhammad Dakhlalla, in order to become a medic for a terrorist group infamous for its cruel treatment of women and non-members.

The couple was arrested Aug. 8 before boarding a flight from Columbus, Miss., with tickets for Istanbul that Young had purchased using her mom’s credit card without permission.

Authorities began tracking Young and Dakhlalla in May when the couple contacted undercover federal agents for help traveling to Syria.

Aside from her own admissions and actions, prosecutors cited prior online statements from Young expressing support for ISIS and ISIS-inspired terror attacks. Prosecutors said Young approvingly cited a video of a man accused of being gay being thrown off a roof to his death by militants. She also expressed joy at the shooting of five members of the military in Chattanooga, Tenn., by an Islamic militant in July.

“What makes me feel better after watching the news is that an akhi carried out an attack against US marines in TN! Alhamdulillah, the numbers of supports are growing…” she’s said to have written.

In her “goodbye” letter, she told her family not to look for her.

“Do not alert the authorities,” Young wrote. “I will contact you soon. I am safe. Don’t look for me because you won’t be able to retrieve me if you tried. I am leaving to become a medic.”

Finally – Justice Department cracks iPhone; withdraws legal action

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI said Monday it successfully used a mysterious technique without Apple Inc.’s help to hack into the iPhone used by a gunman in a mass shooting in California, effectively ending a pitched court battle between the Obama administration and one of the world’s leading technology companies.

The government asked a federal judge to vacate a disputed order forcing Apple to help the FBI break into the iPhone, saying it was no longer necessary. The court filing in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California provided no details about how the FBI did it or who showed it how.

The FBI is now reviewing the information on the iPhone, the Justice Department said in a statement.

In response, Apple said in a statement that it will continue to increase the security of its products. While saying it will still provide some help to the government, “as we have done all along,” the company reiterated its position that the government’s demand was wrong.

“This case should never have been brought,” Apple said in its statement.

Both sides left important questions unanswered: Who showed the FBI how to break into iPhones? How did the government bypass the security features that Apple has invested millions of dollars to build into its flagship product? Are newer iPhones vulnerable to the same hacking technique? Will the FBI share its information with scores of state and local police agencies that said they also need to break into the iPhones of criminal suspects? Will the FBI reveal to Apple how it broke its security? Did the FBI find anything useful on the iPhone?

The surprise development also punctured the temporary perception that Apple’s security might have been good enough to keep consumers’ personal information safe even from the U.S. government — with the tremendous resources it can expend when it wants to uncover something.

Tim Cook.... A debate raged about the responsibility of a corporation to national security: Should Apple concede to a federal court order and unlock the phone of San Bernardino mass shooter Syed Farook, which might reveal useful information about the massacre and the Farook’s network? — Tim Cook….
A debate raged about the responsibility of a corporation to national security: Should Apple concede to a federal court order and unlock the phone of San Bernardino mass shooter Syed Farook, which might reveal useful information about the massacre and the Farook’s network?

The FBI used the technique to access data on an iPhone used by gunman Syed Farook, who died with his wife in a gun battle with police after they killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, in December. The iPhone was found in a vehicle the day after the shooting; two personal phones were found destroyed so completely that the FBI couldn’t recover information from them.

U.S. magistrate Sheri Pym of California last month ordered Apple to provide the FBI with software to help it hack into Farook’s work-issued iPhone. The order touched off a debate pitting digital privacy rights against national security concerns.

Apple was headed for a courtroom showdown with the government last week, until federal prosecutors abruptly asked for a postponement so they could test a potential solution brought to them by a party outside of the U.S. government last Sunday. Technical experts had said there might be a few ways an outsider could gain access to the phone, but the FBI insisted repeatedly until then that only Apple had the ability to override the iPhone’s security. FBI Director James Comey said the bureau even went to the National Security Agency, which did not have the ability to get into the phone.

A law enforcement official said the FBI was successful in unlocking the iPhone over the weekend. The official spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to publicly comment. The official said federal law enforcement would continue to aid its local and state partners with gaining evidence in cases — implying that the method would be shared with them.

First in line is likely, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, who told a U.S. House panel earlier this month that he has 205 iPhones his investigators can’t access data from in criminal investigations. Apple is also opposing requests to help extract information from 14 Apple devices in California, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York.

The case drew international attention and highlighted a growing friction between governments and the tech industry. Apple and other tech companies have said they feel increasing need to protect their customers’ data from hackers and unfriendly intruders, while police and other government authorities have warned that encryption and other data-protection measures are making it more difficult for investigators to track criminals and dangerous extremists.

Apple CEO Tim Cook had argued that helping the FBI hack the iPhone would set a dangerous precedent, making all iPhone users vulnerable, if Apple complied with the court order. Cook said Congress should take up the issue.

The withdrawal of the court process also takes away Apple’s ability to legally request details on the method the FBI used in this case. Apple attorneys said last week that they hoped the government would share that information with them if it proved successful.

The encrypted phone was protected by a passcode that included security protocols: a time delay and self-destruct feature that erased the phone’s data after 10 tries. The two features made it impossible for the government to repeatedly and continuously test passcodes in what’s known as a brute-force attack. Comey said with those features removed, the FBI could break into the phone in 26 minutes.

The official said the method used to unlock the phone appears to work on the iPhone 5C operating a version of iOS 9. In late 2014, Apple updated its operating system so the passcode is linked to the phone’s overall encryption. The Cupertino-based company said that made it impossible for it to access data on the phone.

The Justice Department wouldn’t comment on any future disclosure of the method to Apple or the public.

The government’s announcement was praised by Stephen Larson, a Los Angeles attorney who filed a brief in support of the Justice Department’s case and represents seven families of those killed in the attack. “For this to have dragged out in court battles would not have served the interests of either” the victims or law enforcement, he said.

Alex Abdo, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a brief supporting Apple in its case, said the case is far from settled and it was “just a delay of an inevitable fight” about whether the government can force a company like Apple to undermine the security of its products to facilitate an investigation.

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