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Monday, April 18, 2016

Search Resumes For Missing Female Firefighter

Crews have resumed their search for a missing paramedic-firefighter whose car was found abandoned in a Virginia national park.
Nicole Mittendorff, 31, was reported missing on Friday after she failed to show up for work with Fairfax County Fire and Rescue.
She was last heard from via text message with a family member on 13 April, authorities said.
Nicole Mittendorff was last heard from on 13 April 2016
Her vehicle was found on Saturday in a car park near White Oak Canyon Trail in Shenandoah National Park.
Relatives said Ms Mittendorff is an avid runner and triathlete who might have been in the park to go running.
Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corrine Geller said there were no signs of foul play in the car or surrounding area.
Crews have been searching the area on ground and in the air using helicopters.
Family members set up a Facebook page and web page to seek the public's help.
"Our fondest hope is a safe and soon resolution," the family wrote in a post.
Anyone with information on Ms Mittendorff's whereabouts are being asked to call Virginia State Police at 703-803-0026.

Star Wars Sales Lift Toymaker Hasbro Results

Sales of Star Wars merchandise and Disney Princess dolls have helped toymaker Hasbro post a better-than-expected surge in quarterly profits and revenues.
Shares climbed 5% after the company said net earnings for the first three months of 2016 rose 83% to $48.8m (£34.3m) and revenues grew 16% to $831.2m (£584m).
Hasbro has seen strong sales momentum from the latest instalment of the Star Wars franchise which is expected to continue as the film is released on DVD.
The company holds licensing deals for the series as well as the likes of Jurassic Park and Avengers.
Hasbro last year edged out larger rival Mattel for a license to make dolls based on Disney's popular princess characters such as Cinderella and Snow White.
It began selling Disney Princess and Frozen dolls in the latest quarter, boosting sales.
Hasbro boss Brian Goldner said: "The momentum with which we ended last year has continued throughout the first quarter 2016.
"Demand for Star Wars: The Force Awakens products continued to be high and we benefited from the addition of Disney Princess and Frozen fashion and small dolls.
"We are very encouraged with global demand and our outlook for 2016."

IS Files Reveal Danish Recruiters' Links To UK

Sky News can reveal that a group of men arrested in Denmark two weeks ago were all named in Islamic State recruitment files leaked to us in March.
The link between the arrests and the files also exposes a connection between Danish IS recruiters and British extremists.
On 7 April, Danish police raided propertiesin several parts of Copenhagen. A number of arrests were made.
Two days earlier, a 20-year-old man was arrested at the city's airport. It is understood he was trying to board a plane with a large quantity of cash.
In total, five people were detained and a further four "detained in absentia". Their whereabouts are not known.
However, authorities refused to give many further details. In a so-called "double-locked door" legal hearing, the media were prevented from publishing the names of the men.
But Sky News has seen their names and those of the men still being sought. All appear in files leaked to Sky by a disillusioned IS member in March.
Filled out by IS gate keepers when recruits entered the self-proclaimed caliphate, the files are now exposing fighters who have slipped back into their home countries.
One by one authorities are picking them up and piecing together a terror franchise that spans the continent.
We rang the doorbell at the address of one of the detained men.
His entry form lists him as married. He lists his occupation as "childcare" and it states that he entered IS territory on 1 July 2013. It is not clear when he returned to Denmark.
A neighbour told us she knew the man well.
"I would say hello to him every time I walk in or out of the door. A really nice guy, very helpful. He offers to drive me so I don't have to take a cab," Lise-Lotte Christensen said.
We showed her the man's file. "It really surprises me. I had no idea he was that kind of guy, he was just really nice. A lovely, warm person," she said.
She confirmed to us that he has two young children and a Danish wife, all information which tallies with the associated file.
As with all the files, it lists the person who recommended the man's entry to IS. In his case it was an individual called Abu Hifs Al Pakistani, one of two names which crops up frequently in the files.
Across town, we visit another neighbourhood and the scene of another raid.
One man was taken from a second floor apartment in a block. The name on the doorbell is the same as that on the file which lists further details.
Born 1990, married, entered IS - 9 September 2013, recruiter - Abu Khatab al Pakstani. His name is the other which appears in a number of the files.
The form of the man arrested at the airport details him as a 20-year-old former mobile phone technician who travelled to Syria on 10 July 2013 when he'd have been just seventeen.
A well-known Copenhagen mosque is listed as his home address.
We know the man was close to the mosque's imam. We were told the imam was away in Mecca and our calls to his mobile phone didn't connect.
The recruit's sponsor is, once again, Abu Hifs al Pakistani.
Between them, Abu Hifs and Abu Khatab are named as the recruiters in all but three of the Danish files.
We have obtained footage of Abu Khatab at a rally in Copenhagen in late 2012. The IS files show us that he would have been recruiting people for jihad at this time.
In the footage, he is seen plugging a mobile phone into a loudspeaker.
On the other end of the line is the radical cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed, who was once based in Britain and whose connections to radical groups in the UK remain strong.
YouTube footage shows Abu Khatab alongside Abu Hifs in Syria in 2013.
Both men are now dead, but both had contact with known British extremists like Bakri Mohammed and another who can't currently be named for legal reasons.
The two men's exposure as high profile recruiters helps European intelligence agencies join up the dots.
A former analyst at the Danish Intelligence Service says that highlighting patterns in the forms is crucial in helping to understand IS. 
"One of the most interesting things in the files is who recommended the recruits," Anja Dalgaard-Neilsen said.
Ms Dalgaard-Neilsen is now the director of the Institute for Strategy at the Royal Danish Defence College. She says the files help not only to apprehend suspects but to prosecute them.

"It has now been criminalised to join a terrorist organisation and that's the reason why these files are potentially very interesting to the authorities, because they could support the argument of the authorities of the prosecution that these people joined a terrorist organisation," she said.
"It is, for obvious reasons, difficult to gather evidence in a war zone.
"Until recently it wasn't a crime in and of itself to travel to Syria so you couldn't know if people were doing humanitarian work or whether they had actually joined a terrorist organisation."
The challenge for the authorities is identifying all those in the files.
There are many more Europeans named in files than there have been arrests. Some individuals may have died in Syria. But others could have travelled back to their home countries.
After the atrocities in Paris and Brussels, and IS' pledge to attack again, there is an urgency to find them.

Deadly' Boko Haram attack on Nigeria's army

Fighters from Nigeria's militant Islamist group Boko Haram have inflicted heavy casualties on Nigerian forces after launching an early morning attack on their position in the north-eastern state of Borno, a soldier and a resident have told the BBC.
The militants stormed the base in Kareto village in large numbers with "heavy weapons which we didn't have", said the soldier who spoke to the BBC Hausa on condition of anonymity.
"We lost some men. I don't know how many, and many others were injured. Some of us fled in disarray. We realised that we were outnumbered and outgunned," another soldier is quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.
However, a resident of Kareto, some 60km (37 miles) from neighbouring Niger, told the BBC Hausa service that troops managed to regain control of the village with the support of fighter jets.
Several of the militants were killed in the fighting which lasted for several hours, the resident added. 

Jerusalem bus bombing injures 21

At least 21 people have been wounded by a bomb explosion on a bus in south Jerusalem, Israeli police say.
Two casualties were taken to hospital in a serious condition following the blast, near the Hebron Road.
A police statement said bomb disposal experts had determined that a device exploded in the back half of the bus.
Many of the injured were on the bus but others were in a passing car. The car caught fire along with a second bus that was empty. 
The head of the emergency department at Jerusalem's Hadassah Medical Center told Israeli Army Radio that some of the injuries were caused by flying metal nails and nuts.
A police spokesman told Israeli Channel 2 television that investigators were still trying to determine who had planted the bomb.
He declined to confirm reports that one of the two people in a serious condition was not carrying any identification papers and was considered a suspect.

The explosion happened in the evening rush hour sending up a huge cloud of dark smoke over the city skyline. 
Emergency workers were quick to remove the charred wreckage of the two buses and a car from the road and reopen it to traffic.
For many, images from the scene here will bring back worrying memories of the bomb attacks by Palestinian militants that last took place in this city more than a decade ago.
This blast comes just over a week after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that a decrease in the wave of attacks seen over the past six months was due to the "aggressive, responsible and systematic policy" of his government.

Palestinian militant group Hamas, which carried out a wave of bus bombings in the city in the early 2000s, praised Monday's blast, calling it "a natural reaction to Israeli crimes".
Over the past six months, 29 Israelis have been killed in a wave of stabbings, shootings or car-ramming attacks by Palestinians or Israeli Arabs.
About 200 Palestinians - mostly attackers, Israel says - have also been killed in that period.
The assailants who have been killed have been shot dead either by their victims or by security forces as they carried out attacks. Some attackers have been arrested.
Other Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli troops.

US Sending Troops, Apache Choppers To Iraq

The US has agreed to send more than 200 additional troops to Iraq along with Apache helicopters to aid in the fight against Islamic State.

The new force will consist mostly of Army special operators, US defence officials said.

The remaining troops will be made up of trainers, security forces and maintenance teams for the Apaches, the officials told the AP news agency.

The new Army special operators will serve primarily in advise and assist teams embedded with Iraqi forces.

Waitrose Cuts Overtime and Sunday Pay

Waitrose is to stop paying its staff a higher rate of pay for overtime and working on a Sunday.
Any new starters will see a lower rate of pay for working unsociable hours, in a move designed to bring the retailer in line with competitors.
"Changes were made by the John Lewis Partnership as a whole, to bring us in line with competitors," a spokesperson said.
"The Partnership assesses market rates and then we pay as much above that as performance deserves - this is why we have broad pay ranges, rather than spot rates."
A spokesperson denied the changes were down the introduction of a higher living wage at the beginning of the month.
"Premium payments are no longer a feature of the market we compare pay rates to and we planned these changes before National Living Wage was announced."
The average rate for a Waitrose supermarket assistant is around £7.80 per hour, and partners can earn up to £8.91 per hour.
In London, the hourly rate is even higher. Specialists, for example on counters, could receive £9.45 per hour.
Employees also receive a bonus. In 2016, it fell for the third year in a row, down to 10% as John Lewis took a hit from its pension scheme.
Waitrose saw its same-store sales fall 1.3% last year, amid fierce competition for supermarket customers.
Chairman Charlie Mayfield has warned of "challenging" market conditions and steep food price deflation, which he said mean Waitrose must control costs to retain its market share.
The changes, which took effect on 1 February, will not affect anyone who was employed by the supermarket before that date. Waitrose currently employs 58,000 staff.