Fight against Ukraine rebels threatens more unrest

Fight against Ukraine rebels threatens more unrest 

Workers of the Ukrainian company Metinvest clear away debris in a government building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, Friday, May 16, 2014. Local patrols by steelworkers have forced pro-Russia insurgents to retreat from the government buildings they had seized in a major city in eastern Ukraine, giving residents hope that a wave of anarchy was over. Mariupol is the second-largest city in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, one of two regions that declared independence Monday from the central government in Kiev. Citizen patrols began there earlier this week as Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine's richest man, urged steelworkers at his factories to help police restore order.

MARIUPOL, Ukraine (AP) -- Steelworkers from plants owned by Ukraine's richest man retook government buildings from pro-Moscow insurgents, reversing the tide of rebellion and lawlessness that has gripped this industrial port and dealing a setback to anti-Kiev forces aspiring to merge with Russia.

Wearing overalls and hard hats, dozens of workers cleared away barricades of debris and tires outside the Mariupol city hall on Friday, scoring early successes against the pro-Russian forces, but threatening to open a new and dangerously unpredictable cycle of confrontation.

"People are tired of war and chaos. Burglaries and marauding have to stop," said Viktor Gusak, a steelworker who joined in the effort to banish the pro-Russia militants from Mariupol, the Donetsk region's second-largest city and the site of bloody clashes last week between Ukrainian troops and the insurgents.

About 75 miles (120 kilometers) to the north, armed backers of Ukrainian unity dressed in black seized control of a police station in a village just inside the troubled Donetsk region, vowing to expel the separatists through force if necessary.

The moves, which began Thursday in Mariupol and the village of Velyka Novosilka, were a blow to the separatists who have seized control of government offices in this city and a dozen others in the east.

Other similar and apparently unaccountable groups look to be emerging elsewhere in the chaotic east. Should they make substantial incursions, it is unclear whether they will be perceived as liberators or attackers acting on behalf of a little-liked government in Kiev. The latter could precipitate civil conflict.

Government forces have in recent weeks achieved only limited results in quashing the self-styled Donetsk and Luhansk "people's republics" - armed groups that this week declared independence for their regions following contentious referendums. Polls have shown, however, that a majority of eastern Ukrainians support unity, though most are too fearful of the pro-Russian militias to say so publicly.

That has handed the initiative to expel the insurgents to forces acting independently of authorities in the capital, Kiev.

In Mariupol, billionaire Rinat Akhmetov's Metinvest holding group organized citizen patrols of steelworkers working alongside police to help improve security and get insurgents to vacate the buildings they had seized.

Until now, Akhmetov had been notable for his noncommittal stance during the turbulence that has for more than a month gripped the region that is home to his most lucrative industrial assets.

A video statement by the 47-year-old industrialist on Thursday made it clear that his loyalties are not so much with the Kiev government but with his native Donbass - territory that encompasses the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. He called for major constitutional reforms, while preserving a united Ukraine.

"This is when power goes from Kiev to the regions. This is when authorities are not appointed but elected. And this is when local authorities take responsibility for people's real future," he said.

Independence or absorption into Russia would spell economic catastrophe for the region, he added.

Since President Viktor Yanukovych's ouster in February, Ukraine's new leadership has reached out to oligarchs for help - appointing them as governors in eastern regions, where loyalties to Moscow were strong. Akhmetov, who served in Yanukovych's Party of Regions, has avoided such engagements and his attempt to set future terms on the future of the east may cause the government to bristle.

A representative of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic was also a party to the Akhmetov-brokered deal in Mariupol, but the insurgent group later disavowed its participation.

Instead, Donetsk People's Republic adviser Roman Manekin said in his own video address that Akhmetov should submit to the authority of the new would-be independent entity.

"We impatiently await such a statement. Otherwise, there will be no Akhmetov in Donbass," Manekin said.

Manekin didn't specify how the Donetsk People's Republic intended to enforce its demands.

German Mandrakov, who commanded the pro-Russian insurgents occupying city hall in Mariupol, said Friday that his associates fled, while he was "forced" to leave the building they had controlled for weeks.

"Everyone ran away," he said, using a vulgar Russian word for cowards. "Someone is trying to sow discord among us, someone has signed something, but we will continue our fight."

The citizen patrols organized by Metinvest now include some 100 teams consisting of two policemen and six to eight steelworkers, said police spokeswoman Yulia Lafazan.

In Washington, the White House welcomed moves by pro-Russian insurgents to leave government building they had seized in eastern Ukraine.

"We certainly welcome any indication that separatists who ... have seized buildings, who have set up roadblocks, stockpiled weapons, are vacating buildings and ceasing the kinds of activities that have only destabilized the situation in Ukraine and led to confrontations and violence," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

The industrial laborers of eastern Ukraine have a history of mobilizing to achieve political goals. In the late 1990s, hundreds of coal miners marched on Kiev demanding wage hikes in scenes that remain impressed on the memories of many Ukrainians.

In the bucolic rural village of Velyka Novosilka, a two-hour drive northwest of Mariupol, a shadowy fledgling volunteer militia calling itself the Donbass Battalion spoke of its own plans to expel pro-Russian insurgents.

The militia took over a police station Thursday and took down the Donetsk People's Republic tricolor that had been fluttering outside.

Speaking to The Associated Press, Donbass Battalion commander Semyon Semyonchenko denied his unit had received financial aid from either the government or tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky, who media reports have linked with pro-government militias.

On Friday, around 20 battalion members were seen napping on bales of hay in a barn in Velyka Novosilka and gave no immediate indication of plans to deploy elsewhere. At least one said he was an activist in the nationalist Svoboda party, whose role in the interim government installed after Yanukovych's ouster has led pro-Russian activists to decry what they have dubbed a "fascist junta."

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is running for president in a May 25 vote, announced Friday that 20,000 volunteers have enrolled in a resistance movement.

Speaking to supporters in the Poltava region, which lies just east of Kiev, she said that militia units and defense brigades have already been created, although she provided few specifics.

At the heart of the unrest in eastern Ukraine, however, it is the pro-Russia insurgents that are busy fortifying their territories.

Outside the strategic city of Slovyansk, an insurgent stronghold for more than a month now, armed separatists installed a new checkpoint on the eastern approaches to the city, blocking a major highway that links Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, with the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don across the border.

In Kiev, Ukraine's acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, on Friday urged residents of the eastern regions to stop helping the separatists and support the central government.

"You've got to support the anti-terrorist operation so that we could defeat terrorists and separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk regions together," he told parliament. "The actions of the terrorists are threatening lives and welfare of the people."

Nigeria opens door for talks with kidnappers

Nigeria opens door for talks with kidnappers 

Women attend a demonstration calling on the government to rescue the kidnapped schoolgirls of the Chibok secondary school, in Abuja, Nigeria, Tuesday, May 13, 2014. A Nigerian government official said "all options are open" in efforts to rescue almost 300 abducted schoolgirls from their captors as US reconnaissance aircraft started flying over this West African country in a search effort. Boko Haram, the militant group that kidnapped the girls last month from a school in Borno state, had released a video yesterday purporting to show some of the girls. A civic leader said representatives of the missing girls' families were set to view the video as a group later today to see if some of the girls can be identified.

 
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) -- U.S. reconnaissance aircraft flew over Nigeria in search of the nearly 300 kidnapped schoolgirls Tuesday, a day after the Boko Haram militant group released the first evidence that at least some of them are still alive and demanded that jailed fighters be swapped for their freedom.

A Nigerian government official said "all options" were open - including negotiations or a possible military operation with foreign help - in the effort to free the girls, who were shown fearful and huddled together dressed in gray Islamic veils as they sang Quranic verses under the guns of their captors in a video released Monday.

The footage was verified as authentic by Nigerian authorities, who said 54 of the girls had been identified by relatives, teachers and classmates who watched the video late Tuesday.

The abduction has spurred a global movement to secure the girls' release amid fears they would be sold into slavery, married off to fighters or worse following a series of threats by Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau.

Protesters marched through the streets of the capital, Abuja, Tuesday to demand more government action to find and free the girls, who are believed to be held in the vast Sambisi forest some 20 miles (30 kilometers) from the eastern town of Chibok, where they were seized from their school on April 15.

A U.S. reconnaisance mission was being carried out by a manned MC-12 surveillance aircraft, which is based in Niger, according to senior U.S. defense officials in Washington. In addition to the turboprop model which has seen heavy use in Afghanistan, U.S. officials were also considering the use of drones.

Gen. David Rodriguez, head of U.S. Africa Command, was in Abuja on Tuesday meeting with officials at the U.S. Embassy, according to the defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The Nigerian military said in a statement that Rodriguez visited Nigeria's defense headquarters to discuss U.S. support for Nigeria's campaign against the Boko Haram militants, who have killed more than 1,500 people this year in a campaign of bombings, massacres and kidnappings.

Nigeria's government initially said there would be no negotiations with Boko Haram, but that stance appeared to have been relaxed amid growing public outrage at home and abroad over the failure to rescue the girls.

Mike Omeri, the director of the government's information agency, said all options were being considered, including the possibility of a military operation with foreign help.

"At the moment, because all options are open, we are interacting with experts, military and intelligence experts from other parts of the world," he said late Monday. "These are part of the options that are available to us, and many more."

In a statement late Tuesday, authorities in Borno state said that 54 girls in the video had been identified by relatives and friends, including four of some 50 students who managed to escape their captors. At least 276 girls are still missing.

"Fifty-four of the girls in the video have been identified by their names in an exercise that involved some parents of the girls, fellow students, some teachers, security men and some officials of the Borno state government," said Isa Umar Gusau, a spokesman for the Borno state governor.

In the video, a camouflage-clad Shekau appeared separately from the girls, an assault rifle slung over his chest, and warned menacingly: "I swear to almighty Allah, you will not see them again until you release our brothers that you have captured."

He said the girls, most of whom are Christians, had converted to Islam.

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sinful," has waged a five-year campaign of bombings, massacres and abductions that has killed thousands in its drive to impose an Islamic state on Africa's most populous nation. It has tried to root out Western influence by targeting schools, as well as attacking churches, mosques, government buildings and security services in the country of 170 million, divided between a predominantly Christian south and Muslim north.

On Tuesday, President Goodluck Jonathan asked the National Assembly to extend the state of emergency in Borno and two other northeastern states for another six months. The emergency, first imposed in May 2013, and extended in December, has been fiercely opposed by many northern politicians who argue that it has created great hardships for the local population while allowing the military to commit rights abuses even as it fails to curtail the insurgency.

Nigerian security forces have moved quickly to force the militants from urban centers, but have struggled for months to dislodge them from rural areas and hideouts in mountain caves and the dense Sambisa forest bordering Cameroon.

Britain and the U.S. are now actively involved in the effort to rescue the missing girls. Britain, which has dispatched security experts to Nigeria, said it was also offering "longer-term counter-terrorism solutions to prevent such attacks in the future and to defeat Boko Haram."

Pentagon Spokesman Col. Steve Warren said the U.S. was coordinating its efforts with other allies in Nigeria. Countries including Israel and Spain have also offered to help.

Meanwhile, Nigeria's government said in a statement late Tuesday that Interpol has issued a red alert for the arrest of a terror suspect known as Aminu Sadiq Ogwuche, an army deserter who is accused of playing a role in a deadly April 14 bombing in Abuja blamed on Boko Haram.

3-Year-Old Boy’s HEAD Found at Convicted Cannibal’s Home

Police in Pakistan have made a grisly discovery, finding the severed head of a three-year-old boyat the home of two men previously convicted of cannibalism.

After police were notified of an alarming smell coming from the house, police found the young boy’s head and arrested 35-year-old Mohammad Arif. Police are still on the lookout for his 30-year-old brother Mohammad Farman.

Both brothers had been convicted of cannibalism and sent to two years in prison before they were released just last year. According to authorities, they two had dug up over 100 corpses at a local cemetery and ate them.

Ameer Abdullah, the chief of the local police force, says “Residents informed police after a stench emanated from the house of the two brothers. We raided the house on Monday morning and found the head of a young boy. We have arrested one of the brothers, Mohammad Arif, and are conducting raids for the arrest of the other brother.”

Police are also looking at local cemeteries to see if any other grave sites have been disturbed.

Fakhar Bhatti, who discovered the corpse of a 24-year-old woman at the brothers’ home a few years ago, says “In the middle of the room, I saw a cooking pot which was half full of meat curry. Nearby was a wooden board, a butcher’s axe, and a large kitchen knife. Bits of fat clung to the board and the blade of the axe. It still gives me the creeps; they had chopped off one of her legs below the knee, and the other near the shin. The rest of the body was intact. The curry was made from those parts.”

FCC revising Internet rules after public backlash

FCC revising Internet rules after public backlash 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler is broadening the scope of his proposed open Internet rules and suggesting tougher standards for Internet providers who wish to create paid priority fast lanes on their networks.

According to an FCC official, Wheeler made revisions after the commission received 35,000 public comments -many of them expressing outrage. The FCC first briefed reporters on the proposed rules last month.

Wheeler, a Democrat, also tweaked his proposal after the five-member commission's two other Democrats expressed concern.

"The new draft clearly reflects public input the commission has received," the FCC official said in a statement. "The draft is explicit that the goal is to find the best approach to ensure the Internet remains open and prevent any practices that threaten it."

Among the additions is a provision that would "presume" it to be illegal for an Internet provider to prioritize the traffic of an affiliated service - for example, it would be considered illegal if Comcast Corp. tried to give faster treatment to video streams of its subsidiary network, NBC.

However, an Internet service provider would be allowed to challenge that "presumption," the official said.

In the revised proposal, Wheeler also seeks comment on the possibility of treating broadband providers as so-called "common carriers" like telephone companies, which are subject to greater regulation than Internet providers, under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934.

The FCC and Wheeler have so far avoided subjecting cable and telecoms companies to Title II treatment, although Wheeler has said the option remains on the table. In the new proposal, he entertains more discussion on it than his initial proposal did.

The proposal also asks whether all paid-priority fast lanes should be banned outright. The previous version only asks if some paid-priority services should be banned.

Wheeler has faced a torrent of criticism after the earlier proposal made it appear as if he was overhauling the principle of "network neutrality," which says Internet service providers should not be allowed to discriminate against Web traffic depending on its source.

Such discrimination could result if a phone company like AT&T slowed down traffic from phone services like Skype, or if Comcast slowed Netflix video speeds to favor its own online video service, Xfinity.

The FCC will hold a preliminary vote on the rules Thursday before submitting them for formal public input. Wheeler aims to have a set of rules in place by year's end. An earlier set of rules from 2010 was struck down by an appeals court in January after Verizon challenged them.

Boko Haram demands release of fighters for girls

Boko Haram demands release of fighters for girls 

In this photo taken from video by Nigeria's Boko Haram terrorist network, Monday May 12, 2014 shows the alleged missing girls abducted from the northeastern town of Chibok. The new video purports to show dozens of abducted schoolgirls, covered in jihab and praying in Arabic. It is the first public sight of the girls since more than 300 were kidnapped from a northeastern school the night of April 14 exactly four weeks ago.

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- Under the guns of their captors, dozens of barefoot girls sat huddled together wearing gray Muslim veils as they chanted Quranic verses in Arabic. Some Christians among them said they had converted to Islam.

"I swear to almighty Allah, you will not see them again until you release our brothers that you have captured," the leader of the Boko Haram terrorist network threatened, an assault rifle slung across his chest.

A video released by the group Monday offered the first public glimpse of what it claimed were some of the nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped a month ago. The girls' plight has spurred a global movement to secure their freedom.

It is not known how many suspected Boko Haram members are detained by security forces. Hundreds were killed last month when leader Abubakar Shekau's fighters stormed the military's main northeastern barracks in Maiduguri, the terror group's birthplace and the headquarters of a year-old military state of emergency to put down the 5-year-old Islamic uprising.

In the video, two of the girls were singled out for questioning.

"Why have you become a Muslim?" one girl, who looked to be in her early teens, was asked.

"The reason why I became a Muslim is because the path we are on is not the right path," the girl said, nervously shifting her body from side to side, her eyes darting back and forth.

"We should enter the right path so that Allah will be happy with us," added the girl, who said her name had been changed to Halima because she had converted from Christianity to Islam. Like the other girls, she wore a bulky gray hijab that covered her body from head to toe, revealing only her face.

A second girl, who appeared to be in her mid-teens, was asked if she or any of the others had been mistreated. No, she said, adding that they had experienced nothing "except righteousness."

As the girls chanted Islamic verses, some clasped their hands together in what appeared to be the Christian style of prayer before quickly turning their palms upward, as Muslim worshippers do.

The girls' families have said most of those seized April 15 from a school in the northeastern town of Chibok are Christians.

It was impossible to fully authenticate the video, though parents were trying to turn on a generator in Chibok, hoping to watch the video and identify their daughters, said a town leader, Pogu Bitrus.

"There's an atmosphere of hope - hope that these girls are alive, whether they have been forced to convert to Islam or not," he told The Associated Press by telephone. "We want to be able to say, `These are our girls.'"

The video showed about 100 girls, indicating they may have been broken up into smaller groups as some reports have indicated.

Fifty-three girls managed to escape and 276 remain missing, police say.

Bitrus said vegetation in the video looked like the Sambisa Forest, some 20 miles (30 kilometers) from Chibok, where the girls were believed to have been spirited away.

In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney said U.S. intelligence experts were "combing over every detail" of the latest recording. He said administration officials have seen the video and "have no reason to question its authenticity."

A Nigerian government statement said it was reviewing the video and would "continue to explore all options for the release and safe return of our girls back to their homes."

In a video last week, Shekau threatened to sell the girls into slavery. It arrived amid unverified reports that Christians among the students had been forced to convert to Islam and that some were taken to neighboring Cameroon and Chad, where they were forced to marry their abductors. Boko Haram means "Western education is sinful."

The latest video, obtained by The Associated Press, came through channels that have provided previous messages from Shekau, who spoke in the video in the Hausa language of northern Nigeria. Wearing camouflage fatigues, he clutched an assault rifle in the footage, which was imprinted with the Boko Haram insignia - a Quran resting on two crossed assault rifles - and below a black jihadi flag.

The United States put a $7 million ransom on Shekau last year.

The mass abductions and failure of Nigeria's government and military to rescue the girls has aroused outrage at home and abroad. Last week, Nigeria belatedly accepted offers of help from the United States, Britain and other nations.

President Goodluck Jonathan's acceptance Sunday of help from Israel, which plans to send a counter-terrorism team, has angered some Muslims.

A leading Islamic scholar, Ahmed Mahmud-Gumi, warned in a statement that accepting help from Israel would "turn Nigeria into another global arena and battlefield for the filthy neocolonial squabbles by interest groups." On Saturday he said allowing Western soldiers onto Nigerian soil could make the country a new magnet for foreign Islamic militants who want to confront the United States and others.

The foreign help does not involve boots on the ground but rather experts in intelligence gathering, counter-terrorism and hostage negotiations.

The U.S. team consists of some 30 people drawn from the State and Defense departments, the White House said Monday. Among them are five State Department officials, two strategic communications experts, a civil security expert and a regional medical support officer. Four FBI officials with expertise in safe recovery, negotiations and preventing future kidnappings are also part of the group.

The Pentagon said 16 Defense Department personnel were on the team, including planners and advisers who were already in Nigeria and have been redirected to assist the government.

French President Francois Hollande invited Jonathan and leaders from neighboring Benin, Chad, Cameroon and Niger, as well as representatives of Britain, the EU and the United States, to a summit on Saturday to focus on Boko Haram, terrorism and insecurity in West Africa.

A French official said Jonathan had agreed to attend. He spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the gathering have not been finalized.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Said Djinnit, his special representative for West Africa, is in Abuja for meetings with the president and other officials on how the United Nations and its member states can help.

Residents: 50 bodies found in Nigeria violence

Residents: 50 bodies found in Nigeria violence 

BAUCHI, Nigeria (AP) -- Residents of a Nigerian town attacked by Boko Haram criticized security forces for failing to protect them despite warnings that the Islamic militants were nearby. At least 50 bodies have been recovered, many horribly burned, in the town.

The attack on Gamboru, in remote northeastern Nigeria near the border with Cameroon, is part of the Islamic militants' campaign of terror that included the kidnapping of teenaged girls from a school, 276 of whom remain missing and believed held by Boko Haram in the vast Sambisa Forest in northeastern Nigeria.

The death toll from the Monday afternoon attack in Gamboru was initially reported by a senator to be as many as 300, but a security official said it is more likely to be around 100. Some Gamboru residents said bodies were recovered from the debris of burned shops around the town's main market, which was the focus of the attack.

The bodies were found after the market reopened on Wednesday as health workers, volunteers and traders searched for missing people, said Gamboru resident Abuwar Masta. He said most of the bodies were burned beyond recognition. Some of the victims were traders from Chad and Cameroon, he said.

"It seems they hid in the shops in order not (to) be killed while fleeing," Masta said Wednesday. 

"Unfortunately, several explosives were thrown into the market."

Masta and other traders said that some villagers had warned the security forces of an impending attack after insurgents were seen camping in the bush near Gamboru.

The kidnapping of the schoolgirls on April 15 in the town of Chibok have sparked accusations that the Nigerian government is not doing enough to stop the militants. Boko Haram has killed more than 1,500 people so far this year as part of their campaing to impose Islamic law on Africa's most populous nation, which has 170 million people equally divided between Christian and Muslim.

Outrage over the missing girls and the government's failure to rescue them brought angry Nigerian protesters into the streets this week, an embarrassment for the government of President Goodluck Jonathan which had hoped to showcase the country's emergence as Africa's largest economy as it hosted the Africa meeting of the World Economic Forum, the continent's version of Davos. That meeting is ongoing in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, which also has been the scene recently of two bomb blasts blamed on Boko Haram.

Nigeria's military said in a statement Thursday that the armed forces are "focused on the task of rescuing the abducted girls and that the war on Boko Haram "will be effectively prosecuted."

On Thursday the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, said acts such as the mass abduction of girls "shock the conscience of humanity" and could constitute crimes that fall within the jurisdiction of The Hague-based court.

"No stone should be left unturned to bring those responsible for such atrocious acts to justice either in Nigeria or at the ICC," she said in a statement.

The homegrown terror group was largely contained to the northern part of Nigeria before expanding its reach with the help of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, the terrorist network's affiliate in West Africa, which trained Boko Haram fighters in its camps in southern Somalia, beginning in 2010.

Although Boko Haram has killed thousands of people - Christians as well as Muslims - over the years in a campaign of bombings and massacres, the group's mass abduction of schoolgirls appears to have galvanized global attention and prompted offers of security assistance from foreign countries to help rescue the girls.

The U.S. announced on Tuesday it was sending personnel and equipment to help Nigerian security forces.

Jonathan confirmed that he has accepted the American assistance, which the Pentagon said Wednesday will include communications, logistics and intelligence planning, but will not include any military operations. Britain and China said Nigeria had accepted their offers of help, and France said it was sending in a "specialized team" to help with search and rescue of the girls.

The office of the United Nations spokesman in New York said Jonathan on Thursday accepted U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon's offer to send a high-level representative to Nigeria to discuss how the U.N. can support efforts to tackle the country's "internal challenges."

Nutter Raises Minimum Wage For Most City Contract Workers

Nutter Raises Minimum Wage For Most City Contract Workers

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — In a stark about-face, Mayor Michael Nutter has decided to raise the minimum wage that companies doing business with the city must pay to their workers.

And he extended that requirement to subcontractors as well.

Nutter has long opposed raising the minimum wage required to be paid by firms with local government contracts, but he said he gradually changed his mind.

“This is something that’s been on my mind for a long, long time,” he said today.  “I finally came to the conclusion that the unemployment rate is coming down, more and more people seem to be working, the city is doing a little better.   And I came to the conclusion that we cannot leave folks behind — that if people are doing better in this city, that we need to make sure that some of that benefit is being spread to those who need it the most.”


For full story go to: http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Nigerian girl describes kidnap, 276 still missing

Nigerian girl describes kidnap, 276 still missing 

FILE - In this Monday April 21, 2014, file photo, four female students of government secondary school Chibok, who were abducted by gunmen and reunited with their families, walk together in Chibok, Nigeria. They are among the 53 girls who escaped abduction by Islamic extremist kidnappers. The girls did not want to be identified by name and refused to speak to reporters when they were photographed in Chibok, the town from which the mass kidnapping of more than 300 girls took place on April 15.

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- The girls in the school dorm heard the sound of gunshots from a nearby town. So when armed men in uniforms burst in and promised to rescue them, at first they were relieved.

"Don't worry, we're soldiers," one 16-year-old girl recalls them saying. "Nothing is going to happen to you."

The gunmen commanded the hundreds of students at the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School to gather outside. The men went into a storeroom and removed all the food. Then they set fire to the room.

"They ... started shouting, `Allahu Akhbar,' (God is great)," the 16-year-old student said. "And we knew."

What they knew was chilling: The men were not government soldiers at all. They were members of the ruthless Islamic extremist group called Boko Haram. They kidnapped the entire group of girls and drove them away in pickup trucks into the dense forest.

Three weeks later, 276 girls are still missing. At least two have died of snakebite, and about 20 others are ill, according to an intermediary who is in touch with their captors.

There were reports Tuesday that another group of 11 girls had been kidnapped in the villages of Warabe and Wala in northeastern Borno state. State police officials at first denied to The Associated Press that the abductions had taken place. But later in the day the state police commissioner, Tanko Lawal, confirmed the kidnappings. A resident said the girls, ages 12 to 15, were dragged into the forest Monday night by men armed with AK-47s, according to local journalists.

The plight of the kidnapped girls - and the failure of the Nigerian military to find them - has drawn international attention to an escalating Islamic extremist insurrection that has killed more than 1,500 so far this year. Boko Haram, the name means "Western education is sinful," has claimed responsibility for the mass kidnapping and threatened to sell the girls. The claim was made in a video seen Monday.

Amid growing outrage at the girls' prolonged captivity, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan Tuesday announced he has accepted a U.S. offer to help in the search, including security personnel and unidentified assets.

The British government has also expressed concern over the fate of the missing students, and protests have erupted in major Nigerian cities and New York.

The 16-year-old was among about 50 students who escaped on that fateful day, and she spoke for the first time in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. The AP also interviewed about 30 others, including Nigerian government and Borno state officials, school officials, six relatives of the missing girls, civil society leaders and politicians in northeast Nigeria and soldiers in the war zone. Many spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing that giving their names would also reveal the girls' identities and subject them to possible stigmatization in this conservative society.

The Chibok girls school is in the remote and sparsely populated northeast region of Nigeria, a country of 170 million with a growing chasm between a north dominated by Muslims and a south by Christians. Like all schools in Borno state, Chibok, an elite academy of both Muslim and Christian girls, had been closed because of increasingly deadly attacks by Boko Haram. But it had reopened to allow final-year students to take exams.

At about 11 p.m. on April 14, a local government official, Bana Lawal, received a warning via cell phone. He was told that about 200 heavily armed militants in 20 pickup trucks and more than 30 motorcycles were headed toward his town.

Lawal alerted the 15 soldiers guarding Chibok, he said. Then he roused sleeping residents and told them to flee into the bush and the nearby hills. The soldiers sent an SOS to the nearest barracks, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) away, an hour's drive on a dirt road.

No help arrived.

When the militants showed up two hours after the warning, the soldiers fought valiantly, Lawal said. Although they were outnumbered and outgunned, they held off the insurgents for an hour and a half, desperately waiting for reinforcements. One was killed. They ran out of ammunition and fled for their lives.

As dawn approached, the extremists headed for the boarding school.

There were too many gunmen to count, said the girl who escaped. So, even after the students realized the men were Islamic extremists, they obediently sat in the dirt. The men set the school ablaze and herded the girl's group onto the backs of three pickup trucks.

The trucks drove through three villages, but then the car of fighters following them broke down. That's when the girl and her friend jumped out.

Others argued, the 16-year-old remembered. But one student said, "We should go! Me, I am coming down. They can shoot me if they want but I don't know what they are going to do with me otherwise."

As they jumped, the car behind started up. Its lights came on. The girls did not know if the fighters could see them, so they ran into the bush and hid.

"We ran and ran, so fast," said the girl, who has always prided herself on running faster than her six brothers. 

"That is how I saved myself. I had no time to be scared, I was just running."

A few other girls clung to low-hanging branches and waited until the vehicles had passed. Then they met up in the bush and made their way back to the road. A man on a bicycle came across them and accompanied them back home.

There, they were met with tears of joy.

"I'm the only girl in my family, so I hold a special place and everyone was so happy," the girl said. "But that didn't last long."

The day after, the Defense Ministry put out a statement quoting the school principal, saying soldiers had rescued all but eight of the girls. When the principal denied it, the ministry retracted its statement.

With confidence in the military eroded, the residents of Chibok pooled their money, bought fuel for motorcycles and headed into the dangerous Sambisa Forest. The forest sprawls over more than 23,000 square miles (59,570 sq. kilometers), nearly eight times the size of Yellowstone National Park in the United States, and is known to shelter extremist hideouts.

Mutah Buba joined the search party hoping to find his two sisters and two nieces. They got directions from villagers along the way who said they had seen the abductors with the girls on a forest path. Finally, an old man herding cattle at a fork in the road warned them that they were close to the camp, but that they and their daughters could be killed if they confronted the militants.

The searchers returned to Chibok and appealed to the few soldiers there to accompany them into the forest. They refused, point blank, Buba said. Parents in Chibok ask why they came within a couple of miles of their daughters, yet the military did not.

"What was strange was that none of the people we spoke to had seen a soldier man in the area, yet the military were saying they were in hot pursuit," said Buba, a 42-year-old drawn home to Chibok by the tragedy from Maiduguri, the Borno state capital 130 kilometers (80 miles) to the northwest.

The military says it is diligently searching for the girls, with extensive aerial surveillance.

"Every information relayed to security agencies has so far been investigated, including the search of all places suspected as a possible hide-away of the kidnapped girls," Information Minister Labaran Maku said Friday.

Many soldiers have told the AP they are demoralized, because Boko Haram is more heavily armed and 

better equipped, while they get little more than a meal a day.

Some of the kidnapped girls have been forced into "marriage" with their Boko Haram abductors, sold for a nominal bride price of $12, according to parents who talked with villagers. Others have been taken across borders to Cameroon and Chad, they said. Their accounts could not be verified, but child marriage is common in northern Nigeria, where it is allowed under Islamic law but not the country's Western-style constitution.

In the meantime, the parents are frantic. Through sobs and jagged gasps for air, the mother of a missing 15-year-old said she had lost confidence in the authorities.

"I am so very sad because the government of Nigeria did not take care of our children and does not now care about our children," said the mother, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect her daughter. "All we have left is to pray to God to help them and help us."

The mother of six wondered what would happen to her daughter's lofty ambition to become a doctor. She said the girl spent her time caring for the family, and would cook whatever her mother wanted to eat.

"She is my first-born, the best," said the mother, who broke into a scream followed by wails of sorrow. 

"What am I to do as a mother?"

The only way to get the girls back is through negotiation, according to an Islamic scholar who has mediated the release of previous hostages. The scholar, who remained anonymous because his position receiving messages from Boko Haram is sensitive, said the militants are willing to free the girls for a ransom, but have not specified how much.

The 16-year-old who escaped keeps thinking of her friends, and wondering why she was able to get away while they are still captive. She is at times afraid and at times angry.

"I am really lucky and I can thank God for that," she said. "But God must help all of them ... Their parents are worrying. Every day, everyone is crying."

 

Phila. Officials To Hear Dispute Over Playground That Sits On A Historic Cemetery

Phila. Officials To Hear Dispute Over Playground That Sits On A Historic Cemetery

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — The Nutter administration is hosting a public meeting today amid rising tensions over proposed renovations to a Queen Village playground that sits atop a historic African American cemetery.

About a third of the land that contains the Weccacoe Playground and recreation center, near 4th and Catherine Streets, sits atop the remains of roughly 5,000 African Americans.

The land was once owned by Mother Bethel AME Church, which use it as a burying ground in the early to mid-19th century.

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Phila. School District Says It Needs Hundreds of Millions More Next Year

Phila. School District Says It Needs Hundreds of Millions More Next Year

 

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — The cash-strapped School District of Philadelphia was presenting its budget to City Council today.  And the district is asking Council for millions more, to stave off even more deep program cuts.

The district is already counting on City Council to provide $120 million more for next year by extending the one-percent city sales tax hike.  But that’s far from a done deal.

Council president Darrell Clarke didn’t say how much, but he said Council would provide some additional money. But he wants accountability.

For full story go to:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Do You Know What You Husband's God Given Assignment Is?

Tune in Saturday May 3, to a New Day Is Here. Dr Michael Morgan Sr will be our guests launching a series of show on the Scriptural foundation for marriage. How often do we hear people moaning and complaining about the state of marriage.

Well A New Day Is Here and we're going to be discussing solutions. The family is the foundation of our society. It is fitting that we devote large chunks of our attention to make sure the bedrock, the union between a man and woman, is unshakable.

The show starts at 6 am EST you can call into our listeners line at  (646) 595-4215 or listen online at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hudsonliberty/2014/05/03/a-new-day-is-here-tips-on-success-in-life-and-business-with-dr-mike-morgan

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CDC confirms first case of MERS virus in American

CDC confirms first case of MERS virus in American 

FILE - This file photo provided by the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases shows a colorized transmission of the MERS coronavirus that emerged in 2012. Health officials on Friday, May 2, 2014 said the deadly virus from the Middle East has turned up for the first time in the U.S.

 

NEW YORK (AP) -- Health officials on Friday confirmed the first case of an American infected with a mysterious virus that has sickened hundreds in the Middle East.

The man fell ill after flying to the U.S. late last week from Saudi Arabia where he was a health care worker.

He is hospitalized in good condition in northwest Indiana with Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Indiana health officials, who are investigating the case.

The virus is not highly contagious and this case "represents a very low risk to the broader, general public," Dr. Anne Schuchat told reporters during a CDC briefing.

The federal agency plans to track down passengers he may have been in close contact with during his travels; it was not clear how many may have been exposed to the virus.

So far, it is not known how he was infected, Schuchat said.

Saudi Arabia has been at the center of a Middle East outbreak of MERS that began two years ago. The virus has spread among health care workers, most notably at four facilities in that county last spring.

Officials didn't provide details about the American's job in Saudi Arabia or whether he treated MERS patients.

Overall, at least 400 people have had the respiratory illness, and more than 100 people have died. All had ties to the Middle East region or to people who traveled there.

Experts said it was just a matter of time before MERS showed up in the U.S., as it has in Europe and Asia.

"Given the interconnectedness of our world, there's no such thing as `it stays over there and it can't come here,'" said Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a Columbia University MERS expert.

MERS belongs to the coronavirus family that includes the common cold and SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, which caused some 800 deaths globally in 2003.

The MERS virus has been found in camels, but officials don't know how it is spreading to humans. It can spread from person to person, but officials believe that happens only after close contact. Not all those exposed to the virus become ill.

But it appears to be unusually lethal - by some estimates, it has killed nearly a third of the people it sickened. That's a far higher percentage than seasonal flu or other routine infections. But it is not as contagious as flu, measles or other diseases. There is no vaccine or cure and there's specific treatment except to relieve symptoms.

Federal and state health officials on Friday released only limited information about the U.S. case: On April 24, the man flew from Riyadh - Saudi Arabia's capital and largest city - to the United States, with a stop in London. He landed in Chicago and took a bus to nearby Indiana. He didn't become sick until Sunday, the CDC said.

He went to the emergency room at Community Hospital in Munster the next day with a fever, cough and shortness of breath. He was admitted and tested for the MERS virus because he had traveled from the Middle East. The hospital said he was in good condition.

As a precaution, the hospital said it would monitor the man's family and health care workers who treated him for any signs of infection.

There's been a recent surge in MERS illnesses in Saudi Arabia; cases have tended to increase in the spring. Experts think the uptick may partly be due to more and better surveillance. Columbia's Lipkin has an additional theory - there may be more virus circulating in the spring, when camels are born.

The CDC has issued no warnings about travel to countries involved in the outbreak. However, anyone who develops fever, cough or shortness of breath within two weeks of traveling in or near the Arabian Peninsula should see their doctor and mention their travel history.

 

Ukrainian unrest spreads; dozens dead in Odessa

Ukrainian unrest spreads; dozens dead in Odessa 
 

Firefighters evacuate an injured man outside the burnt trade union building where more than 30 people died trying to escape during clashes in Odessa, Ukraine, on Friday, May 2, 2014. Odessa had been largely tranquil since the February toppling of President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia. But clashes erupted Friday between pro-Russians and government supporters in the key port on the Black Sea coast, located 550 kilometers (330 miles) from the turmoil in the east.

SLOVYANSK, Ukraine (AP) -- Ukraine launched an offensive against separatist forces for control of a besieged eastern city Friday, while clashes between pro- and anti-government activists in the previously calm southern port of Odessa led to a fire that police said killed 31 people.

The first serious offensive by the government in Kiev and the dozens of deaths in Odessa sharply escalated the crisis that has led to the worst tensions between Russia and the West since the Cold war. The Kremlin said the battle for the separatist-held city of Slovyansk effectively destroyed the Geneva pact aimed at cooling the unrest in the deeply divided country.

Oleksandr Turchynov, Ukraine's acting president, said many insurgents were killed or wounded in the eastern offensive that also underlined the military's vulnerability. The military action came two days after Kiev said it had lost control of eastern Ukraine.

Both sides said two Ukrainian helicopters were shot down by the insurgents near Slovyansk, killing two crew members, while authorities said another seven people also died: three separatist gunmen, two soldiers and two civilians.

By nightfall, Ukrainian troops and armored personnel carriers blocked all major roads into Slovyansk, and the central part of the city remained in the hands of pro-Russia gunmen, according to Associated Press journalists inside. Most shops were closed, and the few that were open were crowded with customers stocking up on supplies.

Sporadic gunfire was heard in Slovyansk's downtown late Friday, while Russian news reports said there were armed clashes in the nearby town of Kramatorsk. There was no immediate independent confirmation of fighting.

The Ukrainian Security Service said one helicopter was downed with a surface-to-air missile, adding that the sophisticated weapon undercut Russia's claims the city of 125,000 people was simply under the control of armed locals.

"Ukrainian security forces so far are not ready for large-scale military actions; moreover, such actions could provoke Russia's invasion," said Kiev-based political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko.

Russia has massed tens of thousands of troops in areas near Ukraine's border. Kiev claims Moscow is preparing to invade and that it is fomenting the unrest in the east, where insurgents have seized government buildings in about a dozen cities and towns. The Kremlin denies the allegations, but Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned Russia would respond to attacks on its citizens or interests in the east.

Unlike eastern Ukraine, Odessa had been largely tranquil since the February toppling of President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia. But clashes erupted Friday between pro-Russians and government supporters in the key port on the Black Sea coast, located 550 kilometers (330 miles) from the turmoil in the east.

Police said the deadly fire broke out in a trade union building, but did not give details on how it started. Earlier, police said at least three people had died in a clash between the two sides in the city of 1 million.

According to Ukrainian news reports, the pro-Kiev demonstrators broke up an encampment of Moscow supporters outside the trade union building. The latter took refuge in the building, which then caught fire.

Odessa police spokesman Volodymyr Shasbliyenko told AP the fire apparently was caused by Molotov cocktails. He had no further details or identities of the victims.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said the fatal fire was "yet another manifestation of the criminal irresponsibility of the Kiev authorities who indulge insolent radical nationalists ... which are engaging in a campaign of physical terror" against those in Ukraine who want more autonomy for the pro-Moscow regions.

A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Ukrainian offensive "effectively destroyed the last hope for the implementation of the Geneva agreement" of two weeks ago that aimed to defuse the crisis. But Dmitry Peskov also said Russia "continues to undertake consistent efforts on de-escalation."

In Washington, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Barack Obama warned that Russia could be hit by new sanctions from the U.S. and the European Union if it continues disruptive actions in Ukraine. Previous sanctions are showing signs of significant effect on the Russian economy.

The fighting in Slovyansk, a city about 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the Russian border, broke out around dawn. Stella Khorosheva, a spokeswoman for the insurgents, said three fighters and two civilians were killed in the clashes.

The Russian state television channel Rossiya-24 showed one man who they said was a wounded helicopter pilot surrounded by pro-Russia forces.

Several foreign news crews, meanwhile, were detained for several hours Friday by nervous pro-Russia militia before being released. CBS reported that one journalist was beaten.

Slovyansk is strategically key because Ukraine has a huge stockpile of automatic rifles and other light weapons near the city, according to a commentary Friday for Britain's Royal United Services Institute defense think-tank.

"Today, Kiev has upped the ante in the standoff and will test Russian resolve to prevent the Ukrainian government from regaining control of the city and its light weapons stockpile," the think-tank authors wrote.

Turchynov said some government troops and police in eastern Ukraine were "either helping or cooperating with terrorist organizations." He said Ukrainian forces were working to prevent the unrest from spreading other areas.

At Russia's request, the U.N. Security Council met in an emergency session Friday on Ukraine.

Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin demanded a "swift halt of all violence," but Western powers scoffed at his country's indignation.

"Russia ... has released bands of thugs on Ukraine ... and is suddenly discovering this mixture might escape its control," French ambassador Gerard Araud said.

Ukraine, a nation of 46 million, is torn between those in the west who favor closer ties with Europe and many Russian-speakers in the east who look toward Moscow. Separatists who have seized government buildings in at least 10 eastern cities amid fears that Moscow is seeking a pretext to invade or annex more territory like it did with Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in March.

The peace deal in Geneva last month aimed to get those who had seized government buildings in Ukraine to leave and calm down the tensions that have prompted the United States and the European Union to slap Russia with rounds of sanctions.

The Russian Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine's government of using "terrorists" from ultranationalist organizations for Friday's military operation. It also claimed that Kiev deployed tanks and helicopters that were "conducting missile strikes on protesters," something that neither side in Ukraine reported.

An AP crew also saw no evidence of missile strikes in Slovyansk.

Russia also cited insurgents in Ukraine as saying that some of the government attackers spoke English - an insinuation that the Ukrainian military was getting help from the West.

TV crews from Sky News and CBS were detained Friday on the outskirts of Slovyansk. Sky News said in a statement its crew was detained for several hours but is now "safe and well."

CBS correspondent Clarissa Ward told "CBS This Morning" that she and her crew were stopped by pro-Russia insurgents at a checkpoint just outside Slovyansk, then taken to a nearby town where they were blindfolded tightly with masking tape. They were released several hours later, unharmed except for one man who was beaten.

Kiev's interim government came to power after Yanukovych fled, drummed out by months of anti-government protests. Ukraine plans to hold a presidential election on May 25.

55 US schools face federal sex assault probes

55 US schools face federal sex assault probes

FILE - This April 10, 2014 file photo shows Education Secretary Arne Duncan speaking in New York. Fifty-five colleges and universities _ big and small, public and private _ are being investigated over their handling of sexual abuse complaints, the Education Department revealed Thursday. Duncan said there had been “lots of internal debate” about whether to release the list but that he believes in transparency; he said the more the country is talking about the problem of sexual assault, the better. Duncan said there is “absolutely zero presumption” of guilt in his mind for schools being investigated.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- From huge state universities to small colleges and the Ivy League, 55 schools across America are facing federal investigation for the way they handle sexual abuse allegations by their students.

For the first time, the Education Department revealed its list of colleges under investigation on Thursday - though no details of the complaints - as the Obama administration sought to bring more openness to the issue of sexual violence on and around the nation's campuses.

The schools range from public universities, including Ohio State, the University of California, Berkeley and Arizona State, to private schools including Knox College in Illinois, Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and Catholic University of America in the District of Columbia. Ivy League schools including Harvard, Princeton and Dartmouth are also on the list.

The government emphasized the list was about investigations of complaints, not judgments. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said there was "absolutely zero presumption" of guilt.

Few details of individual cases are known, but some are. One, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, involves allegations of mishandling of a matter involving a football player. The investigation began after federal authorities received complaints related to the expulsion of Brendan Gibbons, a former placekicker.

A student group examined the school's student sexual misconduct policy and last month determined the university failed to explain a yearslong delay between the alleged incident and Gibbons' expulsion in December. Spokesman Rick Fitzgerald says the university has been "fully cooperating."

Schools on the list, for the most part, were unwilling to talk about specific incidents but said they have been working with the federal department to be more responsive to student complaints.

"We are hopeful at the end of this there will be a resolution that will strengthen our internal processes and result in a safer community," said Dartmouth spokesman Justin Anderson. "There's always something we can learn and ways to get better."

Some of the investigations go as far back as 2010. Three universities - Michigan State, Wittenberg in Ohio and Southern Methodist in Texas - face more than one.

The Obama administration's effort to bring more attention to the issue of sexual assaults is not limited to colleges.

Separately on Thursday, the Pentagon said that reports of assaults by members of the military have risen 50 percent since the beginning of a campaign to persuade more victims to come forward. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said he is ordering six initiatives to deal with sexual assaults, including efforts to get more male victims to speak up.

The college investigations are done under Title IX of a U.S. law, which prohibits gender discrimination at schools that receive federal funds. It is the same law that guarantees girls and women equal access to sports, but it also regulates institutions' handling of sexual violence and increasingly is being used by victims who say their schools failed to protect them.

The agency previously would confirm such Title IX investigations when asked, but students and others were often unaware of them.

Duncan said there had been "lots of internal debate" about whether to release the list but that transparency is important.

"No one probably loves to have their name on that list," Duncan said during a White House briefing. "But we'll investigate; we'll go where the facts are. And where they have done everything perfectly, we'll be very loud and clear that they've done everything perfectly."

The department can withhold federal funding from a school that doesn't comply with the law, but it so far has not used that power and instead has negotiated voluntary resolutions for violators.

About half of all states have schools under investigation.

Massachusetts has six, including Harvard College.

Harvard students filed formal complaints in late March to the department saying the college did not respond promptly to reports of sexual violence, that students were subjected to a sexually hostile environment, and that in some cases assault victims were forced to live in the same residence buildings as their alleged assailants.

"Harvard has taken a number of steps to foster prevention efforts and to support students who have experienced sexual misconduct," spokesman Jeff Neal said. They include appointing a Title IX officer to review policies and procedures.

Pennsylvania had five schools listed. California, Colorado and New York each had four.

Some investigations were prompted by complaints directly to the federal department; others were initiated by the department following compliance reviews triggered by other factors, such as news stories or information from parents or an advocacy group, the department said. Some schools wanted to note what triggered the investigation.

Indiana University-Bloomington, for example, said the federal department had confirmed that it didn't receive any complaints against the school "that would have triggered an investigation."

Similarly, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst also said it was being investigated under a standard compliance review and not because of any specific complaints.

At Sarah Lawrence College, a heavily female school on the list, a spokeswoman said the college has taken steps that include putting up posters advising students of what to do if they are sexually assaulted and requiring a "consent and respect online" course for new students starting this summer.

While being on the list might be difficult for schools, Duncan said, it pales in comparison to the difficulty and trauma borne by sexual assault victims on American college campuses.

"In terms of what's morally right there, the moral compass, whatever we can do to have fewer young women and young men having to go through these types of horrific incidents, we want to do that," Duncan said.

The White House has said that as many as 1 in 5 female college students is assaulted. President Barack Obama has appointed a task force of Cabinet members to review the issue after hearing complaints about poor treatment of campus rape victims and the hidden nature of such crimes.

The task force's report, released just two days earlier, announced the creation of a website, notalone.gov, offering resources for victims and information about past enforcement actions on campuses. The task force also made a wide range of recommendations to schools, such as identifying confidential victims' advocates and conducting surveys to better gauge the frequency of sexual assault on campuses.

The department publicized guidance on Title IX's sexual assault provisions in 2011, and complaints by students have since increased. Complaints, however, don't always lead to an investigation.

Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., have said non-compliance under the law is "far too common." They say a lack of federal resources is partly to blame for that, and they've sought more money to ensure timely and proper investigations.

In a statement Thursday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., praised the release of the list but said the department needs to "thoroughly and rapidly" investigate the complaints.

Another law that campus sexual assault cases fall under is the Clery Act, which requires colleges and universities to report crime statistics on or near their campuses. It also requires schools to develop prevention policies and ensure victims' basic rights. Investigations under this law are not included in the list that was released.