Squalicum's Flint brings the wow factor to throwing events | Prep ...

It was about the time of the afternoon when minds wander and parents start trying to track down young kids that have been running wild all day for the drive home after a lengthy final day of the State Track and Field Championships. But the announcement of the final results of the Class 2A girls' discus results made just about everybody in the packed stands at Mount Tahoma High School snap attention to the awards stand and utter a collective, "Wow!"

Squalicum senior Gina Flint had just broken the five-year-old state meet record in the event by 15 feet.

Though the University of Washington-bound thrower wowed the crowd and claimed her second straight state title in the event with her throw of 161-11, it was a little more than 6 feet short of her personal best of 168-0.

In other words, it was just another day at the office for Flint, who has been selected The Bellingham Herald's All-Whatcom County Girls' Track and Field Athlete of the Year after she also won a second straight state title and broke another five-year-old state meet record in the shot put - this time by "only" a little more than 21/2 feet with her throw of 47-63/4.

"There have been so many great moments with Gina the last four years, but I think the first wow moment I had with her was her freshman year when she PRed by 10 feet in the discus while standing in a couple of inches of rain water," Squalicum throws coach Chris Benson said in a phone interview. "That was probably as excited as I have been, because that's not easy to do. She started early, and she's made me continue to say 'Wow.'"

Probably never more than in 2013, when Flint not only won every time she threw - 13 for 13 in the shot put and 13 for 13 in the discus - she dominated every time out.

She threw her best at the 2A District 1/2 Meet at Civic Stadium, when she not only threw the 168-0 in the discus, but also a personal-best 48-21/2 in the shot put. Both were the best girls' marks in the state this year - the discus by 211/2 feet - and ranked her seventh nationally in the shot put and third in the nation in the discus. Her discus throw was the third-longest in state history and she tied for fifth-longest ever in the shot put.

"My discus throw that meet, it came off my hand and hadn't hit the ground yet, and I got chills," Flint said in a phone interview. "Then they measured it and it was a PR. It was so exciting."

Call that her wow moment.

Whatcom County has not seen a thrower as dominant as Flint since former Sehome great Steven Ayers graduated and went to play football at Washington State.

In fact Flint had to make her own competition, because she simply was throwing out of the zip code of everyone else at the meets she attended.

"I'm friends with some of the other top girls in the nation," she said. "We'd talk to each other, and let each other know what we were throwing. We kind of competed with each other, even though we weren't at the same meets. I'd always think about what I wanted to work on in my form and what changes needed to be made and push myself to make those changes."

Of course, Flint has been an expert at providing her own motivation over the years.

"Her ultimate goal this year was 185 feet in the discus and 50 feet in the shot," Benson said. "She didn't quite make it there, but she got pretty close. That's what she does, is she makes a goal and sticks to it and figures out a way to get there."

That sort of goal setting has allowed Flint to continually improve throughout her throwing career.

In the discus, she improved her personal best from 112-10 as a freshman to 113-7 as a sophomore, 153-4 as a junior and 168-0 as a senior. She saw similar growth in the shot put, moving from 35-103/4 as a freshman to 39-91/2 her sophomore year, 45-73/4 as a junior and 48-21/2 this year.

"You don't see that too often," Benson said. "Every year in the discus she went 20 feet, 20 feet, 15 feet progress. In the shot, she went 3 feet, 4 feet, 4 feet. That's pretty special, too. That's just attributed to all the hard work she put in."

Flint is not only a year-round regular in the weight room lifting with the boys, she also throws just about every day - rain or shine.

"A lot of my friends think I'm crazy throwing in the rain and cold," Flint said. "I even threw in the snow one time, and they thought I was nuts. But I want to work hard."

Flint's dedication isn't all that makes her a special thrower.

"She's got natural quickness and athleticism," Benson said. "That's a real plus. When she finds herself out of position in the discus, she's athletic enough to recover to get in position. She matches that with tremendous strength. She's not just the strongest girl on our team, she's the strongest on the track team - boy or girl. That, combined with her hard work in the weight room has made her who she is."

But Flint is much, much more than just a good thrower.

Anybody who has heard her sing the National Anthem before Squalicum football or basketball games knows that the standout student athlete has a lot more going for her.

"I know a lot of people come up to me and say they respect the way that I sing the National Anthem and that I sing it the way it should be sung," Flint said. "I know a lot of people do runs on notes and change it to fit their own style. My grandpa asked me to please sing it straight and sing it the way it's supposed to be, and I promised to do that. Sophomore year, I sang before a football game, and I had a retired vet come up and say I sang it beautifully and he liked that I sang it straight. It really made an impact on me."

The anthem is far from the only song in Flint repertoire.

She's been a member of the Squalicum Storm Singers, which meets at 6:30 a.m. for practice, and the school's Concert Choir, which is a class that meets during the day. In April she got to go with Squalicum's women's ensemble to Ellensburg to compete at state, where the team placed seventh. She also competed at state as an alto soloist.

In January, she auditioned for UW's completive voice team - a team that usually doesn't allow freshman. Instead, Flint said she plans to sing with the University Choir next year.

"I know my parents say that when I was little, I was singing all the time," Flint said. "In fifth grade, I decided I wanted to do strings before school, and I played the violin in the fifth grade orchestra. ... I really enjoy music. When I don't have anything else to do, I can just come home and play guitar or the piano or sing. It's something I've loved for a long time."

It's also something Flint said she loves to do with her older sister Kyann, who Flint said suffers from a form of Muscular Dystrophy.

Kyann is a regular at track meets, though, as she can routinely be seen there taking pictures, Flint said.

"We're like any sisters," Flint said. "Sometimes we fight, but we like to hang out and go shopping. She's always been such a huge supporter of what I do. She's always there when I'm competing in music or track, or even when I played basketball. I think she's always pushing me to go harder."

In fact, track is kind of a family affair in the Flint household, with Gina's and Kyann's father, Ted, the sprints coach at Squalicum, and the family has been regulars at Bellingham Parks and Recreation all-comers meets since Flint was 5 and tried to compete in as many different events as she possibly could.

"It's been nice knowing my dad was there," Flint said. "Even though he couldn't always watch me because I knew he had to coach, just having him there when I was competing and seeing him walk up and watch me, that was great. ... My sister takes the pictures and my mom does the scrap booking."

Just imagine what that scrapbook must look like after everything Flint accomplished this spring.

But it's not all the medals she won or the records she broke that Flint says she's going to remember from 2013.

"I just go out every time with the purpose to have fun and cheer on the other throwers and hope to throw a PR myself," Flint said. "The thing I'm going to remember most is the way everyone on the team would get closer and closer together as state approached. Even at midseason, it was like we were a giant family. Everyone knows everyone, and everyone cheers everyone on. That's what I'm going to remember."

Reach David Rasbach at david.rasbach@bellinghamherald.com or 360-715-2286.

ALL-WHATCOM COUNTY GIRLS' TRACK AND FIELD ATHLETES OF THE YEAR

2013: Gina Flint, Squalicum

2012: Cherish Morrison, Blaine

2011: Zoe Moeller, Sehome

2010: Cherish Morrison, Blaine

2009: Becca Friday, Bellingham

2008: Becca Friday, Bellingham

2007: Becca Friday, Bellingham

2006: Meghan Dahl, Ferndale

Reach DAVID RASBACH at david.rasbach@bellinghamherald.com or call 715-2271.

Source: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2013/06/15/3053642/squalicums-flint-brings-the-wow.html

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NBA crowd cheers return of young singer

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Singer Sebastien De La Cruz performs the United States national anthem before Game Four of the 2013 NBA Finals.

The racists couldn't keep him down. The crowd at Thursday night's NBA Finals game between the San Antonio Spurs and Miami Heat gave 11-year-old Sebastien De La Cruz a roaring standing ovation as he returned to sing the national anthem again.

De La Cruz sang the anthem Tuesday night as well. After that performance, he was called numerous racial slurs by Twitter users. Many of the tweets assumed that De La Cruz was Mexican, perhaps due to his traditional mariachi costume, and went on to insult that country.

De La Cruz, again wearing mariachi clothing, was introduced on the court by San Antonio's mayor, Julian Castro. After singing, he was congratulated by Gregg Popovich, coach of the Spurs, and Erik Spoelstra, coach of the Heat.

Before De La Cruz performed, actress Eva Longoria sent a tweet saying, "As a Mexican-American, I am so proud of Sebastian De La Cruz, a great symbol of what America is today!"

De La Cruz first gained fame when he made it to the semifinals of "America's Got Talent" last season.

He responded to the racist tweets with a tweet of his own, writing, "Please do not pay attention to the negative people. I am an American living the American Dream. This is part of the American life."

Many of those who posted racist messages have since deleted their Twitter accounts.

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/take-racists-crowd-cheers-return-young-mariachi-singer-6C10318275

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Will 'Man of Steel' Have A Super Opening Weekend?

From James Franco and Seth Rogen battling the apocalypse and trying to save the world -- and their lives in This Is The End to Henry Cavill suiting up and saving the planet and the beautiful Amy Adams as Lois Lane in Man of Steel, here are the movies to check out.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/movie-reviews-what-see-weekend-end-and-man-steel/1-a-538958?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Amovie-reviews-what-see-weekend-end-and-man-steel-538958

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Canadian Sellout Anxiety

Canadians Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel in This is the End

Photo courtesy of SMPSP/Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc./Sony Pictures

It?s apocalypse season again, those fun few summer months when instead of wearing white the Hollywood movies are clad in artfully tattered rags. This June alone, in addition to Will and Jaden Smith?s After Earth, we have Brad Pitt leading us through the CGI carnage of World War Z and the maestro of world-ending mayhem himself, Roland Emmerich?director of Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and 2012?burning the White House Down.

Wedged between these more traditional entries is This Is the End, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg?s terrifically silly genre-buster, in which a party at James Franco?s Los Angeles mansion goes nuclear?or Satanic, or maybe alien: One of the running jokes questions which flavor of apocalypse has interrupted the fun. The movie sends up any number of the end-of-the-world staples audiences can now measure in buttered handfuls.

Rogen and Goldberg say their film, the directorial debut for both, is really about friendship. The same is more obviously true of their first feature collaboration, Superbad, which they wrote as kids growing up in Vancouver. But whereas Superbad X-rayed an adolescent male friendship, This Is the End?despite featuring a cast so pungently male that the lone woman (Emma Watson) to stumble into the story soon axes her disgusted way out?offers a less gendered slant on its theme. The niche it explores instead is even more exclusive: What happens when a Canadian friendship is hitched to a third wheel the size and shape of the United States.

Canada?s axis of talent and opportunity has long run north/south. Brain and comedian drain are known blights; every four years Canadians weep to see those hometown hockey players sold off to American franchises don the maple leaf for the Olympics. Developing a cultural identity is tricky when a country is pressed against the world?s greatest superpower. In the past this has contributed to what Lorne Michaels, a highly successful Canadian, has called ?a kind of national self-loathing.? In an interview with Alec Baldwin last year, Michaels recalled approaching his boss, the then-head of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, about a job offer that would take him to the States. ?If you?re that good, why are you here?? his boss replied.

Rogen and Goldberg were raised, then, as all Canadians are, amid these delicate resentments, and their new film folds them into an allegory of the end of a friendship as the end of the world. As with all of the characters in This Is the End, Rogen stars as himself?that is to say, a Hollywood baller with the connections and the view to prove it. His co-star is Jay Baruchel, another Apatow alum and a fellow Canadian. (Baruchel was the lead on Undeclared, the follow-up to Freaks and Geeks that was also quite good but will probably never get the oral history treatment.) In real life, after a stint in Los Angeles, Baruchel decided to return to Canada and pursue his career from there?though not before a bout of homesickness resulted in a red maple leaf tattoo over his heart. Since then Baruchel has vowed never to leave his native Montreal, and exhibits the kind of patriotism that can make those Canadians camped out across the border feel a little queasy.

?Everyone had always left,? Lorne Michaels said in that same interview with Baldwin, describing his youthful hope of joining ?the first generation of artists who would be able to stay in Canada. ?And the moment that you left, in Canada people started to treat you differently.? Like Rogen, Michaels had a writing partner; in the late ?60s he and Hart Pomerantz tried their luck in L.A., writing for Phyllis Diller and Laugh In. The pair headed back to Canada for a CBC show, but their stay was brief. When Michaels decided to take that better offer in Los Angeles, Pomerantz settled in Toronto and became a lawyer.

Growing up in a Vancouver infested with film and television shoots demystified the industry for Rogen and Goldberg, but some naivet? remained: They wrote Superbad not realizing, as Rogen said on Marc Maron?s WTF podcast this week, that ?you can?t write a movie that takes place in Canada and have it be released in America in a major way.? Their very personal story would have to be deracinated, all its references to home extracted, made American, and put back in.

?We always thought we?d make it,? said Goldberg during the same interview. ?We just never thought we?d make it how we made it.? Canadians tend to be uncomfortable with bald ambition, bulging out in the open like that. But Goldberg and Rogen had each other, and they had a plan. Baruchel also dreamed of filmmaking (as opposed to acting) from a very young age, but felt more ambivalent about the expatriate path. (Aware of his friend?s ambitions, Goldberg asked Baruchel to co-write the hilarious?and deeply Canadian?hockey flick Goon, released in 2011.) With This Is the End, Rogen and Goldberg finally wrested the kind of control they ditched Canada (joking, joking) to command. For a Canadian viewer, especially, it?s gratifying to see them restore to their more universally pleasing repertoire of dick jokes a few elements of home.

The film opens with Jay arriving in Los Angeles for some alone time with his famous friend Seth. Rather than a rose-petal heart arranged on the bed, on the coffee table at his condo Seth has spelled out his buddy?s name with joints. (This is true love.) But there is tension between them, as becomes evident when Seth suggests attending James Franco?s housewarming blowout. Jay is uncomfortable with Hollywood flash, and with Seth?s apparent comfort with it; he spends the party sulking in the face of American exuberance and excess. (Another alternative, posed by Canadian No. 3 Michael Cera in a neon color-blocked windbreaker, is delirious, coked-out corruption.) Baruchel has said that the story draws on his time as Rogen?s roommate in L.A., and the movie makes it easy to imagine them as the two types of Canadians likely familiar to Americans: the mole on the make, identifiable only by his extreme self-deprecation; and the peacock, always fanning his superiority and Montreal Canadiennes plumage.

Once the apocalypse hits, Seth?s assimilation gains a mortal importance. Franco favors him, slipping him crackers from a secret food stash and vowing to sacrifice himself for his friend, both in real life and in their sequel to Pineapple Express. Jonah Hill, whose extreme friendliness Jay takes for American smarm, thinks Seth maintains the friendship out of guilt: ?It?s like Jay is the last connection to his shitty weird Canadian life!? Seth starts to wonder too: ?We?ve been growing apart for years,? he says when Jay appeals to his sense of national solidarity. ?Those assholes??i.e., Seth?s American friends??are all we?ve got.? As the action ramps up, so does the identity politics. In the midst of Jonah?s exorcism (turns out it?s a Biblical apocalypse), Jay accuses Seth of selling out. ?At least I did sell out,? Seth shouts. ?You still act like you?re 18!?

You don?t have to be Canadian?or, like me, a Canadian living in the States?to be oddly warmed by their fighting. The sellout argument is viable across all sorts of state and municipal and otherwise self-righteous lines. But for Canadians the debate has a particular charge; as with ambition itself, it?s rare for us to see it out in the open that way.

Maybe I was particularly vulnerable. On my way to the screening of This Is the End, at the start of my 10^th summer in New York City, I pulled a brand new green card out of the mailbox. I clutched it from Brooklyn to midtown, and kept it my lap until the credits rolled. Listening to Goldberg and Rogen on WTF this week, I felt a new kinship; they don?t issue cards here, but limbo is its own country. ?Do you miss Canada?? Maron asked them. ?Yeah,? they both said softly, without hesitation.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/06/canadian_sellout_anxiety_why_canadians_are_afraid_of_selling_out.html

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Blind Chinese dissident leaving NYU by end of June

NEW YORK (AP) ? Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, whose escape from house arrest to the U.S. embassy in Beijing sparked a diplomatic crisis last year, will be leaving his position at New York University at the end of this month, the university confirmed.

Chen, a self-taught lawyer, has been a special student at the university's U.S.-Asia Law Institute since last May. He is working on a book, which is expected to be published later this year.

"We were pleased to offer Mr. Chen and his family a place to come and study and support his transition to the U.S. when he first left China, based on a pre-existing relationship he had with scholars here," NYU spokesman John Beckman said in a statement. "But NYU and Mr. Chen had discussions beginning last fall that NYU could not support him indefinitely."

Beckman rejected reports that Chen's departure was related to the university's development of a campus in Shanghai, calling the claims "fanciful and false."

Chen was not reachable for comment Thursday night.

Professor Jerome Cohen, a family friend and NYU law professor, said in a statement that Chen's agreement with the university was always to give him and his family a year to "get their feet on the ground and transition to a more permanent position."

"No political refugee, even Albert Einstein, has received better treatment by an American academic institution than that received by Chen from NYU, and I am grateful to the university administration for its extraordinary generosity, which could not reasonably be expected to go on indefinitely," said Cohen, adding Chen was currently choosing between "two attractive opportunities."

Bob Howe, a spokesman for New York-based Fordham University, confirmed Chen was "in negotiations" with Fordham Law School's Leitner Center but didn't know what kind of position was being negotiated. It was unclear Thursday what the other opportunity was.

Chen made international headlines in April 2012 when he escaped from house arrest. He had angered local Chinese officials by documenting complaints about forced abortions. The extrajudicial house arrest followed his release from prison.

His escape to the U.S. embassy triggered a diplomatic standoff over his fate. With Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Beijing for annual high-level discussions, officials struck a deal that let Chen walk free, only to see him have second thoughts. That forced new negotiations that led to an agreement to send him to the U.S. to study law at NYU.

Human Rights First gave its 2012 Human Rights Award to Chen in October. The award was presented by actor Christian Bale, who had tried to meet the activist in China but was turned away by officials.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blind-chinese-dissident-leaving-nyu-end-june-005552637.html

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US spy programs raise ire both home and abroad

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Obama administration faced fresh anger Monday at home and abroad over U.S. spy programs that track phone and Internet messages around the world in the hope of thwarting terrorist threats. But a senior intelligence official said there are no plans to end the secretive surveillance systems.

The programs causing the global uproar were revealed by Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old employee of government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden, whose identity was revealed at his own request, has fled to Hong Kong in hopes of escaping criminal charges. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee and supports the surveillance, accused Snowden of committing an "act of treason" and said he should be prosecuted.

Coolly but firmly, officials in Germany and the European Union issued complaints over two National Security Agency programs that target suspicious foreign messages ? potentially including phone numbers, email, images, video and other online communications transmitted through U.S. providers. The chief British diplomat felt it necessary to try to assure Parliament that the spy programs do not encroach on U.K. privacy laws.

And in Washington, members of Congress said they would take a new look at potential ways to keep the U.S. safe from terror attacks without giving up privacy protections that critics charge are at risk with the government's current authority to broadly sweep up personal communications.

"There's very little trust in the government, and that's for good reason," said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. "We're our own worst enemy."

Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was considering how Congress could limit the amount of data spy agencies seize from telephone and Internet companies ? including restricting the information to be released only on an as-needed basis.

"It's a little unsettling to have this massive data in the government's possession," King said.

A senior U.S. intelligence official said there are no plans to scrap the programs that, despite the backlash, continue to receive widespread if cautious support within Congress. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive security issue.

The programs were revealed last week by The Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers. National Intelligence Director James Clapper has taken the unusual step of declassifying some of the previously top secret details to help the administration mount a public defense of the surveillance as a necessary step to protect Americans.

One of the NSA programs gathers hundreds of millions of U.S. phone records to search for possible links to known terrorist targets abroad. The other allows the government to tap into nine U.S. Internet companies and gather all communications to detect suspicious behavior that begins overseas.

Snowden is a former CIA employee who later worked as a contractor for the NSA on behalf of Booz Allen, where he gained access to the surveillance. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said it was "absolutely shocking" that a 29-year-old with limited experience would have access to this material.

The first explosive document he revealed was a top secret court order issued by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that granted a three-month renewal for a massive collection of American phone records. That order was signed April 25. The Guardian's first story on the court order was published on June 5.

In a statement issued Sunday, Booz Allen said Snowden had been an employee for fewer than three months, so it's possible he was working as an NSA contractor when the order was issued.

He also gave the Post and the Guardian a PowerPoint presentation on another secret program that collects online usage by the nine Internet providers. The U.S. government says it uses that information only to track foreigners' use overseas.

Believing his role would soon be exposed, Snowden fled last month to Hong Kong, a Chinese territory that enjoys relative autonomy from Beijing. His exact whereabouts were unknown Monday.

"All of the options, as he put it, are bad options," Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who first reported the phone-tracking program and interviewed Snowden extensively, told The Associated Press on Monday. He said Snowden decided to release details of the programs out of shock and anger over the sheer scope of the government's privacy invasions.

"It was his choice to publicly unveil himself," Greenwald told the AP in Hong Kong. "He recognized that even if he hadn't publicly unveiled himself, it was only a matter of time before the U.S. government discovered that it was he who had been responsible for these disclosures, and he made peace with that. ... He's very steadfast and resolute about the fact that he did the right thing."

Although Hong Kong has an extradition treaty with the U.S., the document has some exceptions, including for crimes deemed political. Any negotiations about his possible handover will involve Beijing, but some analysts believe China is unlikely to want to jeopardize its relationship with Washington over someone it would consider of little political interest.

Snowden also told The Guardian that he may seek asylum in Iceland, which has strong free-speech protections and a tradition of providing a haven for the outspoken and the outcast.

The Justice Department is investigating whether his disclosures were a criminal offense ? a matter that's not always clear-cut under U.S. federal law.

A second senior intelligence official said Snowden would have had to have signed a non-disclosure agreement to gain access to the top secret data. That suggests he could be prosecuted for violating that agreement. Penalties could range from a few years to life in prison. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the process of accessing classified materials more frankly.

The leak came to light as Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is being tried in military court under federal espionage and computer fraud laws for releasing classified documents to WikiLeaks about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other items. The most serious charge against him is aiding the enemy, which carries a potential life sentence. But the military operates under a different legal system.

If Snowden is forced to return to the United States to face charges, whistleblower advocates said Monday that they would raise money for his legal defense.

Clapper has ordered an internal review to assess how much damage the disclosures created. Intelligence experts say terrorist suspects and others seeking to attack the U.S. all but certainly will find alternate ways to communicate instead of relying on systems that now are widely known to be under surveillance.

The Obama administration must also now deal with the political and diplomatic fallout of the disclosures. Privacy laws across much of Western Europe are stricter than they are in the United States.

On Tuesday, the European Parliament, through its 27-nation executive arm, will debate the spy programs and whether they have violated local privacy protections. E.U. officials in Brussels pledged to seek answers from U.S. diplomats at a trans-Atlantic ministerial meeting in Dublin that begins Thursday.

"It would be unacceptable and would need swift action from the EU if indeed the U.S. National Security Agency were processing European data without permission," said Guy Verhofstadt, a leader in the Alde group of liberal parties.

Additionally, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters Monday that Chancellor Angela Merkel would question President Barack Obama about the NSA program when he's in Berlin on June 18 for his first visit to the German capital as president. In Germany, privacy regulations are especially strict, and the NSA programs could tarnish a visit that both sides had hoped would reaffirm strong German-American ties.

In London, British Foreign Secretary William Hague was forced to deny allegations that the U.K. government had used information provided by the Americans to circumvent British laws. "We want the British people to have confidence in the work of our intelligence agencies and in their adherence to the law and democratic values," Hague told Parliament.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama is open for a discussion about the spy programs, both with allies and in Congress. His administration has aggressively defended the two programs and credited them with helping stop at least two terrorist attacks, including one in New York City.

But privacy rights advocates say Obama has gone too far. The American Civil Liberties Union and Yale Law School filed legal action Monday to force a secret U.S. court to make public its opinions justifying the scope of some of the surveillance, calling the programs "shockingly broad." And conservative lawyer Larry Klayman filed a separate lawsuit against the Obama administration, claiming he and others have been harmed by the government's collection of as many as 3 billion phone numbers each day.

Army records indicate Snowden enlisted in the Army Reserve as a Special Forces recruit in May 2007 and was discharged that September without completing any training or getting any awards.

___

Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, Frederic Frommer and Matt Apuzzo in Washington, Robert H. Reid in Berlin and Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

___

Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at https://twitter.com/larajakesAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-spy-programs-raise-ire-both-home-abroad-225349299.html

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CA-NEWS Summary

Iranian diplomat detained for three months without lawyer: sources

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A senior Iranian diplomat linked to Iran's reformists, who has been detained at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison for three months, has been denied access to his attorney for the entire time, sources familiar with the case told Reuters on Monday. Bagher Asadi, who was previously a senior diplomat at Iran's U.N. mission in New York and most recently a director at the secretariat of the so-called D8 group of developing nations in Istanbul, was arrested in mid-March in Tehran for unknown reasons, sources said last month.

Bombs kill 14 in central Damascus: Syrian TV

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Two bombs killed 14 people in central Damascus on Tuesday, state media said, in an attack which appeared to target a police station. Syrian television said the bombs exploded close to the police post in the central Marjeh Square, while the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said one bomb was detonated by a suicide attacker inside the police station.

Canada to snuff out medical marijuana production in homes

WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - Canada, a pioneer in the use of medical marijuana, will take legal production out of private homes next year as it seeks to address more than a decade of neighborhood spats and criminal activity. Health Canada will also snuff out its own production, which has been another legal source of the drug, and leave supplies solely to licensed growers in the private sector.

Turkish riot police clash with protesters in Taksim Square

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish riot police fired water cannon and teargas at hundreds of protesters in Istanbul's Taksim Square on Tuesday, Reuters witnesses said, entering the square for the first time since demonstrations against plans to develop a park there turned violent. The police move came after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan agreed to meet protest leaders, whose peaceful demonstrations two weeks ago spiraled into protests against his government in which three people have been killed and about 5,000 hurt.

Guantanamo prosecutors charge Iraqi with unlawful war tactics

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - An Iraqi prisoner identified as a senior al Qaeda commander has been charged in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal with firing on a medical evacuation helicopter and using unlawful tactics to wage war on U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan. The U.S. military made the charges against Abd al Hadi public in a statement as it prepared to start two weeks of pretrial hearings on Tuesday for other alleged al Qaeda operatives in the tribunals at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.

Myanmar minister backs two-child policy for Rohingya minority

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (Reuters) - Myanmar's Immigration Minister has expressed support for a controversial two-child limit on a Muslim minority group that opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the United Nations call discriminatory and a violation of human rights. Khin Yi, Minister of Immigration and Population, is the most senior official to publicly support the recently announced enforcement by local authorities of a two-child policy in northwestern Rakhine State for Rohingya Muslims, a stateless minority termed "Bengalis" by the Myanmar government.

Government holds high-level meetings on Syria, including on arming rebels

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States could decide as early as this week whether to arm Syrian rebels, U.S. officials said on Monday, as Secretary of State John Kerry put off a Middle East trip to attend meetings on the subject. The battlefield has tilted against the rebels in the Syrian civil war as Lebanese Hezbollah has entered the fray on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, helping his forces retake the strategic town of Qusair last week.

Contractor who leaked NSA files drops out of sight, faces legal battle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A contractor at the National Security Agency who leaked details of top-secret U.S. surveillance programs dropped out of sight in Hong Kong on Monday ahead of a likely push by the U.S. government to have him sent back to the United States to face charges. Edward Snowden, 29, who provided the information for published reports last week that revealed the NSA's broad monitoring of phone call and Internet data from large companies such as Google and Facebook, checked out of his Hong Kong hotel hours after going public in a video released on Sunday by Britain's Guardian newspaper.

Bombs and battles hit northern Iraq, more than 70 dead

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Insurgents attacked cities across Iraq on Monday with car bombs, suicide blasts and gun battles that killed more than 70 people in unrest that has deepened fears of a return to civil war. No group claimed responsibility for the day-long attacks, most of them in northern Iraq, but officials blame much of the violence that has killed nearly 2,000 people since April on Sunni Islamist insurgents linked to al Qaeda's local wing.

Canada says not receiving information from U.S. spying program

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada has no access to data gathered by a top-secret U.S. government surveillance program, but the nation's secret signals intelligence agency is monitoring foreign phone and internet traffic, officials said on Monday. An ex-CIA employee working as a contractor for the U.S. National Security Agency says the NSA is running a massive effort called Prism that scoops up information from phone companies as well as internet data from companies such as Google and Facebook.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ca-news-summary-005741293.html

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