Oakeshott quits Lib Dems with Clegg 'disaster' warning

Lord Oakeshott has quit the Lib Dems with a warning the party is "heading for disaster" under Nick Clegg.

The peer, a former Treasury spokesman for the party who is seen as close to Vince Cable, said the party had lost its "roots, principles and values".
He quit after it emerged he commissioned polls suggesting the party would do better without Mr Clegg.

Mr Cable has denounced his actions but the peer said the business secretary knew about the poll and its findings.
Mr Cable, who is currently in China on government business, said he knew Lord Oakeshott was paying for private opinion polls in Mr Cable's Twickenham constituency and some other areas as part of the party's general election planning

But he had "absolutely no knowledge" of polls being carried out in Mr Clegg's Sheffield Hallam constituency or the Inverness constituency of Treasury minister Danny Alexander.

"I criticised them [the polls] very seriously yesterday but I am here to do a job of work promoting British exports and jobs and that is what I intend to get on with," he said.

He described Lord Oakeshott as a "longstanding friend" and said he regretted "we've finished up in this way," adding he hoped the peer would reconsider his resignation from the party.
Mr Clegg has accused Lord Oakeshott of seeking to "undermine" the Lib Dems, and senior party sources have told the BBC the peer had been "disowned" after a "shambolic attempt at a coup" and for "pursuing his own malicious agenda".

The row comes after the Lib Dems' dire performance in European elections.
Mr Clegg has faced calls to step down from 300 activists while a number of constituency associations, including Liverpool and Cambridge, are to hold meetings to discuss their leader's future.

'Unacceptable'
 
Lord Oakeshott said he was leaving the party "with a heavy heart" and issued a warning to the Lib Dems about their future prospects.
"I am sure the party is heading for disaster if it keeps Nick Clegg; and I must not get in the way of the many brave Liberal Democrats fighting for change," he said.

  Lord Oakeshott is a longstanding critic of Nick Clegg

 

He suggested that under Mr Clegg's leadership the Lib Dems had become a "split-the-difference centre party, with no roots, no principles and no values" rather than a "radical, progressive party".
He said the message behind Mr Clegg's "dire approval ratings year after year in all national polls, and Thursday's appalling council and European election results, is crystal-clear.

"We must change the leader to give Liberal Democrat MPs their best chance to win in 2015."
He added: "I am sorry I have so upset and embarrassed my old friend Vince Cable and that we were not able to talk before he issued yesterday's statement from China."

Prosecutors: Victim bumped Hernandez before double homicide

An accidental bump at a nightclub preceded the 2012 double homicide allegedly committed by then-New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez, an assistant district attorney alleged Wednesday during Hernandez's arraignment in the case.

Hernandez pleaded not guilty Wednesday to two counts of first-degree murder and other charges in the July 2012 killings of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado.

Hernandez, 24, who also is awaiting trial in connection with the 2013 slaying of Odin Lloyd, was indicted in the 2012 case earlier this month.

Authorities say Hernandez fatally shot de Abreu and Furtado and shot and wounded a third person after the victims had left Boston's Cure Lounge on the early morning of July 16, 2012.

At Wednesday's arraignment, Assistant Suffolk District Attorney Patrick Haggan told the court that Hernandez didn't know the victims before that night, and that Hernandez became agitated when de Abreu accidentally bumped into him while Hernandez stood at the edge of a dance floor at the lounge.

Camps dismantled after French police standoff with migrants in Calais

Police in northern France moved in Wednesday on makeshift migrant camps near the port of Calais, prompting a standoff with the defiant residents -- many of whom have fled conflicts in Syria, Sudan and Eritrea.

By late afternoon, a CNN producer observed that the migrants' tents had all been destroyed. One activist told CNN police were responsible. About a dozen police officers remained, along with 50 to 60 migrants who didn't know where to go.

A local prefect reportedly told the migrants they can stay at the camp until Thursday. But Thursday is Ascension Day, a public holiday, so it's not clear if the migrants will be cleared out before Friday.

Hundreds of migrants had gathered in the ramshackle camps, some seeking to claim asylum in France and others hoping to find a way to reach British soil.

Mattheu Adt of international humanitarian organization Medecins du Monde, told CNN from one of the camps that police had asked the migrants to move to an undisclosed location, but that the migrants were refusing. Authorities also asked the migrants to shower and decontaminate their clothes, amid concern over an outbreak of the contagious skin condition, scabies, he said.

Migrants refused to do that, Adt said, because of concerns their tattered tents would be gone when they returned.

"They fear they will be arrested at the showers," said Cécile Bossy, an activist with Medecins du Monde.

She said migrants were given scabies medication Tuesday night but didn't understand what it was for.

Adt said the makeshift camp where he is located housed about 600 people, roughly half of them Syrian, and between 200 and 300 Eritrean and Sudanese.

A spokesman for the charity Secours Catholique in Calais confirmed that police had arrived at about 6:30 a.m. local time at a camp and asked the migrants there to board buses to go to "decontamination" areas.

Many of the migrants refused, he said.

Earlier, police destroyed another camp -- which housed about 300 people -- with bulldozers, he said. The migrants have been involved in discussions with authorities but don't know where to go, he said.

Official: Dismantling under way

An official in Calais told CNN that authorities planned to dismantle the migrants' makeshift camps by the end of Thursday.

Roughly 550 migrants lived in those camps, said Georges Bos, the associate chief of staff of the Pas-de-Calais prefecture -- the local branch of the French government.

"By tonight there will be no possibility left to go to these camps," he said.

Bos said authorities had offered to take the migrants by bus to places where they could shower, adding that dismantling the camps was necessary to prevent further spread of scabies.

He said that the prefect of the Pas-de-Calais region had told migrants their immigration status would not be checked and that no arrests would be made.

It's not the first time French authorities have sought to move on the migrants who congregate in the area around Calais, many hoping to smuggle themselves into Britain inside freight trucks going across the English Channel. A camp in Sangatte was dismantled in 2002 and another known as the Jungle was broken up in 2009.

But after each clearance effort, new makeshift camps spring up.

'Deafening silence'

Medecins du Monde is one of a number of humanitarian and rights groups that signed an open letter to French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Tuesday voicing concern over the plight of the migrants.

"The situation in Calais is worsening in a deafening silence," it said. "About 700 foreigners, for the most part of Syrian, Afghan and Eritrean origin, fleeing conflicts, violence and persecution, are installed in the town."

About 550 of those migrants are living in makeshift camps, the letter said, having claimed asylum in France or waiting to attempt the crossing to Britain. "They live in catastrophic sanitary conditions which have encouraged the development of a scabies epidemic."

The groups were "stunned" last week to learn that authorities planned to clear the camps and tackle the scabies outbreak on Wednesday, the letter said -- without coming up with any alternative place of shelter for the large majority of people concerned.

"We can anticipate the effects of this expulsion ... inappropriate medical care, people wandering on the streets of Calais, daily police checks, violence, despair and the taking of growing risks to attempt a passage to the United Kingdom, which, since the start of the year, have already caused the deaths of several exiles," it said.

The groups urge the French government to come up with a plan to tackle the sanitary situation in the camps while living up to its responsibility to protect the migrants on its soil.

The letter was also sent to the French interior minister and the minister for health and social affairs.

Climber Stranded on Ledge 13,000 Feet Up in Colorado's Rocky Mountains

A team of 28 rescuers using helicopters are trying to reach an inexperienced climber stranded on an icy ledge in Rocky Mountain National Park this afternoon.

The climber identified as Samuel Frappier, 19, became stranded in the "extremely precarious location" that is approximately 13,000 feet up on the edge of Longs Peak in the park, according to ABC News affiliate KMGH.

Park spokesman Kyle Patterson said that Frappier was descending from the summit of the mountain when he became stuck Tuesday afternoon. An initial rescue team began an effort to extract him Tuesday night. 

If the weather allows, helicopters will attempt to rescue Frappier today. The park said he has no technical climbing equipment and is inexperienced. He is stuck in significant snow and ice and was not prepared to spend the night, Patterson told KMGH. 

The rescue team has been communicating with Frappier via cell phone. 

IG: Phoenix VA Hospital Missed Care for 1,700 Vets

About 1,700 veterans in need of care were "at risk of being lost or forgotten" after being kept off the official wait list at the troubled Phoenix veterans hospital, the Veterans Affairs watchdog said Wednesday in a scathing report that increases pressure on VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to resign.

The investigation, initially focused on the Phoenix hospital, found systemic problems at the VA's sprawling system that provides medical care to about 6.5 million veterans each year. The interim report confirmed allegations of excessive waiting time for care in Phoenix, with an average 115-day wait for a first appointment for those on the wait list.

"While our work is not complete, we have substantiated that significant delays in access to care negatively impacted the quality of care at this medical facility," Richard J. Griffin, the department's acting inspector general, wrote in the 35-page report. The report found that "inappropriate scheduling practices are systemic throughout" the nationwide VA health care system.

Colorado Sen. Mark Udall on Wednesday became the first Democratic senator to call for Shinseki to leave. "We need new leadership who will demand accountability to fix these problems," Udall said in a statement.

Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Arizona's two Republican senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, also called for Shinseki to step down. Miller also said Attorney General Eric Holder should launch a criminal investigation into the VA.

Miller said the report confirmed that "wait time schemes and data manipulation are systemic throughout VA and are putting veterans at risk in Phoenix and across the country."

Shinseki called the IG's findings "reprehensible to me, to this department and to veterans." He said he was directing the Phoenix VA to immediately address each of the 1,700 veterans waiting for appointments.

Griffin said his office has increased the number of VA health care facilities it is investigating to 42 nationwide, up from 26 known to be under investigation as of last week. He said investigators' next steps include determining whether names of veterans awaiting care were purposely omitted from electronic waiting lists and at whose direction and whether any deaths were related to delays in care.

He said investigators at some of the other 42 facilities "have identified instances of manipulation of VA data that distort the legitimacy of reported waiting times."

Justice Department officials have already been brought into cases where there is evidence of a criminal or civil violation, Griffin said.

Dr. Samuel Foote, a former clinic director for the VA in Phoenix who was the first to bring the allegations to light, said the findings were no surprise.

"I knew about all of this all along," Foote told The Associated Press in an interview. "The only thing I can say is you can't celebrate the fact that vets were being denied care."

Foote took issue with the finding by the inspector general that patients had, on average, waited 115 days for their first medical appointment.

"I don't think that number is correct. It was much longer," he said. "It seemed to us to be about six months."

Still, Foote said it is good that the VA finally appears to be addressing some long-standing problems.

Prosecutor: Hernandez Killed 2 After Drink Spilled

Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez gunned down two men he did not know in their car because one of them bumped into him while dancing at a Boston nightclub, spilling his drink, prosecutors said in court Wednesday.

Hernandez pleaded not guilty in at the Suffolk Superior Court hearing to seven charges in the 2012 shooting that killed Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado. A third man was wounded.

Hernandez's attorney, Charles Rankin, objected, saying the prosecutor's account of the shooting was an attempt to poison the jury pool. Clerk Magistrate Gary Wilson dismissed the objection.

Prosecutor Patrick Haggan said that in the months leading up the shooting, Hernandez had become increasingly convinced that people "had been testing, trying or otherwise disrespecting him when he frequented nightclubs in the area."

Haggan told the court Hernandez and a friend drove from Connecticut to Boston that night to go to a nightclub called Cure. They were standing at the edge of the dance floor when de Abreu accidentally bumped into Hernandez, smiled at him and did not apologize, according to prosecutors.

Haggan said Hernandez became agitated and told his friend that de Abreu had deliberately bumped him, though neither the victims nor club staff knew Hernandez was upset.

Hernandez and his friend left and went to another club, where Hernandez was convinced de Abreu and his friends had followed them, according to Haggan. The prosecutor said there was no evidence the other men ever left Cure.

Haggan said Hernandez drove around until he saw de Abreu and Furtado and their friends going to their car and followed them, pulling up alongside them as they stopped at a red light and opening fire.

Hernandez leaned out the driver's side, said "Yo, what's up now," followed by a racial slur, then fired at least five shots into the car, killing de Abreu and Furtado, Haggan said.

Hernandez, 24, already faces charges in the 2013 slaying of semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd. He was released by the Patriots last summer after his arrest in Lloyd's shooting death.

Lloyd's body was found in an industrial area near Hernandez's home in North Attleborough. Lloyd was dating a sister of Hernandez's fiancee.

Hernandez's lawyers have said he is looking forward to proving his innocence.

Belgium on Manhunt for Suspect in Jewish Attack

Belgium launched a nationwide manhunt Sunday for a lone suspect in a shooting spree at the Brussels Jewish Museum that left three people dead and one in critical condition.

Deputy prosecutor Ine Van Wymersch said "we call on the whole population to help identify this person." Her office was preparing to publish video taken around the time of the Saturday attack.

She said the gunman who killed an Israeli tourist couple and a French woman and left a Belgian in critical condition with shots to the face and throat "probably acted alone, was armed and well prepared."

Interior Minister Joelle Milquet has said that the shooter parked a car outside before entering the Jewish Museum in the swanky Sablon area of antique dealers, hip cafes and museums, "fired rather quickly, went outside and left."

The museum said in a statement that the gunman came in, started shooting at the tourist couple at the entry "and then went on to the reception where he shot the attendant."

Police had detained one suspect late Saturday but he was soon released and is now considered a witness.

The attack, which came on the eve of national and European Parliament elections, led officials to immediately raise anti-terror measures and protection of Jewish sites.

Van Wymersch said "all options are still open" regarding a motive for the shooting spree. But the government has said it had the hallmarks of an anti-Semitic attack. No one has claimed responsibility for the killings.

On the heels of the Brussels attack, two Jewish men were attacked as they left a synagogue in the Paris area late Saturday.

As in Belgium, Interior Minister Bernard Caseneuve ordered police around France to increase security at Jewish houses of worship and other Jewish establishments.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the shooting on European incitement against Israel and criticized what he called "weak condemnation" of anti-Semitic acts.

Netanyahu said at the opening of his weekly Cabinet meeting that "there are those in Europe that are quick to condemn every building of an apartment in Jerusalem, but do not rush to condemn, or condemn with weak condemnations, the murder of Jews here or in Europe itself."

Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo swiftly condemned the attack and said Belgium stands united with the Jewish community of 40,000.

His office said he also called Netanyahu early Sunday "to express the deep solidarity of Belgium with the Israeli population."

European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor planned to meet Di Rupo on Sunday. He said that "attacks on Jewish targets in Europe do not exist in a vacuum, but are part and parcel of an overall climate of hate and incitement against Jewish communities."