Man arrested following Arias trial bomb threat

PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona authorities have arrested an 18-year-old Phoenix man in connection with a bomb threat that was tweeted after the Jodi Arias verdict was announced.

Maricopa County Sheriff's Deputy Joaquin Enriquez says Laquint Cherry was taken into custody early Thursday. He's facing a felony charge for making threats.

The investigation began Wednesday night after someone tweeted that an explosive device was going to be placed in the courtroom and was going to detonate Thursday afternoon. The sheriff's office increased security and conducted additional bomb sweeps but found nothing.

Enriquez says detectives traced the Twitter activity to a hotel in west Phoenix. The bomb squad and the SWAT team responded, and Cherry eventually came out of the hotel room. A woman who was with him was questioned and released.

Enriquez says the investigation is ongoing.

It wasn't immediately clear if Cherry had legal representation.

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U.S. to send missile defenses to Guam over North Korea threat

By Phil Stewart and Jack Kim

WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) - The United States said on Wednesday it would soon send a missile defense system to Guam to defend it from North Korea, as the U.S. military adjusts to what Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has called a "real and clear danger" from Pyongyang.

At the same time, North Korea repeated its threat to launch a nuclear attack on the United States. Pyongyang said it had ratified a potential strike because of U.S. military deployments around the Korean peninsula that it claimed were a prelude to a possible nuclear attack on the North.

Washington had been informed of the potential attack by North Korea, a spokesman for its army said in a statement carried by the English language service of state news agency KCNA. It was unclear how such a warning was given since North Korea does not have diplomatic ties with Washington.

Experts say North Korea is years away from being able to hit the continental United States with a nuclear weapon, despite having worked for decades to achieve nuclear-arms capability.

North Korea has previously threatened a nuclear strike on the United States and missile attacks on its Pacific bases, including in Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific. Those threats followed new U.N. sanctions imposed on the North after it carried out its third nuclear test in February.

"Some of the actions they've taken over the last few weeks present a real and clear danger," Hagel told an audience at the National Defense University in Washington.

U.S. stocks sank to their lows of the day after Hagel's comments and the Guam deployment news.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note briefly dropped below 1.8 percent for the first time since January as investors sought safety in government bonds, driving their prices higher. The dollar strengthened modestly against the euro and yen.

The South Korean won hit a six-month low on Wednesday.

"I would say that people are taking it a lot more seriously than they used to," said Steve Van Order, a fixed income strategist at Calvert Investments in Maryland, referring to the tensions with North Korea.

Despite the rhetoric, Pyongyang has not taken any military action and has shown no sign of preparing its 1.2 million strong armed forces for war, the White House said on Monday.

That would indicate that its threats are partly intended for domestic consumption to bolster young leader Kim Jong-un ahead of celebrations marking the anniversary of the birthday of Kim Il-sung, the state's founder and the younger Kim's grandfather, on April 15.

Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, criticized the latest North Korean statement.

"It is yet another offering in a long line of provocative statements that only serve to further isolate North Korea from the rest of the international community and undermine its goal of economic development," Hayden said.

North Korea had "ratified" a merciless attack against the United States, potentially involving a "diversified nuclear strike", the KCNA statement concluded after railing against annual war games between South Korea and the United States that run throughout April.

"The moment of explosion is approaching fast. No one can say a war will break out in Korea or not and whether it will break out today or tomorrow," the KCNA statement said.

HAGEL: MUST TAKE THREATS SERIOUSLY

Hagel said he had to take the threats seriously, language he has used in recent weeks as the United States has revamped its missile defense plans and positioned two guided-missile destroyers in the western Pacific to bolster missile defense.

The United States has also flexed its muscle during the military drills with South Korea, flying two radar-evading stealth bombers on a first-of-its-kind practice bombing run over South Korea.

In the latest move, the Pentagon said it was deploying a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system to Guam in the coming weeks. The THAAD system includes a truck-mounted launcher, interceptor missiles and an AN/TPY-2 tracking radar.

Last month, Hagel said the Pentagon would add 14 new anti-missile interceptors in Alaska and move ahead with the deployment of a second missile-defense radar in Japan.

Adding to tensions, North Korea on Wednesday closed access to a joint factory zone with South Korea, putting at risk $2 billion a year in trade that is vital to the impoverished state.

It said on Tuesday it would revive a mothballed nuclear reactor able to produce bomb-grade plutonium.

Hagel called America's responses so far "measured, responsible, serious" and also said the United States was working with allies to lower tensions.

"We are doing everything we can, working with the Chinese, others to defuse that situation on the peninsula," he said.

In Beijing, China's deputy foreign minister met ambassadors from the United States and both Koreas to express "serious concern" about the Korean peninsula, China's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

It was a sign that China, the North's major benefactor, was increasingly worried about events spinning out of control.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander in Washington and Caroline Valetkevitch in New York. Writing by Dean Yates)

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Man arrested for threat against investigators in Texas probe

KAUFMAN, Texas (Reuters) - Texas Rangers have arrested a man for threatening investigators looking into the killings of a Texas prosecutor and his wife, officials said on Wednesday.

Nick Morale, 56, of Terrell, Texas, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with making a terror threat, said Lieutenant Justin Lewis, spokesman for the Kaufman County Sheriff's Department.

He was being held on $1 million bond.

Morale was accused of making a telephone threat against a county official on a tip line for the case, Lewis said. There appeared to be no other connection to the killings of District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife on Saturday or Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse on January 31, Lewis added.

"At this time there is nothing to link Mr. Morale to the murders of Mike and Cynthia McLelland or Mark Hasse," Lewis said.

He said the investigation into the killings was ongoing.

(Reporting by Chris Francescani; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Andrew Hay)

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North Korea issues fresh threat to U.S., South probes hacking

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea's supreme military command said on Thursday its "precision attack" weapons have U.S. navy bases in Guam and Okinawa in their sights and will attack them if it is provoked.

"The United States is advised not to forget that our precision target tools have within their range the Anderson Air Force base on Guam where the B-52 takes off, as well as the Japanese mainland where nuclear powered submarines are deployed and the navy bases on Okinawa," the North Korean command spokesman was quoted by KCNA news agency.

North Korea earlier made a threat to stage a nuclear attack on the United States, something that is well outside of its current military capacity, although the U.S. Pacific bases are in range of its medium range missiles.

The North has responded angrily to reports that the United States has flown B-52 bomber sorties over the Korean peninsula as part of the annual military drills with South Korean forces.

(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by David Chance)

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Cameron's allies scorn talk of leadership threat

By Andrew Osborn

LONDON (Reuters) - Two senior members of Prime Minister David Cameron's ruling Conservative party spoke out to calm growing talk of a leadership challenge against him on Friday, days before a closely watched budget.

Halfway through a five-year term, Cameron's Conservatives are trailing the opposition Labour party by 10 percent in the polls, the economy is stagnant, some MPs say they are unhappy with his leadership, and one of his ministers is being touted as a possible replacement.

But on Friday, two senior party figures insisted Cameron's leadership was not under threat ahead of a general election in 2015, dismissing media stories which have suggested others may be positioning themselves to usurp him.

"David Cameron is more popular than all of us ... more popular than all of the party in the country, which is a key point that lots of people do recognise," said Conservative Party Chairman Grant Shapps.

Talk of a leadership challenge was "for the birds and certainly not for today," he told political magazine The House.

London Mayor Boris Johnson, who has himself been tipped as a leadership candidate, agreed. "People need some sort of political drama so they're inventing one. I think it's complete nonsense," he told The Sun newspaper.

Cameron is going through a bruising time politically.

His party was beaten into third place in a vote for a parliamentary seat earlier this month, half of his party rebelled against him over a gay marriage law last month, he is at odds with his junior coalition partner on press regulation, and is being criticised for his ambiguous stance on an alcohol control law.

SPECULATION SWIRLS

Most analysts believe the malcontents are in the minority and would have scant chance of unseating Cameron if they chose to try. No serious rivals have emerged, they say, and even most internal detractors think Cameron should remain leader.

But, as his Chancellor, George Osborne, prepares for a budget on Wednesday that will give the Conservatives a chance to tip the political scales in their favour, Cameron's position remains the subject of almost weekly speculation.

This week, Theresa May, the home secretary or interior minister, delivered a speech that went well beyond her brief, prompting media speculation she was angling for Cameron's job.

Labour taunted Cameron over the speech in parliament as Conservative party strategists told MPs to curb their criticism of Cameron on social media and to decide if they were commentators or participants in the battle to win the next election.

Johnson said it was time for the party to unite.

"If ministers are setting out their stall now, it strikes me as being very odd," he said. "They should save their breath and cool their porridge. Put a sock in it and get on and back the Prime Minister."

In a party political TV broadcast earlier this week, Cameron shrugged off the speculation about his leadership as "rubbish".

"It's so vital that you look to the horizon and not tomorrow's headlines, because there is a sort of daily battle of this story and that event," he said. "It's all rubbish."

Several Conservative MPs disenchanted with his leadership have said they would judge him by five "key tests".

In their eyes, he has already failed two of them after his party lost a vote for a parliamentary seat in the constituency of Eastleigh earlier this month and the country lost its top-notch AAA credit rating in February.

Three tests remain: setting out a successful budget on Wednesday, avoiding a triple-dip recession, and performing reasonably well in local elections in May.

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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U.S. to bolster missile defenses to counter North Korea threat: Hagel

By Phil Stewart and David Alexander

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced plans on Friday to bolster missile defenses in response to "irresponsible and reckless provocations" by North Korea, which threatened a preventative nuclear strike against the United States last week.

Hagel said the Pentagon would add 14 new anti-missile interceptors at Fort Greely in Alaska - an effective reversal of an early Obama administration decision - and move ahead with the deployment of a second missile-defense radar in Japan.

The Pentagon also left open the possibility of creating a site on the East Coast where the Pentagon could field more interceptors capable of striking down an incoming missile. The 14 additional interceptor deployments would cost nearly $1 billion and must be approved by Congress.

"By taking the steps I outlined today we will strengthen our homeland defense, maintain our commitments to our allies and partners, and make clear to the world that the United States stands firm against aggression," Hagel told a news conference.

North Korea issued its threat last week to stage a preemptive nuclear attack against the United States as the United Nations readied new sanctions against Pyongyang in response to its February 12 nuclear test.

Experts say North Korea is years away from being able to hit the continental United States with a nuclear weapon, despite having worked for decades to achieve a nuclear capability.

But Hagel said the moves announced by the Pentagon were justified to stay ahead of the threat, underscored by the nuclear test and a December rocket launch that analysts believe was aimed at developing technology for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

Hagel also cited North Korea's display last April of what appeared to be a road-mobile ICBM.

The Pentagon said the United States had informed China, North Korea's neighbor and closest ally, of its decision to add more interceptors but declined to characterize Beijing's reaction.

U.S. SAYS SYSTEMS NOT AIMED AT CHINA OR RUSSIA

Officials say its missile defense systems are not designed to counter the large number of ICBMs in arsenals in China or Russia and are focused instead on the threat from North Korea or, potentially, Iran.

Friday's announcement came with a key caveat - the Pentagon said it would only purchase the extra interceptors if they perform appropriately in tests. The interceptors in question have not hit a target since 2008, a defense official said.

Boeing Co. is the prime contractor of the system. Key Boeing subcontractors include Raytheon Co., which makes the kill vehicle, and Orbital Sciences Corp, which makes the rocket booster.

Admiral James Winnefeld, vice chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed confidence in the missiles and said he believed the steps taken by the United States would make North Korea's young leader, Kim Jung-un, think twice before acting on bellicose rhetoric.

"We not only intend to put the mechanics in place to deny any potential North Korean objective to launch a missile to the United States, but also to impose costs on them if they do," he told reporters.

"And we believe that this young lad ought to be deterred by that. And if he's not, we'll be ready."

The addition of another 14 interceptors amounts to a reversal of an Obama administration decision in 2010 to stop expansion of the missile interceptor system at 30 interceptors. The Bush administration had planned to deploy a total of 44.

The United States currently has 26 interceptors deployed at Fort Greely and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Congressman Mike Turner, chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, said the Obama administration had began "to realize the shortcomings of its missile defense strategy."

"Now that the administration has decided to see clearly, America can get back on the right course," Howard McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement, lamenting lost time and resources.

In a sign of fiscal pressures facing the Pentagon, U.S. officials acknowledged they were also forgoing development of a new anti-missile interceptor that would have been deployed in Europe. They said European defense would be unaffected.

Officials said the United States would move forward with congressionally mandated environmental impact studies for alternative sites in the United States for deploying additional ground-based interceptors, if needed.

Winnefeld said locations on the East Coast were being considered but declined to offer details.

"We're still looking at sites," he said.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and David Brunnstrom)

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Antibiotic resistance a "catastrophic threat" - medical chief

LONDON (Reuters) - Antibiotic resistance poses a catastrophic threat to medicine and could mean patients having minor surgery risk dying from infections that can no longer be treated, Britain's top health official said on Monday.

Sally Davies, the chief medical officer for England, said global action is needed to fight antibiotic, or antimicrobial, resistance and fill a drug "discovery void" by researching and developing new medicines to treat emerging, mutating infections.

Only a handful of new antibiotics have been developed and brought to market in the past few decades, and it is a race against time to find more, as bacterial infections increasingly evolve into "superbugs" resistant to existing drugs.

"Antimicrobial resistance poses a catastrophic threat. If we don't act now, any one of us could go into hospital in 20 years for minor surgery and die because of an ordinary infection that can't be treated by antibiotics," Davies told reporters as she published a report on infectious disease.

"And routine operations like hip replacements or organ transplants could be deadly because of the risk of infection."

One of the best known superbugs, MRSA, is alone estimated to kill around 19,000 people every year in the United States - far more than HIV and AIDS - and a similar number in Europe.

And others are spreading. Cases of totally drug resistant tuberculosis have appeared in recent years and a new wave of "super superbugs" with a mutation called NDM 1, which first emerged in India, has now turned up all over the world, from Britain to New Zealand.

Last year the WHO said untreatable superbug strains of gonorrhoea were spreading across the world.

Laura Piddock, a professor of microbiology at Birmingham University and director of the campaign group Antibiotic Action, welcomed Davies' efforts to raise awareness of the problem.

"There are an increasing number of infections for which there are virtually no therapeutic options, and we desperately need new discovery, research and development," she said.

Davies called on governments and organisations across the world, including the World Health Organisation and the G8, to take the threat seriously and work to encourage more innovation and investment into the development of antibiotics.

"Over the past two decades there has been a discovery void around antibiotics, meaning diseases have evolved faster than the drugs to treat them," she said.

Davies called for more cooperation between the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries to preserve the existing arsenal of antibiotics, and more focus on developing new ones.

Increasing surveillance to keep track of drug-resistant superbugs, prescribing fewer antibiotics and making sure they are only prescribed when needed, and ensuring better hygiene to keep infections to a minimum were equally important, she said.

Nigel Brown, president of the Society for General Microbiology, agreed the issues demanded urgent action and said its members would work hard to better understand infectious diseases, reduce transmission of antibiotic resistance, and help develop new antibiotics.

"The techniques of microbiology and new developments such as synthetic biology will be crucial in achieving this," he said.

(Editing by Jason Webb)

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