Tunisia says it has killed top suspect for Bardo Museum attack

Tunisia says its security forces have killed senior Algerian militant Khaled Chaib, also known as Lokman Abou Sakhr, who authorities accuse of helping orchestrate this month’s Bardo Museum massacre.

The attack on the Bardo national museum in Tunis killed 21 foreign tourists and a policeman, shaking a country praised as a peaceful democratic model since leading the first Arab Spring uprising in 2011.

The announcement of the security forces raid was made just ahead of Sunday’s anti-terror march in Tunis.
Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid said the militant was killed late on Saturday, along with eight other Islamist fighters from the
Okba Ibn Nafaa group, in Tunisia’s centre-west region of Gafsa.

Essid said: “We have eliminated this brigade which was involved in the terrorist attacks that Tunisia has recently witnessed.”

The group calling itself Islamic State claimed responsibility for the museum attack but Tunis has pointed the finger at Okba Ibn Nafaa, which operates along the mountain border with Algeria.

It was previously more allied to al Qaeda but has made vague statements on its position toward ISIL, which now controls large parts of Iraq and Syria.

The two Bardo Museum gunmen were trained over the border in Libya at camps operated by Tunisian militants, officials say. Both were killed by the security forces on the day of the massacre.

Tunisia’s government says the attack was aimed at destroying
the country’s vital tourism industry.

Windows 10 Technical Preview 2: Build 10041 Heads to ISO, Slow Ring Testers

The latest build of Windows 10 Technical Preview 2 has apparently hit the expected quality bar and, as a result, is now available as in ISO download form. Additionally, build 10041 is now heading out to Slow Ring testers, those Windows Insiders who choose to only receive the most stable builds possible.
Windows 10 build 10041 was originally released a week ago, on March 18. By that time, testers’ nerves were getting frayed by Microsoft’s inexplicably slow release schedule, despite previous promises to speed things up. And while the build is pretty stable overall—yes, your mileage can vary—it also disappointingly didn’t offer anything new compared to the leaked builds eager testers were happily installing already.
In Windows 10 Technical Preview 2: How to Install Build 10041, I explained that this latest TP2 build was originally only available to Fast Ring testers—which Windows Insiders must opt into—and then only as an in-place upgrade from the previous TP2 build, 9926, which dates back to January. Technical users had figured out how to turn the downloaded upgrade files into bootable ISOs, but I never wrote that up because it only worked for clean installs (no upgrades) and because I knew the official ISOs were on the way.
And sure enough, they’re here now.
You can download Windows 10 Technical Preview 2 build 10041—which Microsoft also calls the Windows 10 Technical Preview March Update for some reason (they really need to get over the monthly naming scheme, given their plan to ship 1-2 builds per month going forward—in ISO form from the Windows web site. There are versions in both 32-bit and 64-bit and in a wide variety of languages. If you’re from the United States you’ll want one of the following:
Windows 10 Technical Preview 2 (64-bit/x64) – Build 10041 (3.4 GB)
Windows 10 Technical Preview 2 (32-bit/x86) – Build 10041 (2.53 GB)
And if you’re testing Windows 10 on the Slow Ring, check Windows Update today: This build is available as an upgrade via Windows Update, just as it was for Fast Ring testers last week.

Everything you need to know about Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge pricing

 Preorders for the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge will begin on Friday, March 27, at AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile. Verizon will open preorders on April 1. Samsung's latest smartphones can be picked up online and in-store on April 10. Both the Galaxy S6 and its curvy sibling will be available on all four major U.S. carriers and in retail locations like Best Buy, Amazon, Target, Walmart, Costco and Sam's Club. Regional carriers such as U.S. Cellular, Cricket, Boost Mobile and MetroPCS will also carry the Galaxy S6.
Here's how much each model of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge will cost:

Samsung Galaxy S6 pricing information

	32GB	64GB	128GB
AT&T full retail	$685	$785	$885
AT&T Next 24 (30 months)	$22.84	$26.17	$29.50
AT&T Next 18 (24 months)	$28.55	$32.71	$36.88
AT&T Next 12 (20 months)	$34.25	$39.25	$44.25
AT&T two-year contract	$200	$300	$400
T-Mobile full retail*	$679.92	$759.99	$859.99
T-Mobile monthly installment (24 months)*	$28.33	$27.50 (+$99.99 down payment)	$27.50 (+$199.99 down)
Verizon full retail	$600	$700	$800
Verizon Edge (24 months)	$24.99	$29.16	$33.33
Verizon two-year contract	$200 (after $50 mail-in rebate)	$300 (after $50 mail-in rebate)	$400 (after $50 mail-in rebate)

*T-Mobile customers who order before April 12 will receive a one-year Netflix subscription for free.

Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge pricing information

	32GB	64GB	128GB
AT&T full retail	$815	$915	$1,015
AT&T Next 24 (30 months)	$27.17	$30.50	$33.84
AT&T Next 18 (24 months)	$33.96	$38.13	$42.30
AT&T Next 12 (20 months)	$40.75	$45.75	$50.75
AT&T two-year contract	$300	$400	$500
T-Mobile full retail*	$779.76	$859.83	$959.83
T-Mobile monthly installment (24 months)*	$32.49	$31.66 (+$99.99 down payment)	$31.66 (+$199.99 down)
Verizon full retail	$700	$800	$900
Verizon Edge (24 months)	$29.16	$33.33	$37.49
Verizon two-year contract	$300 (after $50 mail-in rebate)	$400 (after $50 mail-in rebate)	$500 (after $50 mail-in rebate)

*T-Mobile customers who order before April 12 will receive a one-year Netflix subscription for free.

Sprint

Sprint has confirmed that it will offer both devices through its leasing program. The Galaxy S6 with 32GB of storage can be had for $80 a month, which covers both the service and device cost. The Galaxy S6 Edge will cost $85 a month. Sprint customers can upgrade to the 64GB model for $5 extra a month, or $10 more for the 128GB model. Sprint's Boost Mobile prepaid arm is offering the Galaxy S6 starting at $650 without a contract. The carrier didn't announce pricing for devices purchased on a two-year contract or at full retail.

Best Buy

Best Buy is offering customers who preorder either the Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge on AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint a free Samsung wireless charging pad (regularly priced at $59.99). The offer runs from March 27 to April 11. On-contract prices for the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge start at $200 and $300, respectively.

Germanwings co-pilot's home town stunned as health details emerge

Possible mental-health problems at one time rendered Andreas Lubitz ‘not fit to fly’, but neighbours condemn rush to judgment

For a year before embarking on a career as a pilot, Andreas Lubitz worked in his local branch of Burger King, serving up french fries. The restaurant – on a busy A3 junction – is a few kilometres outside the small German city of Montabaur where Lubitz grew up. The branch manager, Detlef Aldolf, described Lubitz on Friday as dependable and inconspicuous. He earned €400 (£290) a month, he said, and quit his part-time job to join Lufthansa.

In 2009, however, Aldolf said Lubitz abruptly reappeared. Lufthansa had sent him on a training course, initially in Bremen and then in Phoenix, Arizona, in the US. “I asked him how it was. He replied: ‘Too much stress. I’m going to take a break’,” Aldolf said. The manager added that Lubitz didn’t formulate this stress as depression. But, he said, the future pilot seemed overwhelmed.

For 24 hours French and German investigators had been at a loss: why would a 27-year-old co-pilot deliberately fly his plane with 150 people on board into the French Alps? This, certainly, is where the black box pointed. By Friday there were uncomfortable answers. Lubitz had a history of psychological problems, which he had apparently been concealing from his colleagues and bosses.

State prosecutors in Düsseldorf said medical documents had been retrieved from his flat there, which suggested that treatment for an unspecified illness was ongoing. Investigators found a torn-up current medical certificate. It was dated the day of the crash. “The assumption is that the deceased hid his illness from his employer and his professional circles,” prosecutors said, without specifying whether the illness was mental or physical. They added that no suicide note had been found. Nor were there indications of a “political or religious background”.

Citing police sources, the German media said that Lubitz had broken off his pilot training several times. At one point the Lufthansa flight school in Phoenix designated the man later left in sole charge of Germanwings flight 4U9525 from Barcelona to Düsseldorf as “not fit to fly”. He spent a year-and-a-half receiving psychiatric treatment. In 2009 he was diagnosed with a “severe depressive episode”, according to the German newspaper Bild.

Throughout this difficult period it appeared Lubitz was getting regular medical help. A special coding “SIC” was entered into his pilot’s licence, which means “Specific Regular Medical Examination”, according to Germany’s Federal Aviation Office. It is unclear, though, if this treatment was for episodes of depressive illness or some other complaint. Mental health professionals have urged caution until all the facts are known. 

On Thursday, prosecutors in France gave details of the final moments of flight 4U9525, travelling from Barcelona to Düsseldorf. For eight minutes, during which the cockpit voice recorder revealed Lubitz said nothing but was breathing normally, the 27-year-old ignored captain Patrick Sondheimer hammering on the cockpit door and did not respond to increasingly urgent radio calls from air traffic controllers and nearby aircraft. At approximately 10.40am the aircraft smashed into the side of a mountain near the picturesque mountain village of Seyne-les-Alpes.

“The air disaster was so devastating that we have not found a single body intact. We have found parts of bodies and biological matter that are currently undergoing post mortem examinations,” Colonel Patrick Touron, deputy director of the Institute for Criminal Research at the National Gendarmerie, told a press conference near the crash zone on Friday.

“We have sent out an urgent medical-legal team to start identification and we have a team working on the site to recuperate the bodies, parts of bodies or biological matter, depending on the circumstances, so we can proceed with the identification of the victims,” he added.

While the full picture surrounding Lubitz’s mental state is unclear, these are terrible times for Lufthansa. The airline’s chief executive, Carsten Spohr, insisted this week that Lubitz was fine to fly at the time of the disaster. He was, Spohr said, “100% fit”. Now, this assertion will come to haunt the airline amid further claims – so far unproven – that Lubitz was suffering emotional problems, too, with his girlfriend of seven years. Aldolf said he had chatted with her at Burger King in Heligenroth, where Lubitz worked, and which he listed on his now-deleted Facebook profile.

As of Friday, all German airlines including Lufthansa have introduced a new two-person cockpit rule, seemingly to prevent the horror of flight 4U9525 from ever being repeated. It is an admission that procedures failed to anticipate what a determined and troubled individual might do, when given a small window of opportunity.

Neighbours, though, condemned any rush to judgment. They said it was too early to blame Lubitz or to extrapolate what may happened above the Alps from his apparent secret backstory. “I’m shocked. But it’s not proven yet that he killed 149 people,” Johannes Rossbach said. “The other black box hasn’t been found and evaluated. I won’t believe this until it has been properly investigated.” Of Lubitz, he said: “He seemed friendly and polite. We simply said hello.”

Rossbach lives two doors down from Lubitz’s home in Am Spiessweiher, in the sleepy southern part of Montabaur. The pilot lived with his parents some of the time as well as at his small flat in Düsseldorf. The two-storey house is a model of order. Large, it has a pleasant balcony. The garden is immaculately tended. It has daffodils, ornamental shrubs, and a perfectly trimmed hedge. Someone has stacked the garden gnomes neatly by the back shed.

Lubitz’s father is a banker; his mother an organist who plays at the local evangelical church. He has a younger brother. On Friday the white shutters were drawn, with no one at home. Police had earlier removed papers and a computer. The Lubitzs appear to come from the more prosperous end of the German middle class; unusually for a town this size – it has 13,000 people – Montabaur has a high-speed rail connection to the banking mega-hub of Frankfurt. Many commute. 

A short walk from Am Spiessweiher is a grassy field surrounded by pine trees. It is here Lubitz learned to fly. Age 14 he joined the local LSC Westerweld flying club, which boasts a small hangar, a control tower, and a couple of gliders. There are around 100 members, 20 of them teenagers. According to Ernst Müller, novices fly at just 300 metres in a postcard-like rectangle. The view over Montabaur’s yellow-painted baroque castle is terrific, he said. Lubitz last visited at Christmas, Müller said, adding: “The club attracts a wide section of society. We have doctors, dentists and workers.”

Younger residents grumble that there isn’t much to do in Montabaur, which they dub boring. The nearest nightlife is in Koblenz, they add. Sibila Zaccaron said that Lubitz was a regular at her ice-cream bar, La Galleria, on the city’s cobbled main street. She said she saw him frequently with his blonde girlfriend, adding that he came in for the last time a month ago with his mother. She served him a cappuccino; his favourite ice-cream a lurid green.

“He was a sympathetic guy. He didn’t seem depressed. He had a nice girlfriend,” she said. The town was in a state of shock, she said, adding: “Everybody here knows each other. It’s a small place.” Opposite the bar is the city’s town hall. It has a plaque commemorating Jewish residents murdered in the Holocaust as well as a map of Brackley, Montabaur’s English twin town. Officials inside did not want to comment.

Lubitz attended the Mons-Tabor-Gymnasium or grammar school, a 15-minute walk from his home. He graduated with a diploma, the German Arbitur, in 2007. Friends said Lubitz was known for being a “sporting type” who was frequently out jogging and took his exercise pretty seriously. Between 2010 and 2013 he took part in Lufthansa’s half-marathon in Frankfurt, clocking up a time on his last run of 1 hour and 37 minutes. He was a member of the city’s only health club, Fit-Up, in the centre of town, and on the first floor above a budget supermarket.

His Facebook page yields few further clues beyond an interest in flying and electronic music. His social life appears to have taken place largely in Koblenz. His likes include a disco there, the Agostea Nachtarena, a local bowling alley and a climbing wall. His favourite music acts include Paul Kalkbrenner, a German electronic producer, and David Guetta, a French DJ. There are signs too of a sense of humour. Lubitz favourites a website called “When Men Are Alone” or “Wenn Männer Allein Sind”. It isn’t a forum for singles but a light-hearted platform where men can post daft videos of themselves mucking about with chainsaws, or looking after babies badly.

Back at Burger King, Aldolf said the whole tragic story was nothing less than an unfathomable disaster. “I’m totally shocked,” he said. ‘I can’t believe it. Nobody would have expected him to do something this evil.”