'Golem Arcana': Tabletop tactics meet massively multiplayer action

Jordan Weisman is frustrated with a monster he helped create.

Gamers are spending too many hours, he says, sucked into their screens facing off against online opponents they may never see, and not enough time playing with people — you know, in person.

“We’re animals. We’re supposed to play face to face in the same space together,” Weisman says.

He thinks he’s found a way to bring the best of both worlds together in a strangely named game dubbed “Golem Arcana” that he calls the “the world’s first tabletop massively multiplayer online game.”

If anyone understands those two worlds, it’s Weisman.

While you may not know his name, you might be familiar with some of his titles.

He’s the guy who created the “MechWarrior” franchise, one of the bestselling video game series of all time, which grew out of his pen-and-paper roleplaying game “Battletech.” Other credits include the diesel-punk air-pirate shooter “Crimson Skies” and the gritty “Shadowrun” future-fantasy franchise, which started as a tabletop game before morphing into a long-running video game series, with its most recent release last year.

He also had a hand in developing the Army’s first tank simulator and served as a Pentagon consultant to help bring no-kidding war games into the digital age.

Oh, and he was the first creative director for Microsoft Entertainment, responsible for launching a new gaming console in 2001 ... a little thing called the Xbox.

No surprise IGN named him one of the “Top 100 Game Creators of all Time.”

Bringing a monster to the table

“Don’t get me wrong, I love video gaming, but there’s something wrong when kids’ idea of playing together after school these days usually means just meeting online from their own houses,” Weisman says.

So he’s trying to bring the online monster to the table by pouring all that creative energy into his latest project.

“The passion to find a bridge point between the digital and the physical, to make face-to-face gaming more accessible while still maintaining the rich depth and fun of online games, all comes together in ‘Golem Arcana,’ ” Weisman said during the recent PAX Prime gaming expo in Seattle, where he led demonstrations of “Golem Arcana.”

At first glance, the game looks like so many other tabletop, miniatures-based games. Think “Warhammer 40K,” “Pathfinder” and the like.

In“Golem Arcana,” set in the world of Eretsu, players build armies of giant, knight-driven golems — a kind of fantasy version of mechs, says Weisman — represented by the intricate figures moved around the board like chess pieces.

Look more closely and what you won’t see are the tedious rule books and charts usually associated with tabletop war games. Instead, players use a Bluetooth-connected stylus tethered to their smartphone or tablet to manage game play.

Touch a figure with the digital pen and everything you need to know about that character comes up. Touch the board to see your movement options and unleash your strategies.

The game’s free app not only teaches you how to play, but also acts as referee, scoreboard and narrator. Before head-to-head games, players use the app to build their armies, join factions and develop strategies.

While “Golem Arcana” is a one-on-one board game at its most basic level, it can scale up into more epic multiplayer battles.

'This is the next level'

Clashes start with last-man-standing-type battles but expand into “a very robust set of victory conditions ranging from protect the Alamo to capture the hill, escort missions, seeking missions, and we can mix all these in very different ways,” Weisman says.

The basic starter set, which retails on Amazon and at gamer stores for $79.99, includes six figures — three for each side — along with map board tiles, the digital pen and some other accessories.

More figures will be released monthly.

At PAX Prime, new players — ranging from kids to old-school gamer dads — were jumping into the game in no time.

“It’s definitely one of the hottest games coming out right now,” says Rob Hubbard, a former Air Force captain who left active duty in 2010 and now helps manage a chain of tabletop wargaming stores in Washington state.

“If you’re a fan of ‘Warhammer 40K,’ this is the next level,” he says.

Meanwhile, all game play is uploaded to the “Golem Arcana” servers from the app, which then delivers new scenarios and story lines every month as play develops.

This is where the MMO part comes in, Weisman says.

The game’s storyline isn’t a static pre-determined narrative, like what you’d find in the campaign modes of most video game titles, but “a living world that will change and adapt over time” as developers aggregate player data, Weisman says.

“So you can have two players facing off in a last-man-standing-type scenario, but one player advances into a square and suddenly a woman pops up in the app asking for help. Some bandits have kidnapped her son and they’ve taken him to a town, and the app shows you where the town is. Will you help rescue her son? All of a sudden you’ve got a quest in the middle of this board game.”

Players can reject the quest “and focus on kicking your opponent’s ass, or accept the quest and still kick his ass while you’re saving the son. Either way, those kind of choices become part of the data record we accept into our server.”

So as the story develops, “it’s not just about who won. It’s also the moral and contextual choices that the players make during the game. If we see one faction tended to accept the quest to go rescue the boy more often than any other faction and they succeeded more than they failed, then part of the lore, the story, becomes how that faction’s leader accepted the quest and is now viewed by the public as more magnanimous.”

Weisman says he thinks military and veteran gamers in particular will like what they see.

“This is a great off-duty kind of game, especially for people who like a tactical challenge. Sure, if you’re in the military, that’s part of the job, but it’s great when you can use that knowledge in your entertainment,” Weisman says.

“This game is all about battlefield tactics.”

More civilians calling military bases home

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. (MCT) — The Dolce family loves their four-bedroom home in the Eagle Heights housing area at Dover Air Force Base.

Parents Tony and Ronell Dolce, teens Nikie and Crystal, 12-year-old Victoria and 5-year-old Alex are not an Air Force family, though. Nor are Tony and Ronell military retirees, or federal civilian employees, or reservists, or government contractors who also occasionally qualify for military housing residence, depending on active-duty demand.

They are, rather, representatives of a demographic shift — members of the general public who are leasing homes inside of military housing areas as the active-duty force shrinks because budget-cutting pressure.

Besides Dover, bases in Maryland, Louisiana, Kansas, Arizona, Washington and elsewhere also have admitted or are currently admitting non-federal civilians to base housing.

The decline of the active-duty force is evident over the past two years: 83,000 out of 1.39 million service members, as of March 31, according to Pentagon figures. And significantly greater cuts are underway. The Army alone could lose 130,000 troops by 2017 from its 2010 total of 570,000.

Active-duty troops and their families have typically populated most base family housing areas within the U.S., 98 percent of which are privately owned and managed under a Defense Department program started in 1996. They are the "preferred tenants" and receive priority for occupancy, according to Mark Wright, a Department of Defense spokesman.

In May, Eagle Heights was opened to non-federal civilians, who are last on the Defense Department's standard list of those who can become eligible, due to slackening demand from the active-duty force.

Eagle Heights is operated by Hunt Companies Inc., which manages 39,000 units in 25 housing areas along the East Coast and the South under a public-private contract with the military. Hunt is authorized to seek non-military tenants when occupancy falls below 95 percent for more than 90 days, according to Col. Rick Moore, the Dover base commander. The figure varies by base.

Living on a military base wouldn't be every civilian's cup of tea. But Tony Dolce, a stay-at-home dad working in online sales who moved his family from Newark, Del., to Eagle Heights in June, doesn't see anything but advantages.

"Safety is a big issue," he said. "I like the security here."

Dolce also likes the price: He pays $1,191 a month for a Dover home with a backyard and garage on a corner lot in what amounts to a gated community.

Like all other tenants, the Dolces are responsible for their own gas and electric costs. But all yard maintenance is included, as are on-site home repairs and emergency response. Ronell Dolce, who works in corrections, appreciates the multiple playgrounds and the availability of church services on base.

"Everything that you need is right here," Tony Dolce said.

As of July, only three of the 980 homes in Eagle Heights were occupied by civilians, according to Hunt spokesperson Dixie Johnson. Johnson did not respond to requests for an updated figure.

At the time, however, Hunt was seeing a wider trend. Six of its 25 communities, including Dover, were accepting civilians, and their numbers were growing.

"In the early years, because of the increase in troops and the war that we are fighting, there were way more active duty (troops) available for housing," Johnson said. "That has since changed a little bit as the drawdown has occurred and sequestration has happened."

In addition, Johnson said, "We're seeing a drawdown in short-term, 30-day notices due to getting out of the military in all of our properties." She said those troops are being given 10-day, 20-day or 30-day notices that they're being separated from the military, and are coming in to submit a notice to vacate housing.

Some military families complain that the occupancies are the result of rising rents that increase out-of-pocket costs beyond housing allowances and what service members feel they can afford.

A total of 19 management firms provide military housing within the U.S. One of the largest is Balfour Beatty Communities, with about 42,000 units spread among 56 bases across the country.

Allowing civilians to lease their base properties is nothing new for Balfour Beatty. The firm overbuilt as it got into the military housing market and has been been letting civilians lease its properties at bases for as many as six years at some locations, according to Terry Edelman, executive vice president of operations for the firm's communities branch.

As a result, Balfour Beatty's civilian totals are much higher than Hunt's. Just under 800 of its units are leased to civilians, Edelman said.

But the firm is seeing an acceleration of such arrangements as a result of the drawdown. Of the 800, about 12 percent — around 100 — were leased to civilians during the past year as a result of personnel reductions, Edelman said.

Balfour Beatty also has seen an increase in short-term military lease exits.

"We've gotten a lot of unexpected vacancies because of the short notices," Edelman said.

Not just anyone can rent at Eagle Heights. In addition to qualifying financially, both Hunt and the Air Force conduct background checks "to ensure the prospective tenants will be a good fit in the neighborhood," Moore said. Those 16 and older must also pass a sexual-offender registry check. Balfour Beatty conducts similar checks.

So far, it's working out.

"We have thus far seen no negative impacts from having nonmilitary tenants in the community, and we do not expect any," Moore said.

Tony Dolce doesn't, either.

"When you think military base, you automatically think ... everybody around you will be so on guard," he said. "But it's pretty relaxed, pretty friendly. They are very welcoming. ... Everybody seems like they respect each others' things."

McMichael also reports for The (Wilmington, Del. ) News Journal

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©2014 USA Today. Distributed by MCT Information Services

Suspect in deadly ambush was military re-enactor, police say

Schools closed, kids stayed inside and authorities chased down several false sightings Wednesday in their hunt for the suspect in a fatal ambush outside a rural Pennsylvania State Police barracks.

Police released new details about the background of Eric Frein, a 31-year-old self-taught survivalist who authorities said recently shaved his head in a wide Mohawk, evidently as "part of the mental preparation to commit this cowardly act," Lt. Col. George Bivens said Wednesday afternoon.

Frein belonged to a military simulation unit based in eastern Pennsylvania whose members play the role of soldiers from Cold War-era eastern Europe, Bivens told reporters.

"In his current frame of mind, Frein appears to have assumed that role in real life," he said.

Hundreds of law enforcement officials spent a fifth full day Wednesday looking for the gunman who concealed himself outside the Blooming Grove barracks late Friday and shot two troopers with a rifle, killing one and wounding the second. Police named Frein the suspect after finding his abandoned SUV, which contained his driver's license and spent shell casings matching those at the crime scene.

Authorities have followed up on hundreds of tips, massing in a forested area at one point Wednesday after workers reported seeing an armed person wearing camouflage nearby. Police have been "getting sightings all over the place," but none have panned out so far, said Trooper Tom Kelly.

Frein, of Canadensis, Pennsylvania, is charged with killing Cpl. Bryon Dickson, a 38-year-old married father of two, and critically wounding Trooper Alex Douglass. Dickson's viewing was held Wednesday in the rotunda of Marywood University in Scranton, with Pennsylvania's attorney general among thousands of mourners paying respects. Gov. Tom Corbett plans to attend Dickson's funeral on Thursday.

State police have warned the public that Frein is dangerous, calling him an anti-law enforcement survivalist who has talked about committing mass murder. Two school districts closed Wednesday because of safety concerns for students and staff.

"Parents are so frightened for their children," said Pocono Mountain School Board member Annabella Lastowski. "People are wondering if the suspect is in the area or has fled the area. That is the unknown and that is what's bothering people the most."

She said her neighbors were keeping their school-age children inside.

Bivens said residents should remain "alert and vigilant," report suspicious activity, lock doors and keep house exteriors well lit. But he said he is "convinced Frein is engaged in a personal battle with law enforcement, particularly the Pennsylvania State Police, and will likely stay focused on that fight."

Frein has nursed an unspecified grudge against law enforcement and government in general at least since 2006, Bivens said.

In 2004, he was charged with burglary and grand larceny after police accused him of stealing items from vendors at a World War II re-enactment in Odessa, New York. He failed to show for his trial, and was arrested in Pennsylvania as a fugitive from justice, said Lt. Craig Gallow of the Schuyler County Sheriff's Department in New York.

Frein evidently tried to make his escape Friday night in a 2001 Jeep Cherokee, authorities said. Three days later, a man walking his dog stumbled across the partly submerged SUV in a swamp about 2 miles away and called 911.

As he has on previous days, Bivens used a news conference Wednesday to address the suspect directly: "In the event you are listening to this broadcast on a portable radio while cowering in some cold, damp hiding place, I want you to know one thing. Eric, we are coming for you. It is only a matter of time until we bring you to justice."

Jeff Bezos unveils rocket engine partnership with Boeing, Lockheed

WASHINGTON — Capping back-to-back news that emphatically heralded the United States’ return to space exploration, Jeff Bezos on Wednesday unveiled plans for “a 21st century” rocket engine developed by his private aerospace company that could help reduce Russia’s role in U.S. orbital flights.

At a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Bezos showed off a model of the BE-4, a liquid-propellant engine that will be used to power a new version of the Atlas rockets now used to launch telecommunications and spy satellites and other payloads into space.

The BE-4 will be jointly funded by Bezos’ Kent, Wash.-based Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance, a 50-50 venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Work on the liquid oxygen, liquefied natural gas engine has been underway for three years in Kent and in West Texas, and four more years of development is expected before first flight.

The announcement came a day after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration awarded $6.8 billion in separate contracts to Boeing and a second company to build crew capsules to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station.

Since the U.S. retired the last space shuttle in 2011, that orbiting laboratory has been reachable only aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft launched from Kazakhstan.

The Soyuz is lofted by the Soyuz rocket, considered one of the most reliable launch vehicles in the world. The competing Atlas V launch vehicle from United Launch Alliance — which has a perfect record — also is powered by a Russian engine, the RD-180.

Blue Origin’s engine initially will be used to launch commercial and military payloads aboard a revamped Atlas rocket as a successor to the Russian engine. But it could eventually propel Boeing’s new CST-100 crew capsule — one of the two forthcoming American alternatives to the Soyuz spacecraft — into orbit as well, said Jim Muncy, principal with PoliSpace, a space-policy consultant in Alexandria, Va.

United Launch Alliance Chief Executive Tory Bruno, who appeared with Bezos, said the 1990s-design Russian RD-180 is a great engine and a real workhorse. But he said modern manufacturing technology and computer-aided design will produce engines that are more affordable and reusable.

“I think it’s pretty clear it’s time for a 21st century booster engine,” Bezos said.

Bezos, 50, founded Blue Origin in 2000, five years after his first company, Amazon.com, debuted online. His goal was to make spaceflight cheap enough to extend beyond the realm of astronauts and cosmonauts.

Bezos, who reportedly spends one a day week on Blue Origin, said running Amazon is his main “day job,” one he still enjoys. Still, as a space geek since his teens who dreamed of colonizing space a la the “Jetsons,” he made clear where his heart lies.

“You don’t choose your passion. The passion chooses you,” he said.

The BE-4 is Blue Origin’s fourth and largest engine. It builds on the company’s work on the BE-3 hydrogen-fueled engine, which will power Blue Origin’s New Shepherd vehicle, which flies closer to Earth’s gravity than orbital spacecraft.

The new BE-4 engine will ultimately be available for sale to other companies. That could include Boeing, which on Tuesday won a $4.2 billion contract from NASA to build the CST-100 spacecraft to transport crews to the International Space Station. Boeing plans to launch the CST-100 atop an Atlas V rocket.

NASA also awarded $2.6 billion to SpaceX, a Hawthorne, Calif., company started by Bezos’ fellow billionare Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal and chief executive of Tesla Motors. SpaceX will develop its own crew capsule, which will use the company’s own Falcon 9 rocket.

The new American-built crew capsules are expected to dock at the space station beginning in 2017.

Blue Origin was among four companies, along with Sierra Nevada of Louisville, Colo., to initially compete for the NASA contract to come up with a replacement spacecraft for the space shuttle. But Blue Origin did not advance beyond the early rounds.

Musk, in an interview Wednesday with Fox Business Network, said he welcomed the Blue Origin-Boeing-Lockheed Martin alliance to take on SpaceX in the race beyond the earth’s orbit.

“If all your competitors are banding together to attack you, that’s like a good compliment,” he said.

©2014 The Seattle Times. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Ex-PACOM worker gets 7 years for divulging secrets to Chinese girlfriend

HONOLULU — A former civilian defense contractor working at the U.S. military's Pacific headquarters was sentenced to seven years and three months in prison on Wednesday for divulging military secrets to his Chinese girlfriend and keeping classified documents at his Honolulu home.

Benjamin Bishop demonstrated poor judgment and jeopardized national security because of an intimate relationship, said U.S. District Court Judge Leslie Kobayashi during his sentencing hearing. That he would risk everything showed the girlfriend "has control over you," the judge told Bishop.

Bishop's move to contact the girlfriend from a halfway house he was allowed to stay at while awaiting trial, even though he was forbidden to do so, showed a continued lapse of judgment, she said.

"This makes the court question your ability to follow the law when it comes to this person," Kobayashi said.

Bishop, 60, will get credit for about a year he's already spent at the federal detention center in Honolulu since his arrest in March 2013. He faced up to 10 years in prison for each of two counts.

Defense attorney Birney Bervar argued Bishop should be sentenced to time served.

"He made an error, a serious error in judgment over the love of a woman. As one of his friends said in a letter quoting Shakespeare, 'he loved not wisely, but too well,'" Bervar told reporters.

The girlfriend was a Fulbright scholar working on her doctorate in security issues at a U.S. university.

Bishop pleaded guilty in March, saying he mentioned a classified conference between U.S. and South Korean officials while responding to an email from the girlfriend, who is in her late 20s.

He also admitted to keeping classified documents at his home, including ones outlining the U.S. Pentagon's China strategy and the U.S. military's force posture in Asia and the Pacific.

Bishop told Kobayashi his only intent was to help his friend, whom he called a "brilliant academic."

"In my efforts to help her, I went too far and made mistakes," he said.

Bishop worked in the field of cyber defense at the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii from May 2011 until his arrest. Before that, he helped develop Pacific Command strategy and policy. He retired from the U.S. Army Reserve as a lieutenant colonel a year ago.

Authorities have not released the girlfriend's identity or whereabouts or said publicly whether they think she was working for the Chinese government. She was a Chinese national and living in the United States as a student, according to the FBI.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson told the court Bishop should have known better as an experienced Army officer, noting countries use sexual relationships to gather military secrets.

"All of the warning signs were there and he disregarded them," Sorenson said in court.

He said the girlfriend made Bishop her pawn, as she had him research classified documents to give her information.

Sorenson called the sentence fair.

"We think it sends a message that individuals who compromise U.S. national security by disclosing classified information are going to face severe sanctions," Sorenson told reporters.

Australia PM: Massive counterterrorism raids prompted by terror attack fears

SYDNEY — Counterterrorism raids in Sydney on Thursday were sparked by security intelligence that the Islamic State movement was planning a public killing as a demonstration of its reach, the prime minister said Thursday.

Australian police detained 15 people Thursday in a major counterterrorism operation, saying intelligence indicated a random, violent attack was being planned on Australian soil.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he had been briefed on Wednesday night about the operation which had been prompted by information that an Islamic State movement leader in the Middle East was calling on Australian supporters to kill.

"Quite direct exhortations were coming from an Australian who is apparently quite senior in ISIL to networks of support back in Australia to conduct demonstration killings here in this country," Abbott told reporters, referring to the al-Qaida splinter group leading Sunni militants in Iraq, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which now calls itself simply Islamic State.

"This is not just suspicion, this is intent and that's why the police and security agencies decided to act in the way they have," he added.

He did not name the Australian.

Police have issued an arrest warrant for a former Sydney nightclub bouncer, Mohammad Ali Baryalei, 33, who is suspected to be Australia's most senior member of the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

About 800 federal and state police officers raided more than a dozen properties across Sydney as part of the operation — the largest in Australian history, Australian Federal Police Deputy Commissioner Andrew Colvin said. Separate raids in the eastern cities of Brisbane and Logan were also conducted.

One of those arrested, 22-year-old Omarjan Azari, appeared briefly in a Sydney court on Thursday.

Prosecutor Michael Allnutt said he was involved in a "plan to commit extremely serious offenses" that was "clearly designed to shock and horrify" the public.

Azari is charged with conspiracy to prepare for a terrorist attack. The potential penalty was not immediately clear.

In court documents, Azari was accused of conspiring with Baryalei and others between May and September of this year to prepare for a terrorist attack.

Azari did not apply for bail and did not enter a plea. His next court appearance was set for Nov. 13.

The arrests come just days after the country raised its terror warning to the second-highest level in response to the domestic threat posed by supporters of the Islamic State group.

"Police believe that this group that we have executed this operation on today had the intention and had started to carry out planning to commit violent acts here in Australia," said Colvin, who is also the acting Federal Police Commissioner. "Those violent acts particularly related to random acts against members of the public. So what we saw today and the operation that continues was very much about police disrupting the potential for violence against the Australian community at the earliest possible opportunity."

Police declined to reveal exact details of the attack they believe was being plotted. New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said only that it was to be carried out against a member of the public on the street and was at "a very high level."

"Right now is a time for calm," Scipione said. "We need to let people know that they are safe, and certainly from our perspective, we know that the work this morning will ensure that all of those plans that may have been on foot have been thwarted."

Last week, Australian police arrested two men in Brisbane for allegedly preparing to fight in Syria, recruiting jihadists and raising money for the al-Qaida offshoot group Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as the Nusra Front.

Colvin said the raids conducted in Brisbane on Thursday were a follow-up to that operation. It was not yet clear how the investigations in Sydney and Brisbane were linked, he said.

The government raised its terrorism threat last week from "medium" to "high" on a four-tier scale on the advice of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization. The domestic spy agency's Director-General David Irvine said the threat had been rising over the past year, mainly due to Australians joining the Islamic State movement to fight in Syria and Iraq.

When announcing the elevated threat level, Abbott stressed that there was no information suggesting a terror attack was imminent.

Police said raids were conducted in a dozen suburbs of Sydney and in three suburbs across Brisbane and adjoining Logan.

A Muslim book shop and community center in Logan was at the center of counterterrorism raids on several properties last week.

Police said at the time there was no terrorist threat to the Group of 20 leaders' summit to be hosted by Brisbane in November which will bring President Barack Obama and other leaders of the world's 20 biggest economies to the Queensland state capital.

Australia has estimated about 60 of its citizens are fighting for the Islamic State group and the Nusra Front in Iraq and Syria. Another 15 Australian fighters had been killed, including two young suicide bombers.

The government has said it believes about 100 Australians are actively supporting extremist groups from within Australia, recruiting fighters and grooming suicide bomber candidates as well as providing funds and equipment.

Associated Press writer Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, contributed to this report.

National security officials cite progress against domestic terrorism threat

WASHINGTON — The secretary of homeland security said Wednesday that the United States has tracked down the majority of about 6,000 unaccounted-for foreign students who had overstayed visas and spurred concerns over Islamic State-linked terror attacks.

Most have either been deported or had visas extended while a fraction remain under investigation, Secretary Jeh Johnson said during testimony to the House Homeland Security Committee.

Top national security officials including Johnson, FBI Director James Comey and National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen told House lawmakers that they have still not discovered any specific Islamic State plans to strike targets inside the U.S., but that monitoring a burgeoning worldwide network of extremists remains a challenge.

News earlier this month that about 6,000 foreign students studying in the U.S. had disappeared raised fears at a time when the Obama administration is vastly expanding its military and diplomatic offensive against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

“There is a fraction of that population where there is still open investigations,” Johnson said, though he did not specify exactly how many cases are unresolved.

Comey said security agencies are also working to track potential extremists who come and go from the U.S., possibility being trained or helped Islamic State forces in the Middle East.

“There is thousands of ways to get from the United States to Syria … I’m not overly confident, given the nature of the challenge,” he said.

House lawmakers hammered the officials over the security of the country’s southern border, where thousands of undocumented immigrants, many of whom are children, have been flowing in.

Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., said that closing the border should be a key goal in fending off terrorist attacks even if officials have no specific evidence of plans or extremist movements.

“That is not a good reason — that we should not secure the border because we believe nobody has crossed over the border,” he said.

tritten.travis@stripes.com

Twitter: @Travis_Tritten