Midday Roundup: Apple won't unlock terror attacker's iPhone

Security spat. Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company will not comply with a judge’s order to help the FBI unlock an iPhone used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook. The phone’s built-in encryption technology works so well that even the government’s expert hackers can’t gain access to the data. “Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them,” Cook said in an open letter released late Tuesday. “But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.” Apple has given investigators the last iCloud backup of the phone but it was dated about seven weeks before the attack, leaving a gap in the communication timeline. Although the judge’s order only applies to Farook’s phone, Cook said if the company created a way to unlock it, the security of every iPhone would be at risk.

Partisan politics. President Barack Obama said yesterday Republican senators should rise above partisan politics and vote on a nominee to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. “I understand the stakes. The court is now divided on many issues,” Obama said during a West Coast press conference. “This would be a deciding vote and there are a lot of Republican senators who are going to be under a lot of pressure from various special interests and many of their voters to not let any nominee go through.” The president said that historically Supreme Court nominations have been treated with less partisan wrangling than other positions. But he did not mention two of the most brutal high court nomination hearings, for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, both nominated by Republican presidents. The president repeated his vow to nominate a replacement for Scalia and downplayed the option of making a recess appointment, saying there’s plenty of time for the Senate to consider whomever he nominates.

Last rites. Funeral plans for the late Justice Scalia are set for this weekend. His body will lie in repose at the Supreme Court on Friday. The funeral service will be Saturday at 11 a.m. EST at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. Following tradition, the doors to the Supreme Court and Justice Scalia’s chair are draped in black.

Deepening divide. International pressure is growing more intense on North Korea after its successful rocket launch last week. During a nationally televised speech Tuesday, South Korean President Park Geun-hye warned the Kim Jung Un regime in North Korea is only speeding up its own demise by continuing a nuclear weapons program. Park also defended her decision to shut down a jointly run industrial complex in the North and announced plans for stiffer sanctions and restrictions on humanitarian aid. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council is working on a new sanctions resolution, as China has softened its objections in the last few days. Closer to home, Congress has approved a new sanctions bill against North Korea and President Obama is expected to sign it in the coming days.

Feeling the pinch. ISIS is falling on hard times financially, cutting wages for its fighters and rationing electricity. According to leaked documents, the Islamic terror group also is requiring residents of its self-proclaimed caliphate in Raqqa, Syria, to pay utility bills in black market American dollars to raise money. Analysts say the combination of coalition airstrikes and low oil prices is putting intense financial pressure on the once well-funded terror organization. ISIS has even stopped slashing people who violate its dress code. Instead, the group is imposing fines to raise cash, according to residents of Mosul, Iraq.

WORLD Radio’s Jim Henry, Paul Butler, and Mary Reichard contributed to this report.