Midday Roundup: GOP rivals backpedal on support for eventual nominee

Bad blood? All three men vying for the Republican presidential nomination said last night they weren’t sure they could support the party’s candidate in the November general election. Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich had previously said they would toe the party line. Trump made the strongest declaration when asked whether he would pledge his support to the eventual nominee. “No, I don't anymore. ... I have been treated very unfairly,” he said. Neither Cruz nor Kasich would give a direct answer to the question but suggested their support would be conditional. “I'm not in the habit of supporting someone who attacks my wife and my family,” Cruz said. Kasich added, “I don’t want to be political here: I’ve got to see what happens.” Although Trump has a comfortable lead in the delegate count, both Cruz and Kasich are positioning themselves for a contested convention, an unusual event that’s looking more likely.

ISIS sympathizer. A 20-year-old Mississippi woman pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to Islamic State (ISIS) after she and her fiancé were caught trying to travel to Syria to join the group. Jaelyn Delshaun Young, the daughter of a police officer, recently converted to Islam and posted support for ISIS on social media. She caught the attention of FBI agents posing as ISIS recruiters. Young’s fiancé, Muhammad Oda Dakhlalla, pleaded guilty earlier this month. He is the son of a local imam, but Young reportedly told the undercover FBI agents Dakhlalla’s family did not support ISIS. The couple were arrested at the airport, on their way to Syria. Young faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Attack foiled. Four men are being held in three different European countries on suspicion of plotting another terror attack there. French police detained Reda Kriket near Paris last week, discovering a large amount of explosives in his apartment. They believe the French national was in the “advanced stages” of a plot. Officials are expected to file formal charges against him today. Two other men connected to Kriket’s plot were arrested in Brussels. The Algerian men have been identified only by their first names, Abderrahmane A. and Rabah M., and won’t be brought to court until April 7. The other man, who has not been named, is a Frenchman arrested in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Meanwhile, French President François Hollande has abandoned efforts to revoke the French citizenship of anyone with dual nationality convicted of terrorism charges. He made the proposal in the emotional days after the Nov. 13 attack on Paris that killed 130 people, but faced opposition from those who said it would create two classes of French citizen.

Unprotected records. Another hospital system has been shut out of its patient medical records by computer hackers. MedStar Health in Washington, D.C., has reverted to paper records while the FBI investigates an attack that crippled the hospital chain’s computer systems, taking them completely offline. The attack comes weeks after a California hospital paid hackers about $17,000 to regain access to its computer records. In addition to extorting money from hospitals, hackers are stealing valuable medical records, which can be sold on the black market for 100 times the going rate of credit card data, according to cyber security analyst Morgan Wright. “They have your name, your address, your social security number, your date of birth, your dependents,” Wright said. “So these things become the golden eggs that these geese are laying.” And thanks to outdated security systems at most hospitals, the problem likely will get worse before it gets better.

Unintended consequences. A new report indicates Obamacare will cause a significant drop in the number of employer-provided health plans. The findings by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office project that over the next decade 3 million Americans will choose subsidized Obamacare plans or Medicaid over employer health plans. That likely will cause many employers to offer fewer plans or stop offering health insurance altogether. Critics say that’s another unintended consequence of Obamacare—a growing dependence on government by both employees and employers. Obamacare subsidies were intended primarily for those who could not afford insurance, not those with access to employer plans.

WORLD Radio’s Christina Darnell and Paul Butler contributed to this report.