This month, the full moon falls on Friday the 13th.

 Freaky? Nah, probably not.

 Despite many myths, the full moon does not actually embolden criminals, bring about births or make people mad, studies show. And while Friday the 13th superstitions may be well entrenched, there's nothing particularly special about a full moon falling on this date.

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 This Friday's full moon will be the lowest in the sky this year, however, since it will occur so close to the summer solstice. You can watch this freaky full moon rising in a live webcast on Live Science, beginning at 9:30 p.m. EDT tonight (June 12). [Gallery: Fantastic Photos of Full Moons]

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 The June full moon is nicknamed the "Strawberry Moon," a moniker that goes back to the Algonquin Native American tribe, according to the Farmer's Almanac. June is strawberry season, and the full moon would have traditionally coincided with the harvest.

 The June full moon is frequently the one nearest to the summer solstice, which falls on June 21 this year. Because of a neat bit of galactic geometry, this means the full moon on Friday will be the lowest in the sky of any in 2014.

 The June full moon, called the Strawberry Moon, occurs on Friday the 13th. Here a full moon climbs its way to the top of the Washington Monument, Sunday, June 23, 2013. Bill Ingalls / NASA

 Here's how it works: The Earth rotates on a tilted axis; in June — summer in the Northern Hemisphere — the North Pole is tilted about 23.5 degrees toward the sun, while the South Pole is tilted 23.5 degrees away from the sun. On the solstice, the sun reaches its farthest point north of the equator.

 Full moons happen when Earth's satellite is opposite the sun; that's why viewers on Earth see the entire face of the moon illuminated. Thus, when the full moon is directly opposite the sun when our host star appears at its highest point, the moon is at its lowest point with respect to the equator. That's why winter full moons rise higher above the horizon than summer full moons.

 June's moon reaches its fullest point at 12:11 a.m. EDT (0411 GMT) on Friday, June 13. Of course, this means that for people in the Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones in the United States, this full moon isn't a Friday the 13th full moon at all: It technically falls on June 12.

 Friday the 13th full moons occur sporadically. The last one fell on Aug. 13, 2011. The next Friday the 13th full moon will be on Aug. 13, 2049.

 Even those who live in the Eastern time zone should not stress over the confluence of the full moon with Friday the 13th. Contrary to myth, the full moon does not affect human behavior or health. For example, a 1985 review published in the journal Psychological Bulletin tracked hospital admissions, psychiatric disturbances, homicides and other crime over several months and found no uptick in any of those variables around the time of the full moon.

 Alas for heavily pregnant women, a 2001 study in the Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society looked at about 70 million births in the United States and found no link between the phase of the moon and labor starting. So don't expect to finish your pregnancy just because the moon is full. ||||| The superstitious may want to steer clear of black cats this Friday the 13th, but venturing outside very early in the morning will be worthwhile—you'll be able to catch the spectacular full "honey moon" in the night sky.

 The honey moon officially reaches its full moon phase at 12:13 a.m. EDT on Friday morning for eastern North America. But its honey hues will shine most brightly in the early evening.

 With the sun's path across the sky at its highest during this month of the summer solstice, the moon is at its lowest, which keeps the lunar orb close to the horizon and makes it appear more amber than other full moons this year.

 The amber colors are due to the scattering of longer wavelengths of light by dust and pollution in our atmosphere. "It is a similar phenomenon as seen at sunset, when sunlight is scattered towards the red end of the spectrum, making the sun's disk appear orange-red to the naked-eye," says astronomer Raminder Singh Samra of the H. R. MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver, Canada.

 The most spectacular part of the so-called honey moon begins hours before midnight, due to an illusion by which the moon appears larger to sky-watchers when it's near the horizon than when it hangs high in the sky.

 Researchers aren't quite sure what causes this optical illusion of a larger moon near the horizon, but they suspect it has something to do with the human mind trying to make sense of the moon's proximity to more familiar objects like mountains, trees and houses in the foreground.

 The Moon at Its Closest

 The monthly full moon always looks like a big disk, but because its orbit around the Earth is egg-shaped, there are times in the lunar cycle when the moon is at its shortest distance from Earth (called perigee), some 224,976 miles (362,065 kilometers) away.

 This month the perigee just happens to coincide with the full phase, which may make it appear unusually large to some keen-eyed sky-watchers.

 "The moon illusion should be more prominent during this full moon as it will graze closer to the horizon than at any other time of the year," Samra says. "This will make the moon appear more amber than other full moons of the year.

 A full moon coinciding on Friday the 13th is not all that uncommon, occurring every three or so years.

 But having the combination of a honey moon and Friday the 13th is rare, last occurring on June 13, 1919, according to the popular astronomy site Universe Today. We'll have to wait until June 13, 2098, for the next one.

 Marital Traditions?

 Astronomer Bob Berman says that the honey-hued moon, which always occurs in June around the summer solstice, may have given us the modern term "honeymoon," with weddings traditionally held in June in some cultures.

 "That phrase dates back nearly half a millennium, to 1552, but one thing has changed: Weddings have shifted and are now most often held in August or September," said Berman, who works with the astronomy group Slooh, in a statement.

 "The idea back then was that a marriage is like the phases of the moon, with the full moon being analogous to a wedding," Berman said. "Meaning, it's the happiest and 'brightest' time in a relationship."

 Armchair astronomers can catch the sky show virtually through a live high-definition webcast of the honey moon by the Slooh telescopes in the Canary Islands, off the coast of Africa. The online show starts on Thursday, June 12, at 9:30 p.m. EDT (link for international times).

 Follow Andrew Fazekas, the Night Sky Guy, on Twitter, Facebook, and his website.

Summary: – If the fact that it's Friday the 13th has you shaking in your boots, we hope you didn't look out your window early this morning. For the first time in nearly 100 years, what's known as a "honey moon" or "strawberry moon" coincided with the 13th, reaching the full moon phase at 12:13am ET. The honey moniker comes from the moon's golden color caused by its low position in the sky thanks to the proximity to the summer solstice, while the latter refers to June's strawberry harvest, NBC News and National Geographic report. The next Friday the 13th "honey moon" won't happen again until June 13, 2098; the last happened on June 13, 1919. Too many rarities for your liking? Well, there's no need to be unnerved. Contrary to myth, the full moon doesn't actually affect human behavior or health, NBC News notes, citing a 1985 study which found no increase in hospital admissions, psychiatric disturbances, homicides, or other crimes around the full moon.


I love when one creative process inspires another. Recently a French dance troupe licensed some of my footage for their routine and project it as a backdrop to their interpretive dance performance.

 25 1 ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.

Summary: – "Makes me feel at peace," "My headache soon went away," and "With this through my headphones, studying never has been easier" are just a handful of the comments you'll find underneath a viral YouTube video created by UK visual artist Johnnie Lawson. But Lawson isn't hawking some kind of wonder drug: The eight-hour-plus video of a waterfall cascading under a footbridge on the River Bonet in Ireland has apparently made quite an impression on insomniacs and relaxation-seekers from all over the world, with almost 7 million views and about 27,500 "likes" since he uploaded it in 2013. Lawson tells the BBC he's heard from people globally—even from the Vatican—gushing about his creations, and the video and others like it that he's put together are being used for medical research in several London hospitals. A trial at London's University College Hospital is trying to lessen trauma and PTSD among ICU patients. Incorporated into the patients' recovery are tablets with varying "relaxation materials," including Lawson's catalog of sounds and images from the woods and shorelines of County Leitrim and surrounding areas. He has just over 170 videos in his collection, and some of those compilations can get difficult sleepers through the entire night. "Insomnia [sufferers] would fall asleep listening to some of my videos, but they'd wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of silence. That's when I started making eight-hour-long videos," he says. The descriptive sayings he posts on his Facebook wall are similarly peaceful and inspirational. Sample: "Under a warming evening sun, a gentle breeze caresses still waters." (Click to find out why married women might want to check out these videos.)


See more of Larissa Waters on Facebook ||||| Alia Joy Waters is just weeks old. But she has already made political history in Australia by becoming the first baby to be breast fed in the Australian parliament.

 Senator Larissa Waters returned to parliament today for the first time since giving birth to her second daughter earlier this year, bringing Alia Joy with her while she voted.

 And when her baby needed it, she didn't hesitate to feed her.

 Afterwards, she wrote on Twitter: "So proud that my daughter Alia is the first baby to be breastfed in the federal Parliament! We need more #women & parents in Parli." ||||| THE Australian Senate is used to childish behaviour but next week could deliver a legitimate outcry from an actual child.

 Just 10 weeks after giving birth, Queensland Senator Larissa Waters is returning to work with her daughter, Alia Joy, in tow – and she plans to breastfeed her in the Senate chamber.

 media_camera Senator Larissa Waters at work with partner Jeremy Gates, who has scaled back his digital marketing agency to be a full-time dad. Picture: Jono Searle

 Breastfeeding has been permitted in the chamber since 2003, but Alia will be the first.

 “If she’s hungry, that’s what you do, you feed your baby,” Senator Waters said.

 The 40-year-old Greens senator last year successfully extended breastfeeding rules in the Senate to include caring for an infant.

 media_camera Kelly O’Dwyer – with then four-month-old Olivia – managed to survive a push to unseat her as a Cabinet minister after she gave birth. media_camera Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young in 2009, around the time that two-year-old Kora was infamously ejected from the Senate.

 She will be joined in Canberra by her partner, Jeremy Gates, who has scaled back his digital marketing agency to be a full-time dad. He can bring Alia into the chamber when she needs some mother time.

 “I hope she doesn’t squawk her head off too much, but she’s probably going to be better behaved than many of the people in that room,” Senator Waters said.

 In 2009, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young’s two-year-old daughter, Kora, was infamously ejected from the Senate.

 Senator Waters said the rule changes were designed to encourage more parenting Australians to enter parliament to ensure it is representative of the community.

 “It is important we make all workplaces more family friendly, not just parliament,” she said.

 Senator Waters said the recent unsuccessful push to unseat Cabinet minister and fellow new mum Kelly O’Dwyer shows how women still face workplace discrimination.

 “That was atrocious, but sadly, it’s not that uncommon,” she said. “One in five women experience severe discrimination on the basis of their parenthood. It is a very sobering statistic, and it’s really disheartening for people to see that even Cabinet ministers can be subjected to that as well.”

Summary: – Australian Sen. Larissa Waters made history with her 2-month-old daughter Alia Joy on Tuesday. The Australian Greens party member became the first mother to breastfeed a baby in the Parliament chamber, winning praise for setting an example for mothers in the workplace, the Telegraph reports. Other lawmakers in countries including Argentina and Spain have breastfed their babies in parliament chambers, and Icelandic MP Unnur Bra Konradsdottir fed her baby while delivering a speech last year, though breastfeeding remains banned in parliaments in countries such as the UK. Last year, Waters introduced rule changes that made it easier for lawmakers to bring children to work, saying it is "important we make all workplaces more family friendly, not just Parliament," the Courier-Mail reports. "I'll be having a few more weeks off but will soon be back in Parliament with this little one in tow," Waters wrote in a Facebook post announcing Alia Joy's birth in March. "She is even more inspiration for continuing our work to address gender inequality and stem dangerous climate change. (And yes, if she's hungry, she will be breastfed in the Senate chamber.)"


JUBA/ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - South Sudan’s government and rebels finally began talks to end weeks of bloodletting on Friday after days of delay as the United States ordered out more of its embassy staff.

 Marines and sailors with Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response help U.S. citizens into a Marine Corps KC-130J Hercules airplane during an evacuation of personnel from the U.S. Embassy, in this handout photo taken in Juba, South Sudan, January 3, 2014, courtesy of the U.S. Marines. REUTERS/U.S. Marines/Staff Sgt. Robert L. Fisher III/Handout via Reuters

 However, there was no face-to-face meeting, and fighting was reported near the key town of Bor, suggesting that a halt to clashes between President Salva Kiir’s SPLA government forces and rebels loyal to former vice president Riek Machar is still a long way off.

 Neighboring countries fear that the fighting, which quickly spread out from the capital Juba last month along ethnic faultlines, could destabilize East Africa, and the regional IGAD grouping is mediating the peace talks in Ethiopia.

 The talks had been scheduled to begin in Addis Ababa on January 1, and made a slow start on Friday.

 “Both delegations are meeting the mediators separately,” said Dina Mufti, a spokesman for Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry. “We hope to bring both sides into face-to-face talks soon.”

 Meanwhile the SPLA said its troops were fighting rebels 24 km (14 miles) south of rebel-controlled Bor, the capital of the vast Jonglei state and site of an ethnic massacre in 1991.

 Bor lies 190 km (118 miles) to the north of Juba and has changed hands three times since the unrest began.

 “The rebels will be flushed out of Bor any time,” SPLA spokesman Philip Aguer said.

 Rebel spokesman Moses Ruai Lat, based in the northern state of Unity, said it was the government forces who were on the back foot and his advancing comrades were already “close” to Juba.

 200,000 DISPLACED

 More than a thousand people have been killed and 200,000 driven from their homes in three weeks of fighting that has raised the specter of a civil war pitting Kiir’s ethnic Dinkas against Machar’s Nuer.

 The United States has been withdrawing non-essential embassy staff since mid-December and said Friday it was evacuating more.

 It also urged all American citizens to leave South Sudan - a country the size of France estimated to hold the third largest oil reserves in sub-Saharan Africa, but desperately poor and short of infrastructure.

 “We are not suspending our operations. We are just minimizing our presence,” said Susan Page, the U.S. ambassador.

 More than 440 U.S. officials and private citizens have been evacuated on charter flights and military aircraft, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in Washinton. The United States has also flown out 750 citizens of 27 other countries.

 The Pentagon sent two KC-130 aircraft to pick up approximately 20 U.S. diplomatic personnel from the embassy in Juba, said Army Colonel Steve Warren, a spokesman. One landed and the other one circled nearby in case it was needed.

 An emergency message to U.S. citizens on the embassy’s website said the move was due to a “deteriorating security situation”. It said there would be an evacuation flight on Friday arranged by the U.S. State Department.

 Slideshow (17 Images)

 Kiir has accused his long-term political rival Machar, whom he sacked in July, of starting the fighting in a bid to seize power. Machar denies the claim.

 Mediators say Kiir’s government and the rebels loyal to Machar have agreed in principle to a ceasefire, but there is no agreement on a starting date and some diplomats say both sides still seem more intent on maneuvering for military advantage.

 The United Nations said it was planning for the number of displaced people to double in the next three months. ||||| Initial meetings in Addis Ababa between mediators and the warring parties in South Sudan have been "fruitful," Ethiopia's foreign minister has said.

 Tedros Adhanom said direct talks between the two sides, aimed at ending the violence, would begin on Saturday.

 Fighting between supporters of President Salva Kiir and those of his sacked deputy Riek Machar has killed at least 1,000 people since 15 December.

 The US has announced a further cut of its embassy staff in South Sudan.

 Analysis Arriving in Ethiopia on Thursday night, the delegation for the South Sudan government barely had time to rest. Its 14-man delegation held meetings with the two regional mediators on Friday morning. Overnight at the same hotel venue, rebel negotiators also met the mediators. Both teams are expecting the talks to last days. But the Sheraton Hotel in Addis Ababa remains a no-go zone for journalists, perhaps signifying the sensitive nature of the negotiations. While the African Union has insisted on the talks being African-driven, Western nations and the UN are keeping a close eye on them. Already the European Union special representative to the Horn of Africa is in Addis Ababa, with more foreign envoys expected in the coming days.

 More than 180,000 people have been displaced in the conflict. Aid workers say many are living without shelter, clean water and sanitation.

 Tensions are increasing around the rebel-held cities of Bor, in Jonglei state, and Bentiu, in the northern state of Unity.

 A build-up of military personnel around both cities has prompted fears that renewed heavy fighting may be imminent as the government attempts to regain control, the BBC's Alastair Leithead reports from the capital, Juba.

 One rebel spokesman told Reuters its troops were marching towards Juba, while a spokesman for the government said its forces were closing in to recapture Bor.

 Evacuation flight

 Delegates from both sides began arriving in the Ethiopian capital on Wednesday but talks were delayed until the full negotiating teams had arrived.

 The BBC's Emmanuel Igunza in Addis Ababa says the rival teams are in the same hotel but are currently in talks only with mediators.

 Mabior Garang, left, part of the negotiating team backing Riek Machar, arrives for talks in Addis Ababa

 A government soldier patrols Malakal in Upper Nile State

 These refugees in the town of Awerial are among the 180,000 people estimated displaced by the conflict

 The mediators are preparing the ground for direct talks, he adds.

 Observers have said the discussions are likely to be complicated, as the two sides will have to agree on a mechanism to monitor any ceasefire.

 Meanwhile, the US state department said it had ordered a "further drawdown" of its embassy staff in Juba "because of the deteriorating security situation".

 It evacuated a large number of non-essential staff soon after the fighting began on 15 December.

 But ambassador Susan Page told Reuters: "We are not suspending our operations. We are just minimising our presence."

 However, the state department also said that, from Saturday, it would no longer be providing consular services to US citizens in South Sudan.

 And it repeated its advice to its citizens to leave the country, announcing a further evacuation flight from Juba "to the nearest safe haven country" on Friday.

 A political squabble has become a conflict - and one with nasty ethnic undertones Analysis: Bitter divide Q&A: South Sudan clashes

 The United Nations, however, is flying more staff into Juba to help in the aid effort and to protect civilians' human rights. One official said US staff working for the UN had not been asked to leave.

 South Sudan is the world's newest state. It was formed in 2011, gaining independence from Sudan after decades of conflict.

 The latest trouble has its roots in tensions that go back long before 2011, rebels were fighting each other as well as for independence.

 But what began as a squabble between former fighters turned politicians has taken on an ethnic dimension.

 Politicians' political bases are often ethnic. President Kiir is from the Dinka community while Mr Machar is a Nuer.

 Mr Kiir has ruled out any power-sharing arrangement with his rival in the longer term.

 Fighting erupted in the South Sudan capital, Juba, in mid-December. It followed a political power struggle between President Salva Kiir and his ex-deputy Riek Machar. The squabble has taken on an ethnic dimension as politicians' political bases are often ethnic.

 Sudan's arid north is mainly home to Arabic-speaking Muslims. But in South Sudan there is no dominant culture. The Dinkas and the Nuers are the largest of more than 200 ethnic groups, each with its own languages and traditional beliefs, alongside Christianity and Islam.

 Both Sudan and the South are reliant on oil revenue, which accounts for 98% of South Sudan's budget. They have fiercely disagreed over how to divide the oil wealth of the former united state - at one time production was shutdown for more than a year. Some 75% of the oil lies in the South but all the pipelines run north

 The two Sudans are very different geographically. The great divide is visible even from space, as this Nasa satellite image shows. The northern states are a blanket of desert, broken only by the fertile Nile corridor. South Sudan is covered by green swathes of grassland, swamps and tropical forest.

 After gaining independence in 2011, South Sudan is the world's newest country - and one of its poorest. Figures from 2010 show some 69% of households now have access to clean water - up from 48% in 2006. However, just 2% of households have water on the premises.

 Just 29% of children attend primary school in South Sudan - however this is also an improvement on the 16% recorded in 2006. About 32% of primary-age boys attend, while just 25% of girls do. Overall, 64% of children who begin primary school reach the last grade. ||||| JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — The U.S. Embassy in South Sudan is evacuating more of its personnel because of a deteriorating security situation.

 Displaced people wade through mud as they get off a river barge from Bor, some of the thousands who fled the recent fighting between government and rebel forces in Bor by boat across the White Nile, in... (Associated Press)

 Displaced people rest after getting off a river barge from Bor, some of the thousands who fled the recent fighting between government and rebel forces in Bor by boat across the White Nile, in the town... (Associated Press)

 Those displaced who have enough money to pay the fare get on a bus heading to the capital Juba, some of the thousands who fled the recent fighting between government and rebel forces in Bor by boat across... (Associated Press)

 The embassy said Friday that it is organizing another evacuation flight to leave Friday. The embassy has already organized about a dozen flights since fighting broke out Dec. 15.

 The embassy did not give a specific reason why it is evacuating more personnel. An anti-government force controls a state capital about 120 kilometers (70 miles) north of the country capital, Juba. South Sudan's military spokesman says that force wants to advance on to Juba.

 The embassy said it will no longer provide consular services in South Sudan as of Saturday.

 Even as rebels threaten to march on the capital, representatives for the warring parties are holding preliminary peace talks in Ethiopia.

Summary: – As of tomorrow, the US embassy in South Sudan will no longer provide consular services to US citizens, according to the AP, as even more embassy staff were today whisked out of Juba in the face of a "deteriorating security situation." The State Department today facilitated an evacuation flight, one of about a dozen that have taken place since fighting erupted Dec. 15. Reuters spoke with the US ambassador to Juba, Susan Page, who said "we are not suspending our operations. We are just minimizing our presence." Reuters notes that a rep for the rebels claims that after seizing Bor, rebel forces are headed to Juba, and are "close" to the capital. (Though a government rep says its forces were going to retake Bor.) What isn't close: the peace negotiations in Ethiopia, where both sides have yet to meet face-to-face. "Both delegations are meeting the mediators separately," says a rep for Ethiopia's foreign ministry. The BBC reports that mediators hope to start direct talks late today or tomorrow.


A man who took part in the kidnapping and murder of a Kansas City girl is scheduled to die Tuesday evening.

 Missouri has executed a man who took part in a notorious kidnapping and murder of a Kansas City-area teenage girl more than a quarter-century ago.

 Missouri poised to execute man who abducted KC teen from... Missouri was preparing to execute a man who took part in a notorious kidnapping and murder of a Kansas City-area teenage girl more than a quarter-century ago. More

 Roderick Nunley had been scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m., but a late appeal postponed it until 9 p.m. The lethal injection process began at 8:58 p.m. and he was pronounced dead about 10 minutes later.

 Nunley was one of two men convicted in the kidnapping and killing of Ann Harrison, 15, who was taken while she was waiting for a school bus. Her body was found three days later in the trunk of a stolen car. Police said she had been raped, sodomized and stabbed with kitchen knives.

 Michael Taylor, the other man convicted in the case, was executed last year.

 Nunley and Taylor confessed to the killings with each arguing they were the ringleader. They both waived trials and pleaded guilty before a judge sentenced them to die.

 “If somebody had told me it was going to take 25 years to get them executed, I would have said, ‘You are out of your mind,’” said retired detective Pete Edlund, who worked the case.

 He said police cracked the case when a jailhouse snitched stepped forward for the reward money. He said that informant faced robbery charges and needed money for bail and lawyer.

 The executions were held up during lengthy appeals and challenges to Missouri’s execution procedures. After debates over which drugs should be used to give lethal injections, Missouri no longer identifies the exact drugs it uses.

 Harrison's parents, Bob and Janel, released a statement that read in part:

 "For the last 26 years Janel and I have, on occasion, experienced a form of compassion for not only Roderick Nunley and Michael Taylor but especially their families. No one involved deserved the pain, suffering or anguish these two cowards have bestowed on this community. This feeling diminishes rapidly as our thoughts are uncontrollably diverted to the vision of Ann being dragged into the stolen car by her hair and stomped to the floor board in an attempt to hide her from sight as they transported her to Nunley's home."

 The Harrisons' went on to say that they don't know if the executions of Nunley and Taylor will bring them closure.

 "Will it put the heartbreak of reliving what they did to Ann during all the hearings, appeals and seemingly endless stalling attempts?

 "We certainly hope so.

 "If this is the only form of closure we receive, then we will gladly take it."

 Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster noted that it took years for Nunley's sentence to be carried out.

 "Despite openly admitting his guilt to the court, it has taken 25 years to get him to the execution chamber. Nunley's case offers a textbook example showing why society is so frustrated with a system that has become too cumbersome,” Koster said.

 "The two men who were found guilty of Ann’s kidnapping, rape and murder have now had their sentences carried out. But even as there is judicial closure tonight, we know that a Missouri family will always miss and grieve the young woman who has been gone for more than 26 years. We grieve with them," Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said. "I ask that Missourians join me in keeping the family of Ann Harrison in their thoughts and prayers tonight."

 Harrison's father, uncle and two family friends were at the prison to witness the execution.

 Harrison’s friends are now adults, many with teenage children of their own.

 “It is a tough day. It brings back lots of feelings, emotions and memories,” said Carrie Willis, one of Harrison’s friends.

 She said this is a difficult, but important day.

 “Maybe now we can move on and remember Ann,” she said. “Just remember Ann and not why it has taken so long.”

 Harrison’s friends Kelly Potter and Amy Kaye also posted a message on Facebook.

 “Today is a tough day. It has been over 26 years that those of us close to Ann Harrison have waited for justice to be served.”

 “Ann was a sweet, shy, family oriented girl who loved life, was nice to everyone she met and would help anyone who needed it. She was an excellent student, softball player and had a love of music.”

 “On that day in March of 1989, this earth lost a beautiful soul for no good reason. People are eternally bonded through this tragedy. We will continue to honor the memory of our dear friend and life that she lead and dreamed of leading. She remains in our hearts and thoughts forever. We will always have #LoveForAnn.”

 "I know that putting these two to death will never bring back Ann. And while she's gone from this Earth, she is most certainly with God and waiting for the day when she is reunited with her loved ones. She is at peace. Her memory lives on in OUR hearts and minds, and she will never be forgotten by any of us," friend Tricia Wear posted on Facebook. ||||| BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) — A man who spent nearly 25 years on Missouri's death row was executed Tuesday for the kidnapping, rape and fatal stabbing of a 15-year-old girl who was waiting for a school bus.

 Roderick Nunley became the sixth inmate put to death in Missouri this year. During the lethal injection, the 50-year-old inmate's breathing became labored for a few seconds. He briefly opened his mouth before becoming still.

 He was pronounced dead at 9:09 p.m. CDT.

 "Despite openly admitting his guilt to the court, it has taken 25 years to get him to the execution chamber," Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said in a statement afterward. "Nunley's case offers a textbook example showing why society is so frustrated with a system that has become too cumbersome."

 Of 20 executions nationally in 2015, all but four have been in Missouri and Texas. Nunley's execution was delayed by last-minute appeals from attorneys for death penalty opponents in Missouri questioning the competence of Nunley's lawyer.

 Nunley made no final statement and no one witnessed his punishment on his behalf, although he visited earlier in the day with his daughter and a spiritual adviser.

 Robert Harrison, the father of the girl killed, watched the execution along with the victim's uncle and two family friends.

 The disappearance and death of Ann Harrison haunted the Kansas City area in March 1989. She was waiting for a school bus on her driveway, 20 yards from her front door, when Nunley and Michael Taylor drove by in a stolen car and made the spur-of-the-moment decision to abduct her.

 Her body was found in the trunk of the abandoned car days later.

 Both men were sentenced to death in 1991. Taylor was executed last year.

 Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon on Tuesday denied a clemency request for Nunley, filed by death penalty opponents, asserting that racial bias played a role in the case because a prosecutor refused a plea deal that would have given Nunley life in prison without parole. Nunley was black, as was Taylor, while the victim was white.

 The U.S. Supreme Court, meanwhile, denied several appeals from Nunley's attorney, including one claiming that the death penalty amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

 According to prosecutors, Nunley and Taylor binged on cocaine and stole a car in the pre-dawn hours of March 22, 1989. At one point, a police officer from neighboring Lee's Summit chased the car but was called off by a supervisor when the stolen vehicle crossed into Kansas City.

 Later that morning, the men were driving around Kansas City when they saw Ann, her school books and flute on the ground beside her.

 "They were just cruising and she's out at the driveway waiting for the school bus," retired Kansas City detective Pete Edlund recalled Monday in an interview with The Associated Press.

 The girl's mother had stepped inside to get a younger daughter ready for school. When she heard the bus, she looked outside. The books and flute were still there, but Ann was gone.

 "She knew something was wrong," Edlund said.

 Taylor and Nunley had grabbed the girl and taken her to Nunley's mother's home. She was raped and sodomized, then stabbed repeatedly in the stomach and neck.

 Taylor and Nunley put the girl's body in the trunk of the stolen car, then abandoned the vehicle in a residential area. The body was found three days later.

 Edlund said the case was cracked months later when a man in jail for robbery — and seeking a $10,000 reward in the case — turned in Taylor and Nunley. Both men confessed, and some of Ann's hair was found in carpeting at the home where the crime occurred.

 Edlund said Ann's father was a former reserve officer with the Police Department, and her uncle was a Kansas City officer.

 "To all of us, she was part of our police family," Edlund said. "That made it even more important that we solve the case." ||||| Updated 9/1/2015, 10:13 p.m. -- Roderick Nunley has become the sixth death row inmate executed in Missouri this year.

 He was put to death by lethal injection Tuesday at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre for the 1989 murder of 15-year-old Ann Harrison.

 Nunley's lethal injection began at 8:58 p.m., and he was pronounced dead at 9:09 p.m., according to the Missouri Department of Corrections.

 Spokesman Mike O'Connell said Nunley's last meal consisted of a steak, shrimp, chicken strips, salad, and a slice of cheesecake. Nunley did not provide a final statement.

 O'Connell also said Nunley declined to use a sedative before being given pentobarbital, the drug used for executions in Missouri, and that there were no complications.

 Ann Harrison's family did not provide a statement after the execution, which was witnessed by an uncle and two family friends.

 Corrections Director George Lombardi read a prepared statement from Gov. Jay Nixon:

 Tonight, as we remember Ann Harrison, our thoughts and prayers are again with Bob and Janel Harrison, and the other members of Ann’s family. The acts of violence that took this 15 year old who was full of life and promise away from her loved ones can never make sense to us. The two men who were found guilty of Ann’s kidnapping, rape and murder have now had their sentences carried out. But even as there is judicial closure tonight, we know that a Missouri family will always miss and grieve the young woman who has been gone for more than 26 years. We grieve with them. So, I ask that Missourians join me in keeping the family of Ann Harrison in their thoughts and prayers tonight.

 Attorney General Chris Koster also issued a brief statement:

 "Roderick Nunley murdered 15-year-old Ann Harrison in 1989, pled guilty, and was sentenced to death. Despite openly admitting his guilt to the court, it has taken 25 years to get him to the execution chamber. Nunley's case offers a textbook example showing why society is so frustrated with a system that has become too cumbersome."

 Pete Edlund is a retired Kansas City police officer who led the investigation into Harrison's death.

 "I'm just glad that justice, 25 years later, is finally served," Edlund said. "It's a sad commentary on the system that people who have committed violent vicious crimes don't receive just punishment in a timely manner."

 Nunley's attorney, Jennifer Herndon, has not responded yet to requests for comments.

 Updated 9/1/2015, 8:02 p.m. -- A second request for a stay of execution, a writ of habeus corpus, for Roderick Nunley has been denied by the U.S. Supreme Court.

 Within minutes, Gov. Jay Nixon denied Nunley's request for clemency:

 After deliberate consideration of its merits and the facts of this case, I have denied this petition. As Governor, this is a power and a process I do not take lightly. Each instance involves a very specific set of facts, which must be considered on its own. On the morning of March 22, 1989, 15-year-old Ann Harrison was waiting for the school bus at the end of the driveway of her Raytown home when she was abducted, raped, and then stabbed to death by Roderick Nunley and Michael Taylor. The capital punishment sentence given to Taylor for his role in these brutal crimes was carried out last year. Nunley also pleaded guilty to these heinous crimes and was sentenced to death. My decision today upholds this appropriate sentence. I ask that Missourians remember Ann Harrison at this time and keep her parents, Bob and Janel Harrison, and the Harrison family in your thoughts and prayers.

 Updated 9/1/2015, 5:43 p.m. -- The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a stay of execution for Roderick Nunley, who's scheduled to die by lethal injection at Missouri's Bonne Terre prison as early as 6 p.m. tonight.

 Nunley was sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of 15-year-old Ann Harrison in the Kansas City area.

 This is a developing story and we'll have more details as they come in.

 Original story

 Pending a stay or clemency, Roderick Nunley will become the sixth death row inmate executed in Missouri this year and the 18th since the state resumed executions in November 2013.

 Nunley was sentenced to death for the 1999 kidnapping, rape and murder of 15-year-old Ann Harrison in Kansas City. He was charged along with Michael Taylor, who was executed last year.

 According to police reports and court documents, Nunley and Taylor had been using cocaine the night of March 21, 1989, and then stole a car during the early morning hours of March 22. They saw Ann Harrison standing in her driveway waiting on a school bus. When they pulled up to her, Taylor grabbed her, pulling her inside the car.

 Nunley then drove to his mother’s house in Grandview, a suburb of Kansas City, where Harrison was taken blindfolded into the basement. He said in court that Taylor raped Harrison while he did nothing to prevent it, and that they both later agreed to kill her to prevent her from testifying against them in court.

 Harrison was stabbed multiple times and left in the trunk of the stolen car to die. Both the car and her body were discovered three days later in a nearby neighborhood.

 Nunley pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 1991, in the hopes of receiving a life sentence, but after a three-day sentencing hearing he was sentenced to death.

 In 1994, Nunley filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea, which was rejected. His attorneys had argued that he suffered from a “dependent personality disorder” and that his judgment was impaired due to his cocaine use when Harrison was murdered. They also accused the Jackson County prosecutor’s office of having a track record of racial discrimination when pursuing the death penalty in cases where the defendant was African American and the victim was white.

 Late Friday, the Missouri Supreme Court rejected Nunley’s request to withdraw the execution warrant, and a motion on Monday to reconsider that decision was also rejected.

 Meanwhile, Nunley’s attorney, Jennifer Herndon, has filed another appeal based on the state’s refusal to disclose where it gets its execution drug, although that maneuver failed to halt other executions carried out in Missouri this year. The Marshall Project, which has put forth several articles critical of the death penalty, recently had an article that was critical of Herndon.

 Nunley’s window of execution is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Tuesday night.

 The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 Follow Marshall Griffin on Twitter: @MarshallGReport ||||| This April 22, 2014 provided by the Missouri Department of Corrections shows Roderick Nunley who is scheduled to die for raping and killing 15-year-old Ann Harrison in Kansas City in 1989. (Missouri Department of Corrections via AP)

 A man who spent nearly 25 years on Missouri's death row has been executed for the kidnapping, rape and stabbing death of a 15-year-old Kansas City girl.

 Roderick Nunley, 50, died by injection Tuesday night. During the execution, his breathing became labored for a few seconds. He briefly opened his mouth before becoming still.

 He was pronounced dead at 9:09 p.m. CDT.

 Of 20 executions nationally in 2015, 10 have been in Texas and Nunley's makes the sixth death row inmate to be put to death in Missouri.

 Bob and Janel Harrison, the parents of the young victim, released a statement afterwards, saying:

 "For the last 26 years Janel and I have, on occasion, experienced a form of compassion for not only Roderick Nunley and Michael Taylor but especially their families. No one involved deserved the pain, suffering or anguish these two cowards have bestowed on this community. This feeling diminishes rapidly as our thoughts are uncontrollably diverted to the vision of Ann being dragged into the stolen car by her hair and stomped to the floor board in an attempt to hide her from sight as they transported her to Nunley’s home. Upon arrival at the home, she was made to crawl through the garage to an area where the true torture began, not only physical, but mental. They recounted in their confessions that while she was blindfolded they laughed as she pleaded for her life and how they stood over her and discussed that they had to kill her so she could not identify them. Ann was then lifted into the trunk of the stolen car as Nunley went to the kitchen to obtain the murder weapons. After attempting to slit her throat, only to find the kitchen knives were too dull, they elected to stab her repeatedly in the chest and back and shut the trunk lid, only to hear her sobbing and moaning in her final moments of life. Will the execution of Roderick Nunley and Michael Taylor bring a sense of closure for us and our younger daughters? We don’t know. Will it put the heartbreak of reliving what they did to Ann during all the hearings, appeals and seemingly endless stalling attempts? We certainly hope so. If this is the only form of closure we receive, then we will gladly take it. We want to express our deepest appreciation for all the support we have continuously received from our family, extended family, friends, Ann’s classmates, The Raytown Girls Softball League, The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Governor Nixon, The Attorney General’s office, the Department of Corrections and especially to the officers and detectives of the KCPD who worked tirelessly to bring Ann’s killers to justice. Finally, we wish to thank the many members of the media and press many of which have been at our side from the very morning Ann was taken. You have accepted the times when we were completely drained and just unable to speak to anyone. You allowed us the privacy we needed to work through the 26 years of grieving. Thank you all."

 "Despite openly admitting his guilt to the court, it has taken 25 years to get him to the execution chamber," Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said in a statement. "Nunley's case offers a textbook example showing why society is so frustrated with a system that has become too cumbersome."

 Investigators say he and his co-defendant randomly targeted and kidnapped Ann Harrison, 15, as she waited outside her Kansas City home for the school bus in 1989. The girl was then raped and fatally stabbed.

 The U.S. Supreme Court had said it wouldn't stop the scheduled execution and Gov. Jay Nixon denied his clemency petition. Both Nunley and his co-defendant in the case, Michael Taylor, were sentenced to death in 1991. Taylor was executed last year.

 Nunley's attorney has three appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court, including one that says the death penalty amounts to cruel and unusual punishment — an argument rebuffed by a detective with a 42-year career who helped break the case.

 Retired Kansas City detective Pete Edlund said the only thing cruel and unusual is how long Nunley and Taylor remained on death row.

 “A travesty,” he said. “I’m frustrated by the fact it’s taken so long and over ridiculous excuses to extend their time on death row.”

 He said Nunley should have been put to death long ago.

 "They just take forever to do the deed," Edlund told The Associated Press. "The delay in executing these two is just nuts because it didn't have anything to do with their guilt. It was legal mumbo jumbo nonsense."

 To this day neighbor Deborah Bowen carries a picture of Ann and her sisters in her car. It’s there to remind her of the innocent girl down the street from her.

 “I will never forget the girl, she was just a beautiful thing,” Bowen said. “My dad went to his grave knowing those two were still alive.”

 The former detective is hoping, with Nunley’s execution, it will offer some sort of peace for Ann’s family.

 “It has been a long time, justice delayed,” Edlund said.

 The other two pending appeals take issue with Missouri's process of secretly acquiring its execution drug and argue that Nunley should have been sentenced by a jury, not a judge.

 The clemency petition to Nixon, filed by death penalty opponents, alleges that racial bias played a role in the case because a prosecutor refused a plea deal that would have given Nunley life in prison without parole. Nunley is black, as was Taylor, while the victim was white.

 According to prosecutors, Nunley and Taylor binged on cocaine and stole a car in the pre-dawn hours of March 22, 1989. At one point, a police officer from neighboring Lee's Summit chased the car but was called off by a supervisor when the stolen car crossed into Kansas City.

 Later that morning, the men were driving around Kansas City when they saw Ann standing at the end of her driveway, waiting for a school bus. The girl's mother had stepped inside to get a younger daughter ready for school. When she heard the bus, she looked outside. The books and flute were still there, but Ann was gone.

 Taylor and Nunley had quickly grabbed the 15-year-old girl and took her to Nunley's mother's home. She was raped and sodomized, then stabbed repeatedly in the stomach and neck.

 Taylor and Nunley put the girl's body in the trunk of the stolen car, then abandoned it in a residential area. The body was found three days later.

 Edlund said the case was cracked months later when a man in jail for robbery — and seeking a $10,000 reward in the case — turned in Taylor and Nunley. Both men confessed, and some of Ann's hair was found in carpeting at the home where the crime occurred.

 Copyright 2015 KCTV (Meredith Corp.) and The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Summary: – A man convicted of kidnapping, raping, and murdering a 15-year-old Missouri girl from the Kansas City area more than a quarter-century ago was executed last night, becoming the state's sixth person to be put to death this year, the AP reports. The lethal injection for Roderick Nunley, 50, began a couple of minutes before 9pm and he was pronounced dead about 10 minutes later, per KBMC. Nunley—who St. Louis Radio reports requested a final meal of steak, shrimp, chicken strips, salad, and cheesecake, per a prison rep—had no one from his camp witness his death and made no final statement, though he met with his daughter and a spiritual adviser earlier in the day, the AP reports. The father of Ann Harrison, abducted in March 1989 by Nunley and Michael Taylor while waiting for her bus 20 yards from her front door, attended the execution, as did her uncle and two family friends, the AP notes. Taylor was executed last year. Some blame drawn-out appeals and an inefficient system for the executions' lengthy delay. "Nunley's case offers a textbook example showing why society is so frustrated with a system that has become too cumbersome," Missouri's AG said in a statement after the execution, per the AP. A retired Kansas City detective who tells KCTV the stalling was a "travesty" also told the AP this week "the delay in executing these two is just nuts because it didn't have anything to do with their guilt. It was legal mumbo-jumbo nonsense." After the execution, Ann's parents released a statement, per KCTV, that said, "Will the execution of Roderick Nunley and Michael Taylor bring a sense of closure for us and our younger daughters? We don't know," though they conceded "if this is the only form of closure we receive, then we will gladly take it." (A woman hopes the pope will ask for clemency for her son on death row in Texas.)


Published on Mar 28, 2017

 Watch the new trailer for An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, the sequel to An Inconvenient Truth. In theatres July 28, 2017. #BeInconvenient

 Climate Changes, Truth Does Not.

 A decade after AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH brought climate change into the heart of popular culture, comes the riveting and rousing follow-up that shows just how close we are to a real energy revolution. Vice President Al Gore continues his tireless fight traveling around the world training an army of climate champions and influencing international climate policy. Cameras follow him behind the scenes – in moments both private and public, funny and poignant -- as he pursues the inspirational idea that while the stakes have never been higher, the perils of climate change can be overcome with human ingenuity and passion.

 Directed by Jon Shenk & Bonni Cohen

 Cast: Al Gore

 Official Movie Site: http://www.inconvenientsequel.com/

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 Twitter: https://twitter.com/aitruthfilm

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 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF9i...

 Watch all the latest movie trailers from Paramount Pictures:

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 Paramount Pictures Corporation (PPC), a global producer and distributor of filmed entertainment, is a unit of Viacom (NASDAQ: VIAB, VIA), a leading content company with prominent and respected film, television and digital entertainment brands. Paramount controls a collection of some of the most powerful brands in filmed entertainment, including Paramount Pictures, Paramount Animation, Paramount Television, Paramount Vantage, Paramount Classics, Insurge Pictures, MTV Films, and Nickelodeon Movies. PPC operations also include Paramount Home Media Distribution, Paramount Pictures International, Paramount Licensing Inc., and Paramount StudioGroup.

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 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Paramount ||||| President Donald Trump just landed himself a juicy movie role by pulling the United States out of the landmark Paris Climate Agreement.

 Filmmakers behind “An Inconvenient Sequel,” a documentary that covers the accord’s signing and stars Al Gore, will update the movie to include Trump’s Thursday withdrawal from the emissions-cutting deal before it hits theaters in July.

 The highly criticized move “will appear in the final film,” a spokesperson for Paramount Pictures told TheWrap. The studio is releasing the movie with Participant Media.

 Also Read: Al Gore Will Keep 'Open Line of Communication' With Trump on Climate (Exclusive Video)

 Including the development not only makes the doc timely, it will likely help keep narrative pace. The climax of the film sees Gore riding through the streets of Paris, wheeling and dealing to get people on board for the agreement ahead of United Nations 2015 Climate Change Conference.

 “Inconvenient Sequel” is a follow-up to Davis Guggenheim’s Oscar-winning 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth,” which followed Gore’s efforts to convince legislators and the public of the devastating effects of climate change.

 Bonnie Cohen and Jon Shenk directed the sequel, which premiered the day before Trump took office at January’s Sundance Film Festival.

 Also Read: Angry Emoji: Mark Zuckerberg, Silicon Valley Execs Strongly Dislike Trump's Climate Deal Pullout

 “Removing the United States from the Paris Agreement is a reckless and indefensible action,” Gore said in response to Trump’s decision.

 “It undermines America’s standing in the world and threatens to damage humanity’s ability to solve the climate crisis in time. But make no mistake: if President Trump won’t lead, the American people will,” he concluded.

 “An Inconvenient Truth” opens in limited release on July 28, and expands wide on August 4.

Summary: – Al Gore's latest climate change documentary hits theaters next month, but filmmakers have some new editing to do. That's because the final cut of An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power will include President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, reports the Wrap. Mike Allen at Axios reports that Trump's decision will likely be the new ending, with the film expected to play a central role for advocates pushing back against the president's move. It's a sequel to the decade-old An Inconvenient Truth. (Gore himself criticized Trump's decision as "reckless and indefensible.")


Suspected Islamist fires at Sarajevo US embassy

 SARAJEVO — A suspected radical Islamist opened fire on the US embassy in Sarajevo on Friday wounding a police guard in what a Bosnian leader condemned as a "senseless terrorist attack".

 Bosnia's intelligence chief later said they had arrested a Serbian national with ties to the local Wahhabi community, a radical branch of Islam.

 But a police officer guarding the building in the Bosnian capital was seriously wounded, police said.

 Local television showed video footage of a bearded man carrying a Kalashnikov rifle.

 A special police unit shot and injured the suspect before arresting him, Irfan Nefic told national BHT television.

 "The person who fired an automatic weapon was wounded and arrested during the police operation," he said.

 "After receiving medical treatment on the scene the person was hospitalised."

 A statement from the US embassy, which closed after the incident, confirmed that the building "had been attacked with an automatic weapon" and had been hit "several times".

 "I firmly condemn the terrorist attack on the US embassy in Bosnia-Hercegovina," Bakir Izetbegovic, the Muslim member of Bosnia's three-man presidency said in a statement.

 Following the attack, Bosnia's acting president Zeljko Komsic met US ambassador Patrick Moon.

 He told him that Bosnia was capable of "guaranteeing the security of all US citizens and diplomatic representatives" in the country.

 "Our country is not a haven for terrorists," he stressed, as the presidency said it had called a special meeting of all Bosnian police branches.

 "I expect the competent authorities to carry out a quick and efficient investigation of this senseless act," he added.

 "I was waiting for a tram when I saw right next to me this guy armed with a rifle firing at the embassy," Igor Parac told AFP.

 "People started running in all directions."

 Another eyewitness, Admir Hrenovica, told BHR1 television the gun shots had lasted around 15 minutes.

 "I first heard several bursts of gunfire and then single shots. People close to me threw themselves on the ground. It was total panic," he said.

 Bosnia's intelligence chief Almir Dzuvo said the suspect was Mevlid Jasarevic, 23, a Serbian national with ties to the local Wahhabi community.

 "He crossed the border (between Bosnia and Serbia this morning," he said.

 The head of Serbian police Milorad Veljovic said officers were searching the suspect's residence in the southern Serbian city of Novi Pazar, home to a large Muslim community.

 Serbian broadcaster B92 reported that Serbian police had stepped up security around the US embassy in Belgrade following the Sarajevo incident.

 Serbian police said the suspected gunman had been arrested in Serbia last year when police found him carrying a knife during a visit by Mary Warlick, US ambassador to Serbia, to the Sandzak region on the border between Serbia and Montenegro, which has an important Muslim community.

 Bosnia is home to a small minority of followers of Wahhabism, a strict and ultra-conservative branch of Islam which is dominant in Saudi Arabia.

 During Bosnia's 1992-95 war between its Croat, Muslim and Serb communities, a large number of volunteers from Muslim nations flocked to the Balkan country to take up arms.

 Many of these Muslim fighters stayed on after the conflict ended and obtained Bosnian citizenship. Some in the mostly moderate Bosnian Muslim community have converted to this more radical branch of Islam.

 The local security forces have been cracking down on the Wahhabis. In the summer of 2010 suspected radical Islamists attacked a police station in central Bosnia killing one officer.

 Copyright © 2013 AFP. All rights reserved. More » ||||| A man opened fire with an automatic weapon outside the U.S. Embassy in Bosnia on Friday, and authorities said he was targeting the building in a terrorist attack.

 An unidentified gunman stands in the center of the street in Sarajevo, Bosnia on Friday, Oct. 28, 2011 at a street in front of the U.S. embassy. An unidentified man shot several rounds at pedestrians... (Associated Press)

 An unidentified gunman stands in the center of the street in Sarajevo, Bosnia on Friday, Oct. 28, 2011 at a street in front of the U.S. embassy. An unidentified man shot several rounds at pedestrians... (Associated Press)

 RETRANSMISSION FOR ALTERNATIVE CROP An unidentified gunman stands in the center of the street in Sarajevo, Bosnia on Friday, Oct. 28, 2011 at a street in front of the U.S. embassy. An unidentified man... (Associated Press)

 An unidentified gunman stands in the center of the street in Sarajevo, Bosnia on Friday, Oct. 28, 2011 at a street in front of the U.S. embassy. An unidentified man shot several rounds at pedestrians... (Associated Press)

 The man injured at least one police officer guarding the embassy before police surrounded him. After a 30-minute standoff, the sound of a single shot echoed and the shooter slumped to the ground.

 Police arrested the wounded man and took him away in an ambulance as pedestrians watched from behind buildings and vehicles. Sarajevo police spokesman Irfan Nefic said the man was being treated at a hospital.

 The U.S. Embassy said none of its employees was injured.

 Bakir Izetbegovic, one of Bosnia's three presidents, issued a statement condemning "the terrorist attack on the embassy of the United States in Bosnia-Herzegovina."

 "The United States is a proven friend of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Its government and its people supported us in the most difficult moments in our history and nobody has the right to jeopardize our relations," he said.

 The gunman wore a beard and was dressed in an outfit typical for followers of the conservative Wahabi branch of Islam.

 Bosnian TV identified the shooter as Mevlid Jasarevic, from Novi Pazar, Serbia. It said he is a Wahabi follower, but did not cite its sources.

 The Wahabis are an extremely conservative branch of Islam which is rooted in Saudi Arabia and linked to religious militants in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

 A Sarajevo city official, Muhamed Budimlic, told The Associated Press that a policeman guarding the embassy was injured.

Summary: – A gunman using an automatic weapon opened fire near the US embassy in Sarajevo before he was arrested, police say. The suspected radical Islamist shooter was wounded and treated before being hospitalized, a police official told local TV. Two police officers were wounded in the operation, “one in the leg and one in the head,” national radio said. No embassy workers were hurt. The man, whom TV reports identified as Mevlid Jasarevic, was reported to be a member of the conservative Wahhabi branch of Islam, AFP notes. One of Bosnia’s three presidents, Bakir Izetbegovic, condemned “the terrorist attack,” the AP reports. “The United States is a proven friend of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Its government and its people supported us in the most difficult moments in our history and nobody has the right to jeopardize our relations.”


"We've known for several months that there was some trouble brewing with the Cossacks and the Bandidos, sources we had within the Cossacks that have said this is going to erupt if we put this rocker on," Cook said. "There's nothing Waco police could have done that they didn't do." ||||| Former undercover agent Jay Dobyns says people can be forgiven for thinking Sunday's biker bloodbath in Waco, Texas, was a throwback to a bad 1970s movie.

 Law enforcement continue to investigate the motorcycle gang related shooting at the Twin Peaks restaurant, Monday, May 18, 2015, in Waco, Texas, where 9 were killed Sunday and over a dozen injured. Waco... (Associated Press)

 Law enforcement continue to investigate the motorcycle gang related shooting at the Twin Peaks restaurant, Monday, May 18, 2015, in Waco, Texas, where 9 were killed Sunday and over a dozen injured. Waco... (Associated Press)

 Waco Police Sgt. Patrick Swanton addresses the media as law enforcement continues to investigate the motorcycle gang related shooting at the Twin Peaks restaurant, Monday, May 18, 2015, in Waco, Texas,... (Associated Press)

 Waco Police Sgt. Patrick Swanton addresses the media as law enforcement continues to investigate the motorcycle gang related shooting at the Twin Peaks restaurant, Monday, May 18, 2015, in Waco, Texas,... (Associated Press)

 Bikers congregate against a wall while authorities investigate a Twin Peaks restaurant Sunday, May 17, 2015, in Waco, Texas. Waco Police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton told KWTX-TV there were "multiple victims"... (Associated Press)

 The shootout — which killed nine people and wounded 18 — seemed aberrant because the public image of many motorcycle gangs has been burnished in recent years thanks to the many largely benign bike enthusiasts who've co-opted some of the same clothing and style.

 "I think, as a society, and to a large extent even in law enforcement, we fall into the sense that these guys are these big, rough-looking teddy bears that do blood drives and toy runs and are harmless," says Dobyns, who infiltrated the notorious Hells Angels Motorcycle Club for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. "These are people that have used the motorcycle culture as camouflage."

 The more sinister side of biker culture was thrust into the spotlight after Sunday's shooting in the parking lot of a restaurant where members of several rival gangs were having a meeting. By Monday, authorities had charged about 170 gang members with engaging in organized crime.

 Motorcycle culture's image problem goes back at least to 1947, when a race in Hollister, California, descended into two days of bloody riots. The American Motorcycle Association, the race's sponsor, responded to the coverage by declaring that 99 percent of participants were law-abiding.

 To this day, gangs like the Outlaws refer to themselves as "1 percenters," says Terry Katz, former commander of the Maryland State Police's organized crime section. Trouble is, it's sometimes hard to tell the dark side of motorcycle groups from the light.

 Even the terminology is interchangeable.

 Good and bad alike call their organizations "clubs." Both use the term "colors" for the emblems on the backs of their jackets and vests.

 "Wear your colors with pride," advertises a California company that makes patches for biker clubs, law enforcement agencies, fire departments, even the Boy Scouts of America.

 Don Chambers, founder of the Bandidos gang, modeled his club's emblem — a sombrero-wearing Mexican caricature carrying a sword and pistol — after the corn chip company's Frito Bandito mascot, says Katz, who went undercover in the 1970s as an associate to two clubs, the Pagans and the Phantoms. Other clubs that want to operate on their turf are required to wear a patch called a "support cookie," so named because it's the size and shape of a cookie.

 "You have a major gang. Then you have like a puppet club or you can call it a farm team that is part of their organization. But they're not a member of the big dogs," says Katz, vice president of the International Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators Association.

 The names have also grown more sinister. The Boozefighters and Pissed Off Bastards of Bloomington of 1947 Hollister have given way to the Outlaws, Cossacks and Hells Angels of today.

 Katz says bikers maim and kill each other all the time. The only thing unusual about the Waco confrontation was that it happened in public.

 "I get that question all the time: 'Are these guys still around?'" he says. "Of course, they are. But they've lowered their profile, because it's bad for business to be involved in something where you're going to attract a great deal of law enforcement attention. They've never gone away. In fact, they've grown."

 Some clubs boast chapters on the other side of the globe.

 "You look at crime syndicates. They come to America from other places," says Dobyns, who lives in Tuscon, Arizona. "But the biker culture? That is America's export to the ... world of crime syndicates."

 Part of the problem, Dobyns says, is that the entertainment world tends to glamorize these groups.

 The Hollister riots spawned "The Wild One," Marlon Brando's 1953 classic. But Johnny, with his dungarees turned up at the ankles and cap at a rakish angle, seems quaint compared to FX Networks' "Sons of Anarchy."

 "They prey on the Americana of it," says Dobyns, who used his own childhood nickname of "Jaybird" in his undercover work. "And it's sexy and it's glamorous. The reality of it is that it's a very dangerous world, inhabited by violent men. And the reality of it is that it's very unsexy and it's very unglamorous."

 FX spokesman John Solberg declined to respond to Dobyns' comments.

 Like the Mafia, motorcycle gangs aren't interested in big public displays, says Katz. But the cornerstone of that culture is a willingness to kill — and die — for your club.

 "And that's what you saw yesterday," he says. "I mean, there were marked police cars outside that event ... Once the fight started, it didn't matter." ||||| The Cossacks — Mr. Jimmy did not want to be quoted using the club’s name, referring to it instead as “the other side” — were not part of the meeting, but the Bandidos were. Eight Cossacks and one Bandido were killed in the gunfight, he said. “The only reason I am not in jail,” he added, “is that I got there late.”

 The police on Monday were still sorting out what had happened at the restaurant off Interstate 35, and local officials were beginning an extraordinary booking process — arresting and charging about 170 people they had detained after the fight. The restaurant where the biker groups had gathered, a chain known for scantily clad waitresses, continued to face scrutiny over its handling of security. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission suspended the restaurant’s license for a week, and its corporate headquarters revoked its franchise agreement.

 The local management said it was disappointed that Twin Peaks had “made a sudden decision to cancel our Waco franchise before all of the facts are learned.”

 After the shooting, the state-run Texas Joint Crime Information Center issued an advisory that members of the Bandidos and the Cossacks “reportedly have been instructed to arm themselves with weapons and travel to north Texas.” The bulletin said officers throughout Texas “should be aware of the escalating violence between both groups and are to consider all Bandidos and Cossacks members as armed and dangerous.”

 The one-page document said the Bandidos were believed to have summoned additional members from Arkansas and New Mexico as “reinforcements.”

 Sgt. Patrick Swanton, a Waco Police Department spokesman, said that rather than overwhelm the jail, the police had used the Waco Convention Center as a staging area overnight to hold those arrested. The bikers were appearing before magistrates who were setting bond at $1 million each.

Summary: – The Waco shootout that left nine men dead, 18 injured, and 170 behind bars had its roots in a decades-long rivalry and a dispute over a small piece of cloth, insiders say. The Bandidos and the Cossacks have been rivals since both gangs were formed in Texas in the '60s, and former Bandidos leader Edward Winterhalder tells the LA Times that the latest dispute started in 2013, when the Cossacks offended the Bandidos by adding the word "Texas" to their colors. He says the Bandidos—by far the bigger of the two clubs—saw the move as an attempt to claim territory and ordered the Cossacks to remove the "territory-claiming patch" from their jackets but they refused, sparking escalating violence between the outfits before yesterday's shootout. The Bandidos see Texas as their state, the vice president of the International Association of Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators tells the New York Times. "They are the big dogs of Texas, and then this other, smaller club—the Cossacks—comes along in 1969 or so, and they decide that they are not going to bow down," he says. The reason the public violence was so shocking, a former undercover ATF agent tells the AP, is that large numbers of harmless bikers have adopted a similar look to the outlaw clubs. "I think, as a society, and to a large extent even in law enforcement, we fall into the sense that these guys are these big, rough-looking teddy bears that do blood drives and toy runs," he says. "These are people that have used the motorcycle culture as camouflage."


Boaty McBoatface Prepares For First Antarctic Mission

 Enlarge this image toggle caption Department for Business, Innovation & Skills Department for Business, Innovation & Skills

 The remotely operated underwater research vessel known as Boaty McBoatface is preparing for its first research mission — an expedition into "some of the deepest and coldest abyssal ocean waters on earth."

 Boaty McBoatface, of course, was the moniker that emerged triumphant in an online poll meant to name the newest research ship in the U.K.'s Natural Environment Research Council fleet. But the council opted to overrule the will of the people, and named the ship the Royal Research Ship Sir David Attenborough instead.

 As a consolation gesture, however, a smaller autonomous underwater vehicle was named Boaty McBoatface. So the name lives on — albeit in a way that makes less sense, because a submersible vehicle isn't actually a boat. (Subby McSubface, anybody?)

 The RRS Sir David Attenborough is still under construction, but Boaty McBoatface is already on the job.

 The British Antarctic Survey explains that the submersible will be investigating "an abyssal current of Antarctic Bottom Water along the Orkney Passage," as part of an expedition that begins Friday.

 Antarctic Bottom Water is cold and dense, and its movement contributes to ocean circulation worldwide, the BAS writes. Boaty McBoatface will gather information on the intensity of turbulence in the Orkney Passage — information that could help improve climate change models.

 "One of the most surprising features of the climate change that we are currently experiencing is that the abyssal waters of the world ocean have been warming steadily over the last few decades," professor Alberto Naveira Garabato wrote in the press release. "Establishing the causes of this warming is important because the warming plays an important role in moderating the ongoing (and likely future) increases in atmospheric temperature and sea level around the globe."

 The BBC notes that there are actually three Boaty McBoatfaces:

 "The name covers a trio of vehicles in the new Autosub Long Range class of underwater robots developed at Southampton's National Oceanography Centre (NOC). "These machines can all be configured slightly differently depending on the science tasks they are given. "The one that will initiate the 'adventures of Boaty' will head out of Punta Arenas, Chile, on Friday aboard Britain's current polar ship, the RRS James Clark Ross."

 The U.K.'s National Oceanography Centre has designed a cartoon version of Boaty McBoatface to help teach children about marine research. According to The Guardian, a full-size, inflatable version of the submersible will "travel to events across the country." ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Prof Russell Wynn explains the workings of Boaty McBoatface

 The yellow submarine named Boaty McBoatface is set to leave for Antarctica this week on its first science expedition.

 The robot is going to map the movement of deep waters that play a critical role in regulating Earth's climate.

 Boaty carries the name that a public poll had suggested be given to the UK's future £200m polar research vessel.

 The government felt this would be inappropriate and directed the humorous moniker go on a submersible instead.

 But what many people may not realise is that there is actually more than one Boaty. The name covers a trio of vehicles in the new Autosub Long Range class of underwater robots developed at Southampton's National Oceanography Centre (NOC).

 These machines can all be configured slightly differently depending on the science tasks they are given.

 The one that will initiate the "adventures of Boaty" will head out of Punta Arenas, Chile, on Friday aboard Britain's current polar ship, the RRS James Clark Ross.

 The JCR will drop the sub into a narrow, jagged, 3,500m-deep gap in an underwater ridge that extends northeast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Referred to as the Orkney Passage, this is the gateway into the Atlantic for much of the "bottom-water" that is created as sea-ice grows on the margins of the White Continent.

 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Prof Mike Meredith: A quarter of all Antarctic bottom-water is exported through Orkney Passage

 Frozen floes will cool and densify the water immediately below them, and this then generates a current that slides into the abyss to eventually move northwards. And in traversing the Orkney Passage, the bottom-water can feed the "great ocean conveyor" - the relentless system of deep circulation that helps redistribute all the heat energy that has built up in the climate system.

 Boaty's mission will be to survey conditions in the passage.

 Scientific moorings anchored in the area already gather some data, but the robot's mobility and autonomy means it can now build a full, three-dimensional picture of what's happening many hundred of metres below the surface.

 Image copyright NERC/BAS Image caption The JCR will eventually be replaced by the RRS Sir David Attenborough

 Scientists have good evidence that the bottom-water is warming. Quite why is not clear but it could have major implications, says Prof Mike Meredith from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

 "One of these is sea-level rise because if you make water warmer obviously it expands and that pushes the sea level up," he told BBC News.

 "But it also has relevance for benthic ecosystems. So, the animals that live on the seabed can typically cope well with low temperatures but not all of them can cope with changes in temperatures. The fact that this water has been getting warmer may have significant consequences for these animals."

 Image caption Bottom-water is generated at the margin of the continent and then spills north into the Atlantic

 The recorded warming could be the result of a change in the way the deep current is moving through the passage. If there is greater turbulence as the bottom-water flows over the jagged terrain, it might be mixing more warm water downwards. Boaty will have a probe on its nose to assess this.

 "There are 'rapids' and 'waterfalls' that are occurring within the channels and valleys that surround underwater mountains in the passage," explained Dr Eleanor Frajka-Williams from Southampton University.

 "Boaty is going to make measurements within these 'streams' and 'rivers' of the smallest-scale motions to try to understand how that water is being changed as it leaves the formation regions around Antarctica and then spreads out over the world's oceans."

 Image copyright NERC/NOC Image caption The Autosub LR class of vehicles is beginning full science operations after successful sea trials

 And while this particular robot is hard at work in the Southern Ocean, its two siblings back in Southampton are being prepared for their own expeditions.

 Scientists are queuing up to use them, and to exploit their ability to autonomously patrol the oceans for weeks, even months, on end.

 "Having three Boaty vehicles in the fleet means we can cover a much wider range of environments and geographic locations than we could with just one," said NOC's Prof Russell Wynn.

 "So, one vehicle might be going out to Antarctica and surveying around and under the ice; another might be going to the deepest parts of the ocean, down to 6km; and another might be doing something more applied in, for example, the North Sea.

 "We're getting lots of proposals and it's great that we can meet that demand," he told BBC News.

 The Dynamics of the Orkney Passage Outflow (DynOPO) expedition is a collaboration between BAS, the University of Southampton and NOC.

 Image copyright NERC/NOC Image caption Public outreach campaigns will be built around the future work of the subs

 Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos

Summary: – Boaty McBoatface is going into action. The remotely operated underwater research vessel will be undertaking its first research mission as part of an Antarctic expedition that starts Friday, NPR reports. The submersible, of course, was named Boaty McBoatface after that name won an online poll that was supposed to pick the name of a new UK research ship. The UK decided to name that ship the RRS David Attenborough instead, but gave the Boaty name instead to a trio of underwater vehicles, the BBC reports. It's one of those vehicles that will be heading to the Orkney Passage to study Antarctic Bottom Water, looking at its movement and turbulence in an effort to improve climate change models.


Charlie Munger: Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are also bubbles 8:24 PM ET Wed, 10 Jan 2018 | 00:57

 Warren Buffett's right-hand man, Charlie Munger, blasted the frothiness in venture capital funding and bitcoin.

 During a phone interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Wednesday, Munger was asked if bitcoin was a bubble.

 "Yeah sure [on bitcoin] and venture capital, too," Munger replied. "There are always bubbles ... that are going to end badly."

 On "Squawk Box" on Wednesday, Buffett also said the craze over bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies won't end well.

 The billionaire Munger, who turned 94 on New Year's Day, said there was "too much money" in venture capital, and he compared the current environment to the dot-com bubble in 2000.

 "Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies are also bubbles," he added. Investors "are excited because things are going up at the moment and it sounds vaguely modern. ... But I'm not excited."

 Munger made waves when he said bitcoin is "total insanity" and avoid it "like the plague" at a University of Michigan Ross School of Business event last year.

 Munger is one of the most celebrated investors in the world and was an essential partner in Buffett's success. Before becoming vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, he had quite the track record himself. From 1962 to 1975, Munger's investment partnership generated 20 percent annual returns versus the S&P 500's 5 percent. ||||| SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea’s government said on Thursday it plans to ban cryptocurrency trading, sending bitcoin prices plummeting and throwing the virtual coin market into turmoil as the nation’s police and tax authorities raided local exchanges on alleged tax evasion.

 The clampdown in South Korea, a crucial source of global demand for cryptocurrency, came as policymakers around the world struggled to regulate an asset whose value has skyrocketed over the last year.

 Justice minister Park Sang-ki said the government was preparing a bill to ban trading of the virtual currency on domestic exchanges.

 “There are great concerns regarding virtual currencies and the justice ministry is basically preparing a bill to ban cryptocurrency trading through exchanges,” Park told a news conference, according to the ministry’s press office.

 After the market’s sharp reaction to the announcement, the nation’s Presidential office hours later said a ban on the country’s virtual coin exchanges had not yet been finalised while it was one of the measures being considered.

 A press official at the justice ministry said the proposed ban on cryptocurrency trading was announced after “enough discussion” with other government agencies, including the nation’s finance ministry and financial regulators.

 Once a bill is drafted, legislation for an outright ban of virtual coin trading will require a majority vote of the total 297 members of the National Assembly, a process that could take months or even years.

 The government’s tough stance triggered a selloff of the cryptocurrency on both local and offshore exchanges.

 The local price of bitcoin plunged as much as 21 percent in midday trade to 18.3 million won ($17,064.53) after the minister’s comments. It still trades at around a 30 percent premium compared to other countries.

 Bitcoin BTC=BTSP was down more than 10 percent on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp at $13,199, after earlier dropping as low as $13,120, its weakest since Jan. 2.

 South Korea’s cryptocurrency-related shares were also hammered. Vidente (121800.KQ) and Omnitel (057680.KQ), which are stakeholders of Bithumb, skidded by the daily trading limit of 30 percent each.

 Once enforced, South Korea’s ban “will make trading difficult here, but not impossible,” said Mun Chong-hyun, chief analyst at EST Security.

 “Keen traders, especially hackers, will find it tough to cash out their gains from virtual coin investments in Korea but they can go overseas, for example Japan,” Mun said.

 Park Nok-sun, a cryptocurrency analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said the herd behavior in South Korea’s virtual coin market has raised concerns.

 Indeed, bitcoin's BTC=BTSP 1,500 percent surge last year has stoked huge demand for cryptocurency in South Korea, drawing college students to housewives and sparking worries of a gambling addiction.

 “Some officials are pushing for stronger and stronger regulations because they only see more (investors) jumping in, not out,” Park said.

 By Thursday afternoon, the Justice Ministry’s announcement had prompted more than 55,000 South Koreans to join a petition asking the presidential Blue House to halt the crackdown on the virtual currency, making the Blue House website intermittently unavailable due to heavy traffic, the website showed.

 REGULATORY CONUNDRUM

 There are more than a dozen cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea, according to Korea Blockchain Industry Association.

 The proliferation of the virtual currency and the accompanying trading frenzy have raised eyebrows among regulators globally, though many central banks have refrained from supervising cryptocurrencies themselves.

 The news of South Korea’s proposed ban came as authorities tightened their grip on some cryptocurrency exchanges.

 The nation’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges such as Coinone and Bithumb were raided by police and tax agencies this week for alleged tax evasion. The raids follow moves by the finance ministry to identify ways to tax the market that has become as big as the nation’s small-cap Kosdaq index in terms of daily trading volume.

 Some investors appeared to have taken preemptive action.

 “I have already cashed most of mine (virtual coins) as I was aware that something was coming up in a couple of days,” said Eoh Kyung-hoon, a 23-year old investor.

 Bitcoin sank on Monday after website CoinMarketCap removed prices from South Korean exchanges, because coins were trading at a premium of about 30 percent in Asia’s fourth-largest economy. That created confusion and triggered a broad selloff among investors.

 An official at Coinone told Reuters that a few officials from the National Tax Service raided the company’s office this week. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Coinone was cooperating with the investigation.

 Bithumb, the second largest virtual currency operator in South Korea, was also raided by the tax authorities on Wednesday.

 “We were asked by the tax officials to disclose paperwork,” an official at Bithumb said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

 FILE PHOTO: A copy of bitcoin standing on PC motherboard is seen in this illustration picture, October 26, 2017. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo

 The nation’s tax office and police declined to confirm whether they raided the local exchanges.

 South Korean financial authorities had previously said they are inspecting six local banks that offer virtual currency accounts to institutions, amid concerns the increasing use of such assets could lead to a surge in crime.

 ($1 = 1,069.9600 won) ||||| Billionaire investor Warren Buffett told CNBC on Wednesday the recent craze over bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies won't end well.

 "In terms of cryptocurrencies, generally, I can say with almost certainty that they will come to a bad ending," the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway said.

 "When it happens or how or anything else, I don't know," he added in an interview on CNBC's "Squawk Box" from Omaha, Nebraska. "If I could buy a five-year put on every one of the cryptocurrencies, I'd be glad to do it but I would never short a dime's worth."

Summary: – Warren Buffett's advice on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can be summed up in two words: Stay away. In an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, the billionaire Berkshire Hathaway investor said that "in terms of cryptocurrencies, generally, I can say with almost certainty that they will come to a bad ending." The 87-year-old, however, said he couldn't predict when that bad ending would occur—and admitted he doesn't know that much about cryptocurrencies. "We don't own any, we're not short any, we'll never have a position in them," he said. "I get into enough trouble with the things I think I know something about. Why in the world should I take a long or short position in something I don't know about?" Charlie Munger, Buffett's 94-year-old right-hand man, also told CNBC he sees cryptocurrencies as a bubble. Investors "are excited because things are going up at the moment and it sounds vaguely modern," he said. "But I'm not excited." Bitcoin fell more than 10% to $13,200 early Thursday after South Korea's government announced that it plans to ban trading in cryptocurrencies, Reuters reports. The government later clarified that legislation to bring in a ban is being discussed with financial regulators, among others, but has not been finalized. Earlier this week, police raided South Korea bitcoin exchanges in a crackdown on tax evasion. (Kodak is creating its own cryptocurrency.)


(CNN) -- The year was 1890. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky premiered his Sleeping Beauty ballet in St. Petersburg. Vincent van Gogh ended his life, apparently by shooting himself. And Idaho and Wyoming became the 43rd and 44th states of the United States.

 1890 is also the year Carmelo Flores Laura was born, or at least, that's what his family and the Bolivian government claim. The Bolivian man, who lives in the town of Frasquia, in the arid highlands of Bolivia, showed CNN government documents that seem to confirm he's 123 years old.

 The documents include a birth certificate showing his birth date as July 16, 1890. There's also a national identity card with the same birth date. Several media outlets published stories about Flores calling him the oldest man alive.

 But there appear to be several problems with this claim. For starters, neither the birth certificate nor the national identity card is original.

 "We were skeptical from the beginning," said Stephen Coles, a professor of gerontology at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California in Los Angeles. He's also the director of the Gerontology Research Group, an independent organization that tracks, monitors and verifies claims of longevity.

 "He's not the real thing. Carmelo is not 123 years old despite the documents his family has shown. He was not born in the year 1890."

 Coles said the first red flag was the fact that Flores is a man. The gerontologist said more than 90% of cases of what his organization categorizes as supercentenarians are women. Jean Louise Calment from France lived to the age of 122. Her case is the longest human lifespan that has been verified with several documents.

 According to Coles, there are 57 documented and verified cases of people over the age of 110 around the world. Fifty-five are women and two are men. Four other cases are still pending final verification.

 The Gerontology Research Group has found a document that purportedly shows Flores is actually 107 years old, and not 123. The document is a baptismal certificate. Back in 1890, the Bolivian government didn't record live births or any other demographic data, so it was up to the Catholic Church to register births, deaths and marriages.

 In any case, the fact that Carmelo Flores Laura has lived for more than a century in the arid highlands of Bolivia at an altitude of more than 12,000 feet is striking. Not only does he walk on his own, but his voice is still commanding. His son Cecilio Flores, who's 65 years old, has to speak loudly in his ear to communicate with him, but his memory seems to be in perfect shape. He doesn't speak Spanish, but his native Aymara, an indigenous language in Bolivia.

 "I was born here in the highlands," Flores told CNN in Aymara, with his son translating into Spanish. "I was not a mischievous child. I was rather calm. I arrived as a young man in Frasquia and worked as herder and farmer. I was very happy with my wife. We never fought. I never cheated on her and we were both very happy."

 Flores' wife lived to be over 100 years old. According to family tradition, the secret to a long life is drinking the water that flows down the Illampu Glacier, located not far from Frasquia. Their diet includes no packaged or processed foods, but locally grown plants like barley and quinoa. They hunt a local fox that lives in the Bolivian mountains known regionally as "zorrino."

 80 year old becomes oldest to climb Mount Everest

 Before you get any ideas, the Gerontology Research Group has found that no particular diet, geographical location or kind of water makes people live longer. Coles said it's the genes.

 "People who have extreme old age have virtually nothing in common. They don't share the same religion, nutrition or exercise routine. They only have one detail in common: they have relatives who have lived a long time and children (who) also tend to live a long time," Coles said.

 Cecilio Flores said his supercentenarian father had five children, 16 grandchildren and 39 great-grandchildren. "I constantly congratulate my father," he said. "He took care of me when I was little so I'm now taking care of him. Now it's my turn to make sure he's taken care of." Cecilio is the only child of Flores still alive.

 No one in the Flores family doubts that the patriarch is 123 years old. There seems to be no doubt either when it comes to officials. In fact, the government of Bolivia plans to honor Flores by declaring him "a living heritage" of the Bolivian people. ||||| Off-Ramp ® is a lively weekly look at Southern California through the eyes and ears of radio veteran John Rabe. News, arts, home, life... covering everything that makes life here exciting, enjoyable, and interesting.

 This week, this story crossed the wires:

 FRASQUIA, Bolivia (AP) - If Bolivia's public records are correct, Carmelo Flores Laura is the oldest living person ever documented. They say he turned 123 a month ago. The native Aymara lives in a straw-roofed dirt-floor hut in an isolated hamlet near Lake Titicaca at 13,100 feet (4,000 meters), is illiterate, speaks no Spanish and has no teeth. He walks without a cane and doesn't wear glasses. And though he speaks Aymara with a firm voice, one must talk into his ear to be heard. "I see a bit dimly. I had good vision before. But I saw you coming," he tells Associated Press journalists who visit after a local TV report touts him as the world's oldest person.

 The story has all the elements that make it irresistible to the public ... and journalists. To be fair, the story contains qualifiers like "If Bolivia's public records are correct," but the claim was relatively easily debunked within a few days.

 UCLA's Dr Stephen Coles, director of the Gerontology Research Group, which investigates these kinds of claims for the Guinness Book of World Records, says he was skeptical from the start, especially because there was no documentary proof dating to the year Laura was supposedly born. "I was immediately suspicious because no man to our knowledge has ever lived past the age of 116, because 90% of people we call super-centenarians are female."

 He listed other red flags:

 This gentlemen is illiterate;

 There's no proof of birth dating to the original time of birth;

 There's no documentation for this man's age until he applied for a pension (giving him a financial incentive for age exaggeration);

 There's an alleged Baptismal Record (which, if it exists at all, could be for an entirely different person);

 There's no current ID;

 He can still walk at age "123" yo;

 His oldest child is 67 (that's a huge generation gap).

 Then, researchers went on the Internet.

 "There was," Coles said, "to our surprise, a baptismal certificate, which I'm holding in my hand right now."

 I asked, "Was he born in 1890, like they said?"

 "Not at all," Coles responded. "Not 1890, but 1906."

 107 is nothing to sneeze at, but we'll check back with Carmelo Flores Laura in 16 years.

 The oldest person in history remains a Frenchwoman, Jeanne Calment, who lived to 122.

Summary: – It's the kind of story you really want to believe: According to Bolivia's public records, Carmelo Flores Laura turned 123 years old last month, making him the oldest living person ever documented. CNN, however, advises you take the news with a grain—or spoonful—of salt, this after it actually saw the government documents that establish Flores' July 16, 1890 birth date. It, along with KPCC, runs down five reasons why Flores is probably a good decade or two younger than is being claimed: Though Flores has a birth certificate and a national identity card bearing his birth date, neither are original. Bolivia didn't keep records of live births in 1890. In what CNN describes as a "red flag," Flores is a man. Gerontologist Stephen Coles (who actually looks into these claims for the Guinness Book of World Records) says the lion's share of supercentenarians are women. He notes that just two of the 57 people verified to having lived past 110 are male, with the oldest man on record having lived to 116. The Gerontology Research Group that Coles heads up tracked down what it says is Flores' baptismal certificate—which establishes his age as an impressive but not record-setting 107. He not only still walks at 123, but does so without a cane. His sole living child is 67—that's a pretty significant generation gap. This supercentenarian male, however, has had his impressive age verified.